IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cid/wpfacu/77.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

City Size, Distance and Formal Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Neave O'Clery

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

  • Eduardo Lora

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

Abstract

Cities thrive through the diversity of their occupants because the availability of complementary skills enables firms in the formal sector to grow, delivering increasingly sophisticated products and services. The appearance of new industries is path dependent in that new economic activities build on existing strengths, leading cities to both diversify and specialize in distinct areas. Hence, the location of necessary capabilities, and in particular the distance between firms and people with the skills they need, is key to the success of urban agglomerations. Using data for Colombia, this paper assesses the extent to which cities benefit from skills and capabilities available in their surrounding catchment areas. Without assuming a prioria a definition for cities, we sequentially agglomerate the 96 urban municipalities larger than 50,000 people based on commuting time. We show that a level of agglomeration equivalent to between 45 and 75 minutes of commuting time, corresponding to between 62 and 43 cities, maximizes the impact that the availability of skills has on the ability of agglomerations to generate formal employment. Smaller urban municipalities stand to gain more in the process of agglomeration. A range of policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Neave O'Clery & Eduardo Lora, 2016. "City Size, Distance and Formal Employment," CID Working Papers 77, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
  • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/files/growthlab/files/citysize_rfwp77.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Neffke & Martin Henning & Ron Boschma, 2011. "How Do Regions Diversify over Time? Industry Relatedness and the Development of New Growth Paths in Regions," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 87(3), pages 237-265, July.
    2. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    3. Gilles Duranton & Henry G. Overman, 2005. "Testing for Localization Using Micro-Geographic Data," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1077-1106.
    4. John Luke Gallup & Alejandro Gaviria & Eduardo Lora, 2003. "Is Geography Destiny? Lessons from Latin America," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14454, December.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Camilo García-Jimeno & James A. Robinson, 2015. "State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2364-2409, August.
    6. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2012. "Urban Growth and Transportation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1407-1440.
    7. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle, November.
    8. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    9. Fields, Gary S., 1975. "Rural-urban migration, urban unemployment and underemployment, and job-search activity in LDCs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 165-187, June.
    10. Frank Neffke & Martin Svensson Henning, 2009. "Skill-relatedness and firm diversification," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-06, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography, revised Oct 2010.
    11. Anthony J. Venables, 2007. "Evaluating Urban Transport Improvements: Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Presence of Agglomeration and Income Taxation," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 41(2), pages 173-188, May.
    12. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar A. & Stock, Daniel P. & Yildirim, Muhammed A., 2014. "Implied Comparative Advantage," Working Paper Series rwp14-003, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Edward L. Glaeser, 1998. "Are Cities Dying?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 139-160, Spring.
    14. repec:idb:brikps:59398 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. John Luke Gallup & Alejandro Gaviria & Eduardo Lora, 2003. "Is Geography Destiny? Lessons from Latin America," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 14454, September.
    16. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Eduardo Lora, 2016. "The Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industries," CID Working Papers 78, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Andres Gomez-Lievano & Vladislav Vysotsky & Jose Lobo, 2018. "Artificial Increasing Returns to Scale and the Problem of Sampling from Lognormals," Papers 1807.09424, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eduardo Lora, 2016. "The Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industries," CID Working Papers 78, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. O’Clery, Neave & Kinsella, Stephen, 2022. "Modular structure in labour networks reveals skill basins," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    3. Jian Gao & Bogang Jun & Alex Sandy Pentland & Tao Zhou & Cesar A. Hidalgo, 2017. "Collective Learning in China's Regional Economic Development Formations of Co-Inventors During the Dot-com Bubble in the Research Triangle Region," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1706, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Mar 2017.
    4. Jian Gao & Bogang Jun & Alex Sandy Pentland & Tao Zhou & Cesar A. Hidalgo, 2017. "Collective Learning in China's Regional Economic Development," Papers 1703.01369, arXiv.org.
    5. Matias Nehuen Iglesias, 2021. "The Overlooked Insights from Correlation Structures in Economic Geography," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2105, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2021.
    6. Neffke, Frank M.H. & Otto, Anne & Weyh, Antje, 2017. "Inter-industry labor flows," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 275-292.
    7. Alessia Lo Turco & Daniela Maggioni, 2016. "On firms’ product space evolution: the role of firm and local product relatedness," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(5), pages 975-1006.
    8. Matthias Firgo & Peter Mayerhofer, 2015. "Wissens-Spillovers und regionale Entwicklung - welche strukturpolitische Ausrichtung optimiert des Wachstum?," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 144, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    9. Ricardo Hausmann & Jose Ramon Morales Arilla & Miguel Angel Santos, 2016. "Panama beyond the Canal: Using Technological Proximities to Identify Opportunities for Productive Diversification," CID Working Papers 324, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    10. Koen Frenken & Ron A. Boschma, 2012. "Economic Development as a Branching Process," Chapters, in: Guido Buenstorf (ed.), Evolution, Organization and Economic Behavior, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Loreto Mora-Apablaza & Carlos Navarrete, 2022. "Patents as indicators of the technological position of countries on a global level?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1233-1246, March.
    12. Catalán, Pablo & Navarrete, Carlos & Figueroa, Felipe, 2022. "The scientific and technological cross-space: Is technological diversification driven by scientific endogenous capacity?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    13. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2019. "Variety, Complexity and Economic Development," Papers 1903.07997, arXiv.org.
    14. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    15. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    16. Duygu Buyukyazici & Leonardo Mazzoni & Massimo Riccaboni & Francesco Serti, 2022. "Workplace Skills as Regional Capabilities: Relatedness, Complexity and Industrial Diversification of Regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2210, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2022.
    17. Tom Broekel & Lars Mewes, 2017. "Analyzing the impact of R&D policy on regional diversification," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1726, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2017.
    18. Nicola D Coniglio & Raffaele Lagravinese & Davide Vurchio & Massimo Armenise, 2018. "The pattern of structural change: testing the product space framework," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 763-785.
    19. Jeroen Content & Nicola Cortinovis & Koen Frenken & Jacob Jordaan, 2022. "The roles of KIBS and R&D in the industrial diversification of regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 68(1), pages 29-64, February.
    20. Jürgen Essletzbichler, 2013. "Relatedness, industrial branching and technological cohesion in U.S. metropolitan areas," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1307, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised May 2013.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor formality; complexity; city size; commuting; diversification; networks;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chuck McKenney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciharus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.