IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

City size and skill intensity

Author Info

  • Elvery, Joel A.

Abstract

Many have theorized that the productivity of human capital increases with city size. If this were true, one would expect production in large cities to be more skill intensive than in small cities, even within industry. This paper uses data on the occupational mix at establishments to test whether skill intensity is greater in large cities. Establishments in metropolitan areas with population above two million use a more skill intensive mix of workers than comparable establishments in metropolitan areas with population below one million. The differences in skill intensity are not the same in all industries; establishments in relatively skill intensive industries are even more skill intensive in large MSAs. These results support theories that suggest that the productivity gains from agglomeration are larger for skilled labor than unskilled labor.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166-0462(10)00044-X
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Regional Science and Urban Economics.

Volume (Year): 40 (2010)
Issue (Month): 6 (November)
Pages: 367-379

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:40:y:2010:i:6:p:367-379
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/regec

Keywords: Agglomeration Urban wage premium Occupational mix;

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.:

as in new window
  1. Daron Acemoglu, 1996. "A Microfoundation for Social Increasing Returns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(3), pages 779-804.
  2. Yankow, Jeffrey J., 2006. "Why do cities pay more? An empirical examination of some competing theories of the urban wage premium," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 139-161, September.
  3. Giles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2003. "Micro-Foundations of Urban Agglomeration Economies," NBER Working Papers 9931, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Enrico Moretti, 2004. "Workers' Education, Spillovers, and Productivity: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 656-690, June.
  5. Mark Doms & Timothy Dunne & Kenneth R. Troske, 1997. "Workers, Wages, and Technology," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 253-290.
  6. Zenou,Yves, 2009. "Urban Labor Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521875387, November.
  7. Acemoglu, D., 1997. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," Working papers 97-14, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  8. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2004. "Evidence on the nature and sources of agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2119-2171 Elsevier.
  9. Beeson, Patricia E & Eberts, Randall W, 1989. "Identifying Productivity and Amenity Effects in Interurban Wage Differentials," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(3), pages 443-52, August.
  10. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon, 2008. "Spatial Wage Disparities: Sorting Matters!," Post-Print halshs-00754296, HAL.
  11. Borjas, George J. & Bronars, Stephen G. & Trejo, Stephen J., 1992. "Self-selection and internal migration in the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 159-185, September.
  12. Glaeser, Edward L & Mare, David C, 2001. "Cities and Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 316-42, April.
  13. Autor, David & Dorn, David, 2009. "Inequality and Specialization: The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 4290, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  14. Roback, Jennifer, 1982. "Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1257-78, December.
  15. Scotchmer, Suzanne, 2002. "Local public goods and clubs," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 29, pages 1997-2042 Elsevier.
  16. Vernon Henderson, 2001. "Marshall's Scale Economies," Working Papers 01-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  17. Blomquist, Glenn C & Berger, Mark C & Hoehn, John P, 1988. "New Estimates of Quality of Life in Urban Areas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 89-107, March.
  18. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2008. "Agglomeration and Hours Worked," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 105-118, February.
  19. Kim, Dongsoo & Liu, Feng & Yezer, Anthony, 2009. "Do inter-city differences in intra-city wage differentials have any interesting implications?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 203-209, November.
  20. Bacolod, Marigee & Blum, Bernardo S. & Strange, William C., 2009. "Skills in the city," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 136-153, March.
  21. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
  22. E. D. Gould, 2007. "Cities, Workers, and Wages: A Structural Analysis of the Urban Wage Premium," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 477-506.
  23. Wheeler, Christopher H, 2001. "Search, Sorting, and Urban Agglomeration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(4), pages 879-99, October.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Laurent Gobillon, 2014. "The Empirics of Agglomeration Economies," PSE Working Papers halshs-01071761, HAL.
  2. Anthony M. Yezer & Daniel A. Broxterman, 2014. "Why Does Skill Intensity Vary Across Cities? Housing Cost and True Human Capital," Working Papers 2014-15, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
  3. Winters, John V., 2011. "Human capital, higher education institutions, and quality of life," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 446-454, September.
  4. Aurélie LALANNE (GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113) & Guillaume POUYANNE ( GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113), 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée.
  5. Suzanne Kok & Bas ter Weel, 2014. "Cities, Tasks and Skills," CPB Discussion Paper 269, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
  6. Winters, John V, 2010. "Human Capital and Population Growth in Non-Metropolitan U.S. Counties: The Importance of College Student Migration," MPRA Paper 25592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. John V. Winters, 2011. "Human Capital and Population Growth in Nonmetropolitan U.S. Counties," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 25(4), pages 353-365, November.
  8. Vincent Boitier, 2013. "Endogenous city size in urban search models: the case of high reallocation costs," ERSA conference papers ersa13p590, European Regional Science Association.
  9. Broxterman, Daniel A. & Yezer, Anthony M., 2015. "Why does skill intensity vary across cities? The role of housing cost," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-27.
  10. Dusan Paredes & Marcelo Lufin & Patricio Aroca, 2012. "The estimation of urban premium wage using propensity score analysis: some considerations from the spatial perspective," Documentos de Trabajo en Economia y Ciencia Regional 21, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2012.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:40:y:2010:i:6:p:367-379. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Shamier, Wendy)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.