Results

CEP discussion paper

Consumption access and agglomeration: evidence from smartphone data

We provide new theory and evidence on the role of consumption access in understanding the agglomeration of economic activity. We combine smartphone data that records user location every 5 minutes of the day with economic...Read more...

Journal article

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:

Ethnolinguistic diversity and urban agglomeration

This article shows that higher ethnolinguistic diversity is associated with a greater risk of social tensions and conflict, which, in turn, is a dispersion force lowering urbanization and the incentives to move to big ci...Read more...

Journal article

World Bank Economic Review:

Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Although Africa has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, little is known about the process of urbanization across the continent. This paper exploits a natural experiment, the abolition of South African pass ...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

The making of the modern metropolis: evidence from London

Using newly constructed spatially disaggregated data for London from 1801 to 1921, we show that the invention of the steam railway led to the first large-scale separation of workplace and residence. We show that a class ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Flooded cities

Does economic activity move away from areas that are at high risk of recurring shocks? We examine this question in the context of floods, which displaced more than 650 million people worldwide in the last 35 years. We st...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics: Forthcoming

Of Mice and Merchants: Connectedness and the Location of Economic Activity in the Iron Age

We study the causal relationship between geographic connectedness and development using one of the earliest massive trade expansions: the first systematic crossing of open seas in the Mediterranean during the time of the...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics: Forthcoming

Measuring urban economic density

At the heart of urban economics are agglomeration economies, which drive the existence and extent of cities. This paper estimates urban agglomeration effects, exploring simple and very nuanced measures of economic densit...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Measuring urban economic density

At the heart of urban economics are agglomeration economies, which drive the existence and extent of cities. This paper estimates urban agglomeration effects, exploring simple and very nuanced measures of economic densit...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The making of the modern metropolis: evidence from London

Stephen Redding and colleagues examine how the introduction of steam railways shaped the emerging metropolitan area of London....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Trade and growth in the Iron Age

Stephan Maurer and colleagues investigate the growth effects of one of the first trade expansions in history: the crossing of the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The making of the modern metropolis: evidence from London

Modern metropolitan areas involve large concentrations of economic activity and the transport of millions of people each day between their residence and workplace. We use the revolution in transport technology from the i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Of mice and merchants: trade and growth in the Iron Age

We study the causal connection between trade and development using one of the earliest massive trade expansions: the first systematic crossing of open seas in the Mediterranean during the time of the Phoenicians. We cons...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Flooded Cities

Economic activity tends to return to flood-prone areas after floods rather than relocating to higher ground. What’s more, cities built in flood-prone areas are locking in exposure to flood risk for the long term. These a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Flooded cities

Does economic activity relocate away from areas that are at high risk of recurring shocks? We examine this question in the context of floods, which are among the costliest and most common natural disasters. Over the past...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Urban Development and Air Pollution: Evidence from a Global Panel of Cities

We exploit a unique panel of 75 metro areas (‘cities’) across the globe and employ a city-fixed effects model to identify the determinants of within-city changes in air pollution concentration between 2005 and 2011. Incr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Task Specialization in U.S. Cities from 1880-2000

We develop a new methodology for quantifying the tasks undertaken within occupations using 3,000 verbs from around 12,000 occupational descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOTs). Using micro-data from t...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does Urbanisation Affect Rural Poverty? Evidence from Indian Districts

Although the high rate of urbanization and the high incidence of rural poverty are two distinct features of many developing countries, we still do not know the effects of the former on the latter. We address this issue b...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection and Polarisation

Empirical studies consistently report that labour productivity and TFP rise with city size. The reason is that cities attract the most productive agents, select the best of them, and make the selected ones even more prod...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection, and Polarisation

Empirical studies consistently report that labour productivity and TFP rise with city size. The reason is that cities attract the most productive agents, select the best of them, and make the selected ones even more prod...Read more...