We hypothesize that as the distance of a residential move increases, the cost of collecting information on the destination housing market rises, the amount and quality of information collected fall, and the chances of making an ill-informed housing purchase decision increases, reducing the...

This paper analyses the causal linkages between regional labour market variables and internal migration flows among German states between 1991–2006. We adopt a Panel VAR approach to identify the feedback effects among the variables and analyse the dynamic properties of the system through...

The fl ight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe during and after World War II constitutes one of the largest forced population movements in history. We analyze the economic integration of these forced migrants and their off spring in West Germany. The empirical results suggest that even...

In this paper we make use of a matched employer-employee database for Italy to look at the spatial distribution of wages. Using this rich database we aim to open up the black box of agglomeration economies exploiting the micro dimension of interaction among economic agents, both individuals and...

London is one of the world’s major cities, and one of its most diverse. London’s cultural diversity is widely seen as a social asset, but there is little hard evidence on its importance for the city’s businesses. Theory and evidence suggest various links between urban cultural diversity...

This paper examines the relation between ambition, as a form of dynamic human capital, and the escalator role of high order metropolitan regions, as originally identified by Fielding (1989). It argues that occupational progression in such places particularly depends on concentrations both of...

Since ethnic clustering is common in Germany, a better understanding of its effects on the integration of immigrants could be important for integration policies, especially in the light of rising immigration and a skilled worker shortage. Yet, both economic theory and empirical research for...

This paper examines the relation between ambition, as a form of dynamic human capital, and the escalator role of high-order metropolitan regions, as originally identified by A. J. Fielding. It argues that occupational progression in such places particularly depends on concentrations both of...

In the urban resurgence accompanying the growth of the knowledge economy, second-order cities appear to be losing out to the principal city, especially where the latter is much larger and benefits from substantially greater agglomeration economies. The view that any city can make itself...

Ethnic inventors play important roles in US innovation systems, especially in high-tech regions like Silicon Valley. Do ‘ethnicity-innovation’ channels exist elsewhere? This paper investigates, using a new panel of UK patents microdata. In theory, ethnicity might affect positively innovation...