IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eec/wpaper/1604.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cities Export Specialization

Author

Listed:
  • Jorge Díaz-Lanchas

    (Department of Economic Analysis: Economic Theory. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Lawrence R. Klein Institute/CEPREDE. 28049 Cantoblanco. Madrid)

  • Carlos Llano

    (Department of Economic Analysis: Economic Theory. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Lawrence R. Klein Institute/CEPREDE. 28049 Cantoblanco. Madrid)

  • Asier Minondo

    (Corresponding author. Deusto Business School, University of Deusto, Camino de Mundaiz 50, 20012 Donostia - San Sebastian (Spain). Research afiliate of Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales.)

  • Francisco Requena

    (Department of Economic Structure, University of Valencia, Avda. dels Tarongers s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain).)

Abstract

Do large and small cities exhibit different patterns of export specialization? Using highly disaggregated product-level trade data for Brazilian cities in year 2013, we find that more populated urban areas export proportionately more complex and skill-intensive goods than less populated urban areas. We also show that Brazilian urban areas that have increased more in population have also augmented more than proportionately the exports of complex and skill-intensive goods. Our empirical findings support recent models which argue that large cities attract more skilled workers and exhibit a wide range of capabilities, providing them a comparative advantage in skill-intensive and complex goods.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge Díaz-Lanchas & Carlos Llano & Asier Minondo & Francisco Requena, 2016. "Cities Export Specialization," Working Papers 1604, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    • Handle: RePEc:eec:wpaper:1604
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://147.156.210.157/RePEc/pdf/eec_1604.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davis, Donald R. & Dingel, Jonathan I., 2020. "The comparative advantage of cities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Costinot, Arnaud, 2009. "On the origins of comparative advantage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 255-264, April.
    3. Arnaud Costinot, 2009. "An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1165-1192, July.
    4. Chor, Davin, 2010. "Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 152-167, November.
    5. Gaspar, Jess & Glaeser, Edward L., 1998. "Information Technology and the Future of Cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 136-156, January.
    6. Jaume Ventura, 1997. "Growth and Interdependence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 57-84.
    7. Suzanne Kok & Bas ter Weel, 2014. "Cities, Tasks, And Skills," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(5), pages 856-892, November.
    8. Asier Minondo & Francisco Requena-Silvente, 2013. "Does complexity explain the structure of trade?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(3), pages 928-955, August.
    9. Ricardo Hausmann & César Hidalgo, 2011. "The network structure of economic output," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 309-342, December.
    10. Edward L. Glaeser & Matthew G. Resseger, 2010. "The Complementarity Between Cities And Skills," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 221-244, February.
    11. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    12. Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2015. "Agglomeration Theory with Heterogeneous Agents," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 171-245, Elsevier.
    13. Suzanne Kok & Bas ter Weel, 2014. "Cities, Tasks, And Skills," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(5), pages 856-892, November.
    14. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar, 2014. "The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262525429, August.
    15. Moura, Newton J. & Ribeiro, Marcelo B., 2006. "Zipf law for Brazilian cities," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 367(C), pages 441-448.
    16. John Romalis, 2004. "Factor Proportions and the Structure of Commodity Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 67-97, March.
    17. Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1029-1046, December.
    18. 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.
    19. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law and the Growth of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 129-132, May.
    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. Santiago Perez Balsalobre & Carlos Llano Verduras & Jorge Diaz-Lanchas, 2019. "Measuring subnational economic complexity: An application with Spanish data," JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis 2019-05, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    urban areas; exports; complexity; skills; comparative advantage; Brazil;

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    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:eec:wpaper:1604. 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: (Vicente Esteve). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dsvales.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.