The objective of this paper is to establish how urban structure, and in particular height of buildings, can act as a mechanism for agglomeration of firms' establishments. The causes of higher productivity in denser areas have received important attention in the urban economics literature. Input...

In the post World War II period, most U.S. cities experienced large movements of population from the city centers to the suburbs. In this paper we provide causal evidence that this process of suburbanization can be explained by the rise of violent crime in city centers. We do so by proposing a...

After decades of sub-urbanization in the U.S., there is a recent movement of the most educated people back to city centers. In this paper, we provide evidence of the effects of gentrification on local amenities and sorting. We exploit the introduction of buses made by high-tech companies (e.g....

This paper studies technology adoption and factory location in England during the Industrial Revolution. First, we document a negative relationship between industrialization in the 19th century and pre-industrial economic activities. Second, we show that while local self-governing institutions...