Trade costs are crucial in new economic geography (NEG) models. The unavailability of actual trade costs data requires the approximation of trade costs. Most NEG studies do not deal with the ramifications of the particular trade costs specification used. This paper shows that the specification...

This paper performs a meta-analysis of empirical estimates of uncompensated labour supply elasticities. We find that much of the variation in elasticities can be explained by the variation in gender, participation rates, and country fixed effects. Country differences appear to be small though....

Hosting a mega-event is a costly activity of short duration. Still, cities frequently compete to become host of all types of events. This paper examines the effect of staging the largest and most important sporting event in the world, the Summer Olympic Games, on the host city. Applying a...

The stylized fact that the fraction of workers who are college graduates appears to increase more in US cities where the initial share is larger has attracted significant attention. Furthermore, more educated cities appear to grow faster. These two trends could portend the divergence of cities...

We propose an innovative methodology to measure inequality between cities. If an even distribution of amenities across cities is assumed to increase the average well-being in a given country, inequality between cities can be evaluated through a multidimensional index of the Atkinson (1970) type....

Hosting a mega-event is a costly activity of short duration. Still, cities frequently compete to become host of all types of events. This paper examines the effect of staging the largest and most important sporting event in the world, the Summer Olympic Games, on the host city. Applying a...

Redding and Sturm (2008) use the German division as a natural experiment to study the importance of market access for regional development. They show empirically that cities close to the East-West German border experienced a significant decline in population growth due to division. I argue that...

Demographic change brings complex challenges to the economic, social, and environmental systems of cities, with its asymmetric, overlapping, and compounded impacts across people and places. This paper analyses the main demographic trends and challenges in cities across OECD countries, with a...