Increasing Returns and Spatial Unemployment Disparities

Regional differences in unemployment rates in the EU, both within and across member countries, are far more pronounced than regional income disparities. Yet, standard models of the new trade and location theories (new economic geography, new trade theory etc.) usually assume full employment and can thus not provide a coherent explanation for spatial unemployment differences. Regional labour market theories like the ´wage curve´-approach on the other hand fail to account for regional agglomeration of economic activity, which is one of the most salient features of the spatial economic structure in the EU. The model in this paper analyses regional agglomeration and regional unemployment in an unified approach, as it combines a wage curve with a technology exhibiting localised increasing returns to scale. The main result of the paper is the prediction that regional unemployment rates closely resemble the core-periphery structure of regional incomes per capita. This matches the stylised facts about the geographical configuration of production and employment in the EU.

Human Capital and Growth of High- and Low-Skilled Jobs in Cities

In this paper I analyze the impact of initial human capital on subsequent city employment growth for the case of West Germany (1977-2002). I find robust evidence that skilled local areas have grown stronger than unskilled ones. But this observed positive relation need not indicate a localized human capital externality. A large initial share of highly skilled workers significantly reduces subsequent growth of high-skilled jobs. The observed positive impact on total employment growth is, thus, due to the fact that the positive effect on low- and medium-skilled jobs outweighs the negative effect on high-skilled employment. This evidence is in line with complementarities among skill groups as the major causal link between human capital and regional employment growth. It challenges theories of self-reinforcing spatial concentration of highly skilled workers in cities due to strong localized external effects.

Zipf's Law for Cities in the Regions and the Country

The salient rank-size rule known as Zipf's law is not only satisfied for Germany's national urban hierarchy, but also for the city size distributions in single German regions. To analyze this phenomenon, we build on the insights by Gabaix (1999) that Zipf's law follows from a stochastic growth process. In particular, Gabaix shows that if the regions follow Gibrat's law, we should observe Zipf at both the regional and the national level. This theory has never been addressed empirically. Using non-parametric techniques we find that Gibrat's law holds in each German region, irrespective of how "regions" are defined. In other words, Gibrat's law and therefore Zipf's law tend to hold everywhere in space.city size distributions, city growth, Zipf's law, Gibrat's law, rank-size rule

Optimal agglomeration and regional policy

This paper studies the social desirability of agglomeration and the efficiency arguments for regional policy in a simple, analytically solvable ‘new economic geography’ model with two trade integrating regions. The location pattern emerging as market equilibrium is ?-shaped, featuring dispersion of firms both at high and low trade costs and stable equilibria with partial agglomeration of firms in addition to core periphery equilibria for intermediate levels of trade costs. Our central finding is that the market equilibrium is characterised by over-agglomeration for high trade costs and under-agglomeration for low trade costs. For an intermediate level of trade costs, the market equilibrium yields the socially optimal degree of agglomeration. An important implication of this result is that, on efficiency grounds, regional policy should foster the dispersion of firms for a range of high trade costs only, but agglomeration for a range of low trade costs. Hence, regional policies, such as those pursued by the European Union (which are aimed at fostering dispersion in general), is counterproductive when trade integration is deep enough JEL-Classification: F12, F15, F22, R12, R50 Keywords: economic geography, regional policy, optimal agglomeration, welfare

Subsidizing education in the economic periphery: Another pitfall of regional policies?

A very prominent instrument of regional policy is to foster education and human capital for-mation in economically lagging regions. However, this type of regional policy might actually hurt instead of help the recipient areas. The reason is that individual geographical mobility increases with the personal skill level. Through education subsidies, particularly if targeted on relatively high skilled workers, individuals can cross some threshold level of qualification beyond which emigration pays off. Regional policies then result in a human capital flight harmful to individuals remaining in the economic periphery. This fatal result does not hold for policies that focus on the relatively low skilled

The Size Distribution across all "Cities": A Unifying Approach

In this paper we show that the double Pareto lognormal (DPLN) parameterization provides an excellent fit to the overall US city size distribution, regardless of whether “cities” are administratively defined Census places or economically defined area clusters. We then consider an economic model that combines scale-independent urban growth (Gibrat’s law) with endogenous city creation. City sizes converge to a DPLN distribution in this model, which is much better in line with the data than previous urban growth frameworks that predict a lognormal or a Pareto city size distribution (Zipf’s law).Zipf’s law, Gibrat’s law, city size distributions, double Pareto-Lognormal

The Size Distribution Across All "Cities": A Unifying Approach

In this paper we show that the double Pareto lognormal (DPLN) parameterization provides an excellent fit to the overall US city size distribution, regardless of whether "cities" are administratively defined Census places or economically defined area clusters. We then consider an economic model that combines scale-independent urban growth (Gibrat's law) with endogenous city creation. City sizes converge to a DPLN distribution in this model, which is much better in line with the data than previous urban growth frameworks that predict a lognormal or a Pareto city size distribution (Zipf's law).Zipf's law, Gibrat's law, city size distributions, double Pareto-Lognormal

Local economic structure and industry development in Germany, 1993-2001

"This paper analyses the impact of dynamic MAR- and Jacobs-externalities on local employment growth in Germany between 1993 and 2001. In order to facilitate a comparison between the neighbouring countries we firstly replicate the study of Combes (2000) on local employment growth in France and find very similar results for Germany. Afterwards we formulate an alternative empirical model that is based on a weighted regression approach. With this model we find that Jacobs-externalities matter in manufacturing, whereas MAR-externalities are present in advanced service sectors." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Wirtschaftswachstum - Auswirkungen, Beschäftigungsentwicklung, regionale Disparität, Regionalentwicklung, regionale Faktoren

Wages and Employment Growth: Disaggregated Evidence for West Germany

We address the effects of wages on employment growth on the basis of a theoretical model from which cost and demand effects can be derived. In the empirical analysis we take a highly disaggregated perspective and apply a newly developed shift-share regression technique on an exhaustive and very accurate data set for West Germany. The regression shows that the impact of regional wages on employment growth is significantly negative. There is some variation of this effect across sectors, but in no case we find support for the claim that an exogenous wage increase leads to higher employment growth. Keywords: Employment Growth, Shift-Share-Analysis, Regional Wages, Purchasing Power Argument. JEL- Classification: J23, E24, R11

Human capital externalities and growth of high- and low-skilled jobs

In this paper I analyze the impact of human capital on local employment growth for the case of West Germany (1977-2002). I find robust evidence that skilled cities grow faster than unskilled ones, but this need not indicate localized human capital externalities are at work. A large initial share of high-skilled workers significantly reduces subsequent growth of high-skilled jobs. The observed positive impact on total employment growth is, therefore, due to the fact that low-skilled jobs grow faster than high-skilled jobs decline in initially skilled cities. This evidence is in line with complementarities among skill groups as the major causal link between human capital and employment growth. It challenges theories of self-reinforcing spatial concentration of high-skilled workers due to strong localized spillovers