Human Capital and Economic Activity in Urban America

Abstract

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Productivity and the Density of Human Capital*

“…8 8 While beyond the scope of this paper focusing on productivity enhancing effects of density, alternative measures of regional human capital have been developed using occupation clusters or by measuring the knowledge and skills required to perform a job. Recent examples include Florida, Mellander, and Stolarick (2008); Bacolod, Blum, and Strange (2009, 2010); and Abel and Gabe (2011). …”

The Distribution of Artistic Human Capital – A Typology Building Approach

“…As argued in de Silva et al (2016), creative human capital (of which artistic human capital is a vital component) has a unique and significant role to play both at the regional and national level. International evidence suggests that regional prosperity through innovation and entrepreneurial outcomes (Boschma & Fritsch, 2009;Storper & Scott, 2009;Abel & Gabe, 2011) is positively associated with creative human capital. In this context, the (residential) location/cluster effect of artistic human capital may provide some regions with a comparative advantage thus attracting the attention of regional policy-makers and planners (Flew, 2012).…”

Skills across the Urban–Rural Hierarchy

“…Increasingly, it has been identified as a key ingredient to the success and vitality of U.S. regions, particularly as the economy has shifted away from manufacturing and goods distribution toward a greater emphasis on knowledge‐ and idea‐intensive services. Indeed, regions with higher levels of human capital tend to be more innovative, have greater amounts of economic activity, and faster economic growth; and workers in these places are more productive and earn higher wages (Abel and Gabe ; Carlino, Chatterjee, and Hunt ; Glaeser, Scheinkman, and Shleifer ; Moretti ; Rauch ).…”

“…While the importance of human capital to regional economies has gained wide recognition among urban economists and regional scientists, much of the existing research represents human capital as simply the share of a region's workforce with a college degree. Although this conventional measure of human capital, focusing on educational attainment, has been linked to a number of measures of regional vitality, a growing body of research demonstrates that formal education provides an incomplete picture of the knowledge and skills possessed by workers (Abel and Gabe ; Bacolod, Blum, and Strange ; Florida, Mellander, and Stolarick ; Florida et al. ; Ingram and Neumann ).…”

“…Feser () and Abel and Gabe () used a similar approach, which in our application places a greater emphasis on high skill requirements that are relevant to a given occupation.…”