This paper estimates the nature and magnitude of the local externalities from own industry scale, as envisioned by Marshall. Census panel data on individual plants in high-tech and machinery industries across up to 487 countries are utilized, to quantify the direct effects of local external...

This paper investigates the effects of local regulatory effort on ground level ozone air quality and on industrial location. Local regulatory effort varies by annual air quality attainment status and by state attitudes towards the environment. A switch from attainment to non-attainment status...

This paper examines unintended effects of air quality regulation on decisions of major polluters, using plant data for 1963 to 1992. A key regulatory tool since 1978 is the annual designation of county air quality attainment status, where non-attainment status triggers specific equipment...

This paper models and examines empirically the evolution of cities in an economy. Twentieth century evolution in the USA is characterized by parallel growth of cities of different types and on-going entry of new cities, together maintaining a stable relative size distribution of cities. Each...

China strongly restricts rural-rural, urban-urban, and rural-urban migration. The result which this paper documents is a surplus of labor in agriculture. However, the paper argues that these restrictions also lead to insufficient agglomeration of economic activity within both rural industrial...

We develop a novel method for assessing the effect of constraints imposed by spatially-fixed natural resources on aggregate economic output. We apply it to estimate and compare the projected effects of climate change and population growth over the course of the 21st century, by country and...

In the United States, many industries have a Silicon Valley-type geographic localization. In Europe, these same industries often have four or more major centers of production. This difference is presumably the result of the formal and informal trade barriers that have divided the European...

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...

This paper examines city formation in a country whose urban population is growing steadily over time, with new cities required to accommodate this growth. In contrast to most of the literature there is immobility of housing and urban infrastructure, and investment in these assets is taken on the...

Global production sharing is determined by international cost differences and frictions related to the costs of unbundling stages spatially. The interaction between these forces depends on engineering details of the production process with two extremes being 'snakes' and 'spiders'. Snakes are...