This paper examines the spatial distribution of jobs across US counties and investigates whether sectoral employment is becoming more or less concentrated. The existing literature has found deconcentration (convergence) of employment across urban areas. Cities only cover a small part of the US, though. Using county data, our results indicate that deconcentration is limited to the upper tail of the distribution. The overall picture is one of increasing concentration (divergence). While this seemingly contradicts the well documented deconcentration in manufacturing, we show that these aggregate employment dynamics are driven by services. Non-service sectors - such as manufacturing and farming - are indeed becoming more equally spread across space, but services are becoming increasingly concentrated.
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Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number
180.
Find related papers by JEL classification: R11 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Analysis of Growth, Development, and Changes R12 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography) O51 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - U.S.; Canada
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Michael Kremer & Alexei Onatski & James Stock, 2001.
"Searching for Prosperity,"
NBER Working Papers
8250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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