We conduct a natural field experiment in a large retail chain to test basic predictions of tournament theory regarding prize spread and noise. A random subset of the 208 stores participates in two-stage elimination tournaments. Tournaments differ in the distribution of prize money across winners...

This paper extends the urban growth model of Duranton and Puga (2022) to explore the impact of cities on local firms and households and the aggregate economy of Germany. We adopt alternative micro-foundations for agglomeration economies and a non-linear specification of human capital...

In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkably well in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simple rank-size rule known as Zipf's law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is the "churning" of industries...

Exploiting recent concentration of flight patterns under a new Federal Aviation Administration policy (called NextGen), we examine the impact of exposure to excessive noise levels on birth outcomes. Using birth records that include mothers' home addresses to measure airport proximity, we find...

In most countries, average wages tend to be higher in larger cities. In this paper, we focus on the role played by the matching of workers to firms in explaining geographical wage differences. Using rich administrative German data for 1985-2014, we show that wages in large cities are higher not...

This paper provides some elements to explain the observed takeover in some urban areas of a new kind of elite associated with new economy jobs, also known as "bourgeois bohème" (bobos). This takeover has been associated with greater investment in urban amenities and "clean" means of transport,...

Many studies of urban and neighbourhood change investigate changes in the relative positions of neighbourhoods within an urban region, without looking at the underlying processes. Often, changes in socio-spatial structures reflect intensifying socio-spatial divisions caused by both increasing...

What are the long run consequences of planning and providing basic infrastructure in neighborhoods, where people build their own homes? We study "Sites and Services" projects implemented in seven Tanzanian cities during the 1970s and 1980s, half of which provided infrastructure in previously...

In this paper I analyze the impact of human capital on local employment growth for the case of West Germany (1977-2002). I find robust evidence that skilled cities grow faster than unskilled ones, but this need not indicate localized human capital externalities are at work. A large initial share...

Throughout the imperial era, defensive walls surrounded Chinese cities. Although most city walls have vanished, the cities have survived. We analyze a sample of nearly 300 prefectural-level cities in China, among which about half historically had city walls. We document that cities that had...