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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Toshihiro Okubo (faculty of economics, keio university); Rikard Forslid (Department of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces spatial sorting of heterogeneous entrepreneurs (firms) in the "foot-loose entrepreneur" trade and geography model. The model generates agglomeration from a uniform space contrary to the "footloose capital" model. The model also generates spatial sorting in reverse productivity order with the least productive entrepreneur being the first to relocate. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration, Heterogeneous firms, Trade liberalization |
| JEL: | F12 F15 F21 R12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:2018-019&r=geo |
| By: | Gutierrez, Federico H. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies to what extent gender differences in commuting patterns explain the observed disparities between husband and wife in relation to earnings and wages. It is argued that the cost of commuting is higher for women because they bear a disproportionate share of housework and child-rearing responsibilities. Therefore, female workers tend to work relatively close to home. A `job location wage gap' emerges because jobs located away from the central business district offer lower wages. Using pooled data from the American Community Survey, the results indicate that 10% of the gender pay gap among childless workers and more than 23% of the wage decline attributed to being a mother ("child pay penalty") are explained by sex differences in commuting patterns. A conditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition indicates that short commutes are strongly associated with working in low-paying occupations and industries. |
| Keywords: | Gender pay gap,job location,wages,commute time,wage gradient |
| JEL: | J31 R41 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:282&r=geo |
| By: | Du, Jun (Aston University); Zhang, Junfu (Clark University) |
| Abstract: | Throughout the imperial era, defensive walls surrounded Chinese cities. Although most city walls have vanished, the cities have survived. We analyze a sample of nearly 300 prefectural-level cities in China, among which about half historically had city walls. We document that cities that had walls in late imperial China have higher population and employment density today, despite the fact that their walls have long gone. Using data from various sources, we test several possible explanations of this fact, including (1) walled cities have a well-defined historical core that helps hold economic activity close to the city center today; (2) walled cities today tend to have different industry compositions that are less conducive to decentralization; (3) walled cities are situated in regions where the local geographies make it less desirable to build out; (4) walled cities have more compact shapes that facilitate high density development; and (5) walled cities are located in regions where rural land is more valuable today and discourages urban sprawl. We find that historically walled cities still have higher density after taking into account all of these factors, which we interpret as evidence of economic persistence. |
| Keywords: | urban density, city wall, persistence, China |
| JEL: | R11 R12 N95 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11951&r=geo |
| By: | F. J. Escribá-Pérez (Universitat de València (Spain)); M. J. Murgui-García (Universitat de València (Spain)); J. R. Ruiz-Tamarit (Universitat de València (Spain) and IRES (UCLouvain)) |
| Abstract: | The role of capital stock in measuring resilience is investigated. Based on the current and potential growth paths we propose new indexes to better measure the characteristics associated with resilience: adaptability and resistance to shocks. The dynamics of capital instead of employment is used as a proxy for economic welfare, considered ideal to represent the evolution of economic systems. The two series of capital stock for the US and Spanish economies, associated with the short-run and the long-run trajectories, allows us to empirically compute the indexes and draw conclusions about their ability to resist shocks and absorb their effects. |
| Keywords: | Adaptability, Capital, Growth, Resilience, Resistance |
| JEL: | E22 O10 R11 |
| Date: | 2018–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2018017&r=geo |
| By: | Rickman, Dan S.; Wang, Hongbo |
| Abstract: | The American West has long experienced strong economic growth. The varied economy of the region though has produced a diversity of economic outcomes and trends. In this paper, we assess whether there have been significant relative shifts in economic growth across the nonmetropolitan counties of the region between the periods of 1992-2004 and 2004-2016. We find significant relative downward growth shifts in areas most abundant in natural amenities. Further analysis suggests the downward growth shifts in high amenity counties resulted from the capitalization of the amenities into housing costs, not from diminished quality of life in the counties. Economic growth significantly accelerated in counties where significant oil and gas extractive activity occurred, in which most of the counties were not previously considered as highly dependent on the energy industry. Counties with low levels of natural amenities and an absence of oil and gas resources continued to struggle and are suggested to likely be in need of place-based labor demand policies. |
| Keywords: | Natural amenities; Oil and gas boom; Nonmetropolitan counties |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2018–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:90078&r=geo |
| By: | NAKAGAWA Mariko |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze how skill transference from an origin to destination country, captured by lower productivity at the destination caused by differences in language use, affects international migration by skilled workers, using a multi-country NEG model proposed by Gasper et al. (2017). Specifically, our interest is to explain how less frictional countries in terms of linguistic communication such as those in the Anglosphere (English-speaking countries) attract more highly-skilled international migrants. The analysis based on asymmetric skill transference among countries, in which the world is divided into two groups, Anglosphere (English-speaking countries) and non-Anglosphere (non-English-speaking countries), finds that countries in the Anglosphere are more likely to be the industrial core attracting all skilled (and imperfectly mobile) workers than countries in the non-Anglosphere. Also, we find that less frictional migration from the non-Anglosphere to the Anglosphere always accelerates industrial agglomeration in the Anglosphere core country, while both less frictional migration within the Anglosphere and expanding the Anglosphere (an increase in the number of countries constituting the Anglosphere) do not always accelerate industrial agglomeration in the Anglosphere due to the market crowding effect. |
| Date: | 2018–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:18083&r=geo |