We establish empirically using three different definitions of US cities that the upper tail obeys a Pareto law and not a lognormal distribution. We emphasize estimation of a switching point between the body of the city size distribution (which includes most cities) and its upper tail (which...

It is well understood that the two most popular empirical models of location choice - conditional logit and Poisson - return identical coefficient estimates when the regressors are not individual specific. We show that these two models differ starkly in terms of their implied predictions. The...

This paper considers the impact of public sector employment on local labour markets. Using English data at the Local Authority level for 2003–2007 we find that public sector employment has no identifiable effect on total private sector employment. However, public sector employment does affect...

We study the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity. Using data that tracks individuals over time, we find no evidence that urban sprawl causes obesity. We show that previous findings of a positive relationship most likely reflect a failure to properly control for the fact the individuals...

This paper contributes to the growing literature that aims at identifying and measuring the impact of social context on individual economic behavior. We develop a model of housing structure demand with neighborhood effects and neighborhood choice. Modeling neighborhood choice is of fundamental...