Here’s the abstract from a new paper by Ed Glaeser and Matthew G. Resseger (thanks to David Ptak for the pointer).
There is a strong connection between per worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually non-existent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.
Full text is here.
July 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I often wonder, is that large skilled cities accumulate human capital with more intensity than smaller ones or rather that they regurgitate less skilled people with more intensity than do smaller ones.
Either one should cause the concentration of skills to increase in the former.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:29 pm
RS -
Most likely a combination of the two. High skilled cities would tend to crowd out low-skilled people because the preponderance of employment opportunities will require advanced skills. The altenative is that there are large extremes between high-skilled and low-skilled work and not much of a traditional low to middle, middle class base of people. I see that playing out in my area: pockets of high-skilled areas and related jobs, and larger swaths of poverty. This is especially prevalent for cities that have seen their (fairly) low-skilled manufacturing base dry up. It really becomes an either/or scenario. Either you have skills that are in demand and contribute to the creative economy, or you do not and struggle.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Associated with the presented correlation, there is a complicated per worker productivity distribution to consider: some fields are more productivity than others not only because of intensive knowledge production, but mainly because of shared/open information/experience interchange.
My point is the following: pharmaceutical/medicine is not so productive as other fields with effective channels of communication and shared research/inovation (e.g. open source software and creative commons’ shared products).
July 6th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
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