China's Hukou system poses severe restrictions on labor mobility. This paper assesses the consequences of relaxing these restrictions for China's internal economic geography. We base our analysis on a new economic geography model. First, we obtain estimates of the important model parameters on...

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...

We analyze the first data set on consistently defined functional urban areas in Europe and compare the European to the US urban system. City sizes in Europe do not follow a power law: the largest cities are "too small" to follow Zipf's law.

We describe a model that integrates a multi-regional input-output model of the U.S. (50 states and the District of Columbia) with the national highway network. Interstate commodity shipments are placed on a congestible highway network. Simulations of major choke-point disruptions redirect...

Using a rich data set on the EU regions, we analyze the relevance of two possible determinants of a region's resilience to shocks, the degree of urbanization and specialization. We take the Great Recession, the economic and financial crisis that started in 2008, as our shock and then analyze how...

We construct a unique data set to analyze whether or not a large temporary shock had an impact on German city growth and city size distribution. Following recent work by Davis and Weinstein (2001) on Japan, we take the strategic bombing of German cities during WWII as our example of such a...

The literature on China indicates that the concentration of economic activities in China is less than in other industrialized countries. Institutional limits are largely held responsible for this finding (e.g. the Hukou system); firms and workers are not able to take full advantage of the...

We study the link between subnational capital cities and urban development using a global data set of hundreds of first-order administrative and capital city reforms from 1987 until 2018. We show that gaining subnational capital status has a sizable effect on city growth in the medium run. We...

The comparative advantage of many cities is based on their efficiency in the production of "functions", e.g., business services such as finance, law, engineering, or similar functions that are used by firms in a wide range of sectors. Firms that use these functions may choose to source them...

The large cities in the US are the most expensive places to live. Paradoxically, this cost is disproportionately paid by workers who could work remotely, and live anywhere. The greater potential for remote work in large cities is mostly accounted for by their specialization in skill- and...