Defining urban clusters to detect agglomeration economies

Abstract

Agglomeration economies are a persistent subject of debate among economists and urban planners. Their definition turns on whether or not larger cities and regions are more efficient and more productive than smaller ones. We complement existing discussion on agglomeration economies and the urban wage premium here by providing a sensitivity analysis of estimated coefficients to different delineations of urban agglomeration as well as to different definitions of the economic measure that summarises the urban premium. This quantity can consist of total wages measured at the place of work, or of income registered at the place of residence. The chosen option influences the scaling behaviour of city size as well as the spatial distribution of the phenomenon at the city level. Spatial discrepancies between the distribution of jobs and the distribution of households at different economic levels makes city definitions crucial to the estimation of economic relations which vary with city size. We argue this point by regressing measures of income and wage over about five thousands different definitions of cities in France, based on our algorithmic aggregation of administrative spatial units at regular cutoffs which reflect density, population thresholds and commuting flows. We also go beyond aggregated observations of wages and income by searching for evidence of larger inequalities and economic segregation in the largest cities. This paper therefore considers the spatial and economic complexity of cities with respect to discussion about how we measure agglomeration economies. It provides a basis for reflection on alternative ways to model the processes which lead to observed variations, and this can provide insights for more comprehensive regional planning.

Delineation of the boundary of an urban agglomeration: evidence from Riga, Latvia

“…The scales vary -either 1 km 2 grid cells are utilised, where inclusion/exclusion is conducted by identifying continuous cells that match (or exceed) a certain population threshold or, in other cases, absolute numbers for territorial/administrative units are used (Vandermotten 2008;Thomas et al 2012;Fang & Yu 2017). Total population thresholds are also common, for both the core part/parts and the entire agglomeration (Czyż 2011;Cottineau et al 2018; INSEE Definition of urban unit; INSEE Definition of urban area). Migration thresholds (e.g.…”

“…Functional interconnectivity and accessibility are also important for this approach (Fang & Yu 2017). This approach is more commonly used than the morphological one (Liang, Li & Mao 2010) and since socio-economic data is incredibly important, many studies have used various social (Thomas et al 2012) and economic (activity) indicators and their thresholds (Sykora & Mulicek 2009;Czyż 2011;Fang & Yu 2017;Cottineau et al 2018). These include, but are not limited to, GDP data, number of workplaces (mostly in the core city), income and tax data.…”

“…These include, but are not limited to, GDP data, number of workplaces (mostly in the core city), income and tax data. Studies that use algorithms to delineate local labour markets or urban agglomerations commonly prioritise commuting flows to the core city, often by applying different thresholds (Corvers, Hensen & Bongaerts 2009;Sykora & Mulicek 2009;Cottineau et al 2018; INSEE Definition of urban area). There are various commuting flows -those to and from the core city, a combination of both, or flows based on motivation, e.g.…”

Impact of human mobility on police allocation

“…Within this context, strategies of police allocation play an important role in crime prevention and a recent discovery by Caminha et al [1] motivated us to revisit the state of the art of this subject. Caminha et al discovered a superlinear relationship [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] between the flow of people and property crimes. In other words, the authors found that the increase of the floating population in a urban space implies a disproportionate growth of property crime in that space.…”

Rural roads and urban agglomeration economies: Benefits for town and country?

“…The authors of Infrastructure for Development(World Bank 1994) are largely concerned with improving efficiency in the provision of infrastructure. Rural roads receive little attention, and rural-urban migration is hardly mentioned in any connection.3 In a broad-ranging survey of urbanization that dwells on the distinct possibility that there are too many mega-cities,Henderson (2002) emphasizes the costs of congestion and pollution.4 For extensive surveys of the theoretical and empirical literature on agglomeration economies, seeBehrens and Robert-Picoud (2016) andCombes and Gobillon (2016), respectively Cottineau et al (2016). demonstrate, using French data, that the size of agglomeration economies depends on the definition of what is 'urban'.…”