Young highly educated workers developed in the 70 s and 80 s a preference for working in larger cities. As a consequence highly educated young workers in 1990 were over-represented in cities, in spite of the lower wage premium they earned for working in crowded metropolitan areas if compared to...

This study investigates spatial segregation of the population in fiscally decentralized urban areas. The theoretical part proposes the progressivity of local income taxes as a new explanation for income segregation. The empirical part studies how income tax differentials across municipalities in...

We study the political economy of commuting subsidies in a model of a mono-centric city with two income classes. Depending on housing demand and transport costs, either the rich or the poor live in the central city and the other group in the suburbs. Commuting subsidies increase the net income...

When investigating the relationship between inward FDI and rural-urban inequality, previous studies overlook the inter-regional interactions. Building on the literature that highlights the significant role of rural-urban migration in inequality, this article investigates spatial spillover effect...

This paper estimates the causal effect of rural-urban migration on urban production in China. We use longitudinal data on manufacturing firms between 2001 and 2006 and exploit exogenous variation in rural-urban migration due to agricultural price shocks. Following a migrant inflow, labor costs...

This paper develops a theory of firm selection and growth and embeds it into an international trade framework of balanced growth. I assume that firm-level growth is the result of idiosyncratic productivity improvements while there is continuous arrival of new potential producers. Firms can also...

We investigate the effect of education Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) on teenage pregnancy. Our main concern is with how the size and sign of the effect may depend on the design of the program. Using a simple model we show that an education CCT that conditions renewal on school...