This paper estimates agglomeration benefits based on city productivity differentials across five OECD countries (Germany, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States). It highlights the relationship between cities’ governmental fragmentation and productivity, and represents the first...

The paper proposes an econometric approach for quantifying jointly the geographical scope of commuting as well as the various forms of agglomeration economies originating from metropolitan centers. Adopting an urban economics perspective, and using land prices to measure their aggregate effects,...

In this paper, I examine the influence of natural geographic features on the location of production in Germany. In particular, I quantify how much of the geographic pattern of GDP can be attributed to natural features such as resource endowments and location ('geography'). At most, ~36% of GDP's...

The tertiarization, or perhaps more accurately, the deindustrialization of the economy has left deep scars on cities. It is evident not only in the industrial wastelands and empty factory buildings scattered throughout the urban landscape, but also in the income and social structures of cities....

We examine the effects of urbanization and localization on four distinct types of innovation in manufacturing and services. Furthermore, estimating multilevel panel regression models, we investigate the sorting of highly innovative firms into dense urban regions by considering both observable...

Urban gardening has become a growing international movement. Many urban gardens are established, organized, and managed collectively as commons. Particularly in developed countries, these community gardens (a subset of urban gardens) emerge not only in response to a lack of locally produced...

Wage growth is stronger in larger cities, but this relationship holds exclusively for non-manual workers. Using rich German administrative data, I study the heterogeneity in the pecuniary value of big city experience, a measure of dynamic agglomeration economies, and its consequences for the...