IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/120.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Productivity and the density of economic activity

Author

Abstract

Two different models - one based on local geographical externalities and the other on the variety of only locally available intermediate services - are shown to give rise to a simple, estimable relation between employment density and productivity. Using data on gross state output for the U.S., we find that agglomeration more than offsets congestion effects in denser areas. While our estimate of the elasticity of productivity with respect to density is small, it explains more than 50% of the observed state productivity differences, given the large differences in density.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Ciccone & Robert E. Hall, 1995. "Productivity and the density of economic activity," Economics Working Papers 120, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/120.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Spence, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 217-235.
    2. Henderson, J V, 1974. "The Sizes and Types of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 640-656, September.
    3. Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz & Luis A. Rivera-Batiz, 2018. "Increasing Returns, Monopolistic Competition, and Agglomeration Economies in Consumption and Production," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Francisco L Rivera-Batiz & Luis A Rivera-Batiz (ed.), International Trade, Capital Flows and Economic Development, chapter 6, pages 141-176, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Steven J. Davis, 1992. "Cross-Country Patterns of Change in Relative Wages," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1992, Volume 7, pages 239-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Fujita,Masahisa, 1991. "Urban Economic Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521396455, December.
    6. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    7. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    8. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Carlino, Gerald A. & Voith, Richard, 1992. "Accounting for differences in aggregate state productivity," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 597-617, November.
    10. Leo Sveikauskas, 1975. "The Productivity of Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 393-413.
    11. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-94-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Glaeser, Edward L & Mare, David C, 2001. "Cities and Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 316-342, April.
    13. Abdel-Rahman, H. M., 1988. "Product differentiation, monopolistic competition and city size," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 69-86, February.
    14. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1986. "Efficiency of resource usage and city size," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 47-70, January.
    15. Henderson, Vernon, 1997. "Externalities and Industrial Development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 449-470, November.
    16. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J & Porter, Robert H, 1996. "The Effect of Public Capital in State-Level Production Functions Reconsidered," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 177-180, February.
    17. Moomaw, Ronald L., 1985. "Firm location and city size: Reduced productivity advantages as a factor in the decline of manufacturing in urban areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 73-89, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Marian Rizov & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2011. "Is There a Rural-Urban Divide? Location and Productivity of UK Manufacturing," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 641-656.
    3. Gordon H. Hanson, 2000. "Scale Economies and the Geographic Concentration of Industry," NBER Working Papers 8013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John M. Quigley, 1998. "Urban Diversity and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 127-138, Spring.
    5. Marcus Berliant & Chia-Ming Yu, 2015. "Locational Signaling And Agglomeration," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 757-773, November.
    6. Rizov, Marian & Oskam, Arie & Walsh, Paul, 2012. "Is there a limit to agglomeration? Evidence from productivity of Dutch firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 595-606.
    7. Lall, Somik V. & Shalizi, Zmarak & Deichmann, Uwe, 2004. "Agglomeration economies and productivity in Indian industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 643-673, April.
    8. Yoshiaki Ushifusa & Akinori Tomohara, 2013. "Productivity and Labor Density: Agglomeration Effects over Time," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(2), pages 123-132, June.
    9. Kristian Behrens & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2008. "Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection and Polarisation," SERC Discussion Papers 0012, Spatial Economics Research Centre, LSE.
    10. Alex Anas & Richard Arnott & Kenneth A. Small, 1998. "Urban Spatial Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1426-1464, September.
    11. Lall, Somik V.*Jun Koo*Chakravorty, Sanjoy, 2003. "Diversity matters - the economic geography of industry location in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3072, The World Bank.
    12. Combes, Pierre-Philippe, 2000. "Economic Structure and Local Growth: France, 1984-1993," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 329-355, May.
    13. J. Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urbanization and Economic Development," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 275-341, November.
    14. Antonio Ciccone, 1997. "Technology diffusion and the spatial distribution of wages in the US," Economics Working Papers 500, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 1999.
    15. Marion Drut & Aurélie Mahieux, 2014. "Correcting agglomeration economies: How air pollution matters," Working Papers hal-01007019, HAL.
    16. Feldman, Maryann P. & Kogler, Dieter F., 2010. "Stylized Facts in the Geography of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 381-410, Elsevier.
    17. Henry Overman & Stephen Redding & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Economic Geography of Trade, Production, and Income: A Survey of Empirics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0508, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Pierre‐Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon & Diego Puga & Sébastien Roux, 2012. "The Productivity Advantages of Large Cities: Distinguishing Agglomeration From Firm Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2543-2594, November.
    19. Faberman, R. Jason & Freedman, Matthew, 2016. "The urban density premium across establishments," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 71-84.
    20. Henderson, J. Vernon, 2003. "Marshall's scale economies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-28, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    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:upf:upfgen:120. 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: (). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.