Thilo Albers
Forskare
Prime Locations
Författare
Summary, in English
We harness big data to detect prime locations---large clusters of know-ledge-based tradable services---in 125 global cities and track changes in the within-city geography of prime service jobs over a century. Historically smaller cities that did not develop early public transit networks are less concentrated today and have prime locations farther away from their historic cores. We rationalize these findings in an agent-based model that features extreme agglomeration, multiple equilibria, and path dependence. Both city size and public transit networks anchor city structure. Exploiting major disasters and using a novel instrument---subway potential---we provide causal evidence for these mechanisms and disentangle size- from transport network effects.
Publiceringsår
2020
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
CEPR Discussion Paper
Issue
15470
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Working paper
Ämne
- Economic History
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0265-8003