Matching and agglomeration economies in a system of cities

Helsley, Robert W.; Strange, William C.

doi:10.1016/0166-0462(90)90004-m

Cited by 501 publications

(318 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

303

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Matching-based theories of urban agglomeration suggest that more agglomerated local labor markets enhance productivity by improving the likelihood of matching and increasing the quality of these matches (Helsley and Strange, 1990;Sato, 2001;Berliant, Reed, and Wang, 2006). Consistent with these ideas, we show that college graduates in larger and thicker local labor markets are more likely to work in a job that both requires a college degree and is related to their college degree major.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates

Abel

Deitz

2015

Regional Science and Urban Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe study one potential source of urban agglomeration economies: better job matching.Focusing on college graduates, we construct two direct measures of job matching based on how well an individual's job corresponds to his or her college education. Consistent with matching-based theories of urban agglomeration, we find evidence that larger and thicker local labor markets help college graduates find better jobs by increasing both the likelihood and quality of a match. We then assess the extent to which better job matching of college-educated workers increases individual-level wages and thereby contributes to the urban wage premium. While we find that college graduates with better job matches do indeed earn higher wages on average, the contribution of such job matching to aggregate urban productivity appears to be relatively modest.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…2 developed predict that more agglomerated local labor markets enhance productivity by improving both the likelihood of matching and increasing the quality of these matches (Helsley and Strange, 1990;Sato, 2001;Berliant, Reed, and Wang, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates

Abel

Deitz

2015

Regional Science and Urban Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Helsley and Strange (1990) show how the matching of workers who are heterogeneous in their skills and firms who are heterogeneous in their labor demands can generate an agglomeration economy. Strange, Hejazi, and Tang (2006) demonstrate that the firms who face greater difficulty in matching will locate in thick markets.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Marshallian labour market pooling: Evidence from Italy

Andini

Blasio

Duranton

et al. 2013

Regional Science and Urban Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper employs a unique Italian data source to take a comprehensive approach to labour market pooling. It jointly considers many different aspects of the agglomeration -labour market relationship, including turnover, learning, matching, and hold up. It also considers labour market pooling from the perspective of both workers and firms and across a range of industries. Overall, the paper finds some support for theories of labour market pooling, but the support is weak. Specifically, there is a general positive relationship of turnover to local population density, which is consistent with theories of agglomeration and uncertainty. There is also evidence of on-the-job learning that is consistent with theories of labour pooling, labour poaching, and hold up. In addition, the paper provides evidence consistent with agglomeration improving job matches. However, the labour market pooling gains that we measure are small in magnitude and seem unlikely to account for a substantial share of the agglomeration benefits accruing to Italian workers and firms. Abstract: This paper employs a unique Italian data source to take a comprehensive approach to labor market pooling. It jointly considers many different aspects of the agglomeration -labor market relationship, including turnover, learning, matching, and hold up. It also considers labor market pooling from the perspective of both workers and firms and across a range of industries. Overall, the paper finds some support for theories of labor market pooling, but the support is weak. Specifically, there is a general positive relationship of turnover to local population density, which is consistent with theories of agglomeration and uncertainty. There is also evidence of on-the-job learning that is consistent with theories of labor pooling, labor poaching, and hold up. In addition, the paper provides evidence consistent with agglomeration improving job matches. However, the labor market pooling gains that we measure are small in magnitude and seem unlikely to account for a substantial share of the agglomeration benefits accruing to Italian worker and firms.Key words: local labor markets, matching, turnover, learning, hold-up, agglomeration jel classification: r23, j60 * We are deeply indebted to the researchers in the Statistics Department of the Bank of Italy who helped us to phrase the questions included in the shiw and sisf special sections on local labor markets. Our sincere thanks as well go to

show abstract

“…Henderson's [6] seminal work on urban systems also includes external economies of geographical concentration of firms and commuting costs in the model. External economies have been explicitly modelled with a distinctive spatial flavour in the urban-economic geography literature [17][18][19]. Krugman models [7,20] include consumer preference for product diversity, economies of scale, transportation costs, population density, and the share of the population employed in manufacturing as determining factors of city size.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equilibrium and Optimum City Size with the Presence of Pollution

Dewan¹

2011

TOUSJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper attempts to find the equilibrium and the optimum size of a monocentric open city that produces a constant return to scale good and a group of differentiated goods and services (increasing return to scale goods and services), where the production of goods and services causes negative externalities (pollution). The model in this paper also assumes the presence of positive externalities of agglomeration (agglomeration economies). As it is an open city, there will be too much agglomeration in the absence of any penalty on the polluters. The results of this paper show that if the city dwellers value environmental quality the market outcomes are sub-optimal. Therefore, a tax scheme is necessary for the correct level of agglomeration or the optimum size of the city. The optimal tax rate in the differentiated goods and services sector depends on the emission intensity of output, consumer preference for product diversity, demand for labour (or level of output), and the wage rate; and that in the constant return to scale good sector depends on the emission intensity of output, average labour productivity, and the wage rate.

show abstract

Matching and agglomeration economies in a system of cities

Cited by 501 publications

References 17 publications

Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates

Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates

Marshallian labour market pooling: Evidence from Italy

Equilibrium and Optimum City Size with the Presence of Pollution

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About