「选题人」

复旦大学沪港发展联合研究所编译团队年末推送经济学家 Diego Puga 推介的2022年城市经济学TOP 10论文，分享给所有喜欢和从事城市、空间和经济地理研究的人！

Diego Puga ：2022年度TOP10篇城市经济学文献

(In alphabetical order by author)

1

Albert, Christoph, and Joan Monras. 2022. Immigration and Spatial Equilibrium: The Role of Expenditures in the Country of Origin. American Economic Review, 112 (11): 3763-3802. (DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211241)

· Abstract

We document that international migrants concentrate more in expensive cities—the more so, the lower the prices in their origin countries are—and consume less locally than comparable natives. We rationalize this empirical evidence by introducing a quantitative spatial equilibrium model, in which a part of immigrants' income goes toward consumption in their origin countries. Using counterfactual simulations, we show that, due to this novel consumption channel, immigrants move economic activity toward expensive, high-productivity locations. This leads to a more efficient spatial allocation of labor and, as a result, increases the aggregate output and welfare of natives.

2

Allen,Treb, and Costas Arkolakis.2022. The Welfare Effects of Transportation Infrastructure Improvements.The Review of Economic Studies, 89(6):2911–2957.(DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdac001)

· Abstract

Each year in the US, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on transportation infrastructure and billions of hours are lost in traffic. We develop a quantitative general equilibrium spatial framework featuring endogenous transportation costs and traffic congestion and apply it to evaluate the welfare impact of transportation infrastructure improvements. Our approach yields analytical expressions for transportation costs between any two locations, the traffic along each link of the transportation network, and the equilibrium distribution of economic activity across the economy, each as a function of the underlying quality of infrastructure and the strength of traffic congestion. We characterize the properties of such an equilibrium and show how the framework can be combined with traffic data to evaluate the impact of improving any segment of the infrastructure network. Applying our framework to both the US highway network and the Seattle road network, we find highly variable returns to investment across different links in the respective transportation networks, highlighting the importance of well-targeted infrastructure investment.

3

Chetty, R., Jackson, M.O., Kuchler, T. et al. 2022. Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility. Nature , 608:108–12. (DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4)

· Abstract

Social capital—the strength of an individual’s social network and community—has been identified as a potential determinant of outcomes ranging from education to health. However, efforts to understand what types of social capital matter for these outcomes have been hindered by a lack of social network data. Here, in the first of a pair of papers, we use data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook to study social capital. We measure and analyse three types of social capital by ZIP (postal) code in the United States: (1) connectedness between different types of people, such as those with low versus high socioeconomic status (SES); (2) social cohesion, such as the extent of cliques in friendship networks; and (3) civic engagement, such as rates of volunteering. These measures vary substantially across areas, but are not highly correlated with each other. We demonstrate the importance of distinguishing these forms of social capital by analysing their associations with economic mobility across areas. The share of high-SES friends among individuals with low SES—which we term economic connectedness—is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility identified to date. Other social capital measures are not strongly associated with economic mobility. If children with low-SES parents were to grow up in counties with economic connectedness comparable to that of the average child with high-SES parents, their incomes in adulthood would increase by 20% on average. Differences in economic connectedness can explain well-known relationships between upward income mobility and racial segregation, poverty rates, and inequality. To support further research and policy interventions, we publicly release privacy-protected statistics on social capital by ZIP code at https://www.socialcapital.org.

4

Dauth,Wolfgang,Sebastian Findeisen, Enrico Moretti, and Jens Suedekum. 2022. Matching in Cities.  Journal of the European Economic Association, 20(4): 1478–1521.( DOI:10.1093/jeea/jvac004)

· Abstract

Using administrative German data, we show that large cities allow for a more efficient matching between workers and firms and this has important consequences for geographical inequality. Specifically, the match between high-quality workers and high-quality plants is significantly tighter in large cities relative to small cities. Wages in large cities are higher not only because of the higher worker quality but also because of a stronger assortative matching. Strong assortative matching in large cities magnifies wage differences caused by worker sorting, and is a key factor in explaining the growth of geographical wage disparities over the last three decades.

5

Eckert,Fabian, Mads Hejlesen, and Conor Walsh. 2022. The return to big-city experience: Evidence from refugees in Denmark.Journal of Urban Economics. 130: 103454. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2022.103454)

· Abstract

We offer causal evidence of higher returns to experience in big cities. Exploiting a natural experiment that settled refugees across labor markets in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find that refugees initially earned similar wages across locations. However, those placed in Copenhagen exhibited 35% faster wage growth with each additional year of experience. Faster sorting of workers toward the type of establishments, occupations, and industries typically found in cities accounts for the vast majority of this urban wage-growth premium.

6

Fajgelbaum, Pablo and Stephen J. Redding. 2022. Trade, Structural Transformation, and Development: Evidence from Argentina 1869–1914. Journal of Political 

Economy,130(5): 1249-1318. (DOI: 10.1086/718915)

· Abstract

We provide new theory and evidence on the role of external and internal integration in structural transformation and economic development, using Argentina’s integration into the world economy in the late nineteenth century. Our theoretical model provides microfoundations for a spatial Balassa-Samuelson effect, in which locations closer to world markets have higher population densities, urban population shares, relative prices of nontraded goods, and land prices relative to wages, as well as specializing in traded goods that are transport-cost sensitive. We estimate the model’s parameters, provide evidence in support of this spatial Balassa-Samuelson mechanism, and find substantial effects of both external and internal integration on economic development.

7

Fretz, Stephan, Raphaël Parchet, and Frédéric Robert-Nicoud. 2022. Highways, Market Access and Spatial Sorting. The Economic Journal, 132(643): 1011–1036. (DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab070)

· Abstract

We design a parsimonious spatial equilibrium model featuring workers embodied with heterogeneous skills and non-homothetic preferences. In equilibrium, locations with improved commuting access become relatively more attractive to high-income earners. We empirically analyse the effects of the construction of the Swiss highway network between 1960 and 2010 on the population size and composition of municipalities. We find that the advent of a new highway access led to a long-term 24% increase in the share of top-income taxpayers and a 8% decrease in the share of low-income taxpayers, impacting segregation by income. Highways also contributed to job and residential urban sprawl.

8

Gaigné, Carl, Hans R.A. Koster, Fabien Moizeau, Jacques-François Thisse.2022. Who lives where in the city? Amenities, commuting and income sorting. Journal 

of Urban Economics,128:103394. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2021.103394)

· Abstract:

We develop a new model of a “featureful” city in which locations are differentiated by two attributes, that is, the distance to employment centers and the accessibility to given amenities. The residential equilibrium involves the spatial separation of households sharing similar incomes. Under Stone-Geary preferences, amenities and commuting are subsumed into a location-quality index. Hence, the assignment of households to locations becomes one-dimensional. Since residential choices are driven by the location-quality index, the income mapping may be fully characterized. Using a rich micro-dataset on the Netherlands, we show that household income sorting is indeed driven by amenities and commuting times.

9

Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh,Arpit Gupta,  and Constantine Kontokosta. Take the Q train: Value capture of public infrastructure projects.Journal of Urban Economics,129:103422.(DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2021.103422)

· Abstract:

Transit infrastructure is a critical asset for economic activity yet costly to build in dense urban environments. We measure the benefit of the Second Avenue Subway extension in New York City, the most expensive urban transit infrastructure project in recent memory, by analyzing local real estate prices which capitalize the benefits of transit spillovers. We find 8% price increases, creating $5.5 billion in new property value. Using cell phone ping data, we document substantial reductions in commuting time especially among subway users, offering a plausible mechanism for the price gains. The increase in prices reflects both higher rents and lower risk. Infrastructure improvements lower the riskiness of real estate investments. Only 30% of the private value created by the subway is captured through higher property tax revenue, and is insufficient to cover the cost of the subway. Targeted property tax increases may help governments capture more of the value created, and serve as a useful funding tool.

10

Imbert, Clement, Marlon Seror, Yifan Zhang, and Yanos Zylberberg. 2022. Migrants and Firms: Evidence from China. American Economic Review, 112 (6): 1885-1914. (DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191234)

· Abstract

How does rural-urban migration shape urban production in developing countries? We use longitudinal data on Chinese manufacturing firms between 2000 and 2006, and exploit exogenous variation in rural-urban migration induced by agricultural income shocks for identification. We find that, when immigration increases, manufacturing production becomes more labor intensive and productivity declines. We investigate the reorganization of production using patent applications and product information. We show that rural-urban migration induces both labor-oriented technological change and the adoption of labor intensive product varieties.