Agglomeration Economics

The University of Chicago Press

2010

ix, 364 p.

National Bureau of Economic Research conference report

9780226297897

Contents: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Estimating Agglomeration Economies with History, Geology, and Worker Effects -- 2. Dispersion in House Price and Income Growth across Markets: Facts and Theories -- 3. Cities as Six- by- Six- Mile Squares: Zipf 's Law? -- 4. Labor Pooling as a Source of Agglomeration: An Empirical Investigation -- 5. Urbanization, Agglomeration, and Coagglomeration of Service Industries -- 6. Who Benefits Whom in the Neighborhood? Demographics and Retail Product Geography -- 7. Understanding Agglomerations in Health Care -- 8. The Agglomeration of U.S. Ethnic Inventors -- 9. Small Establishments/ Big Effects: Agglomeration, Industrial Organization, and Entrepreneurship -- 10. Did the Death of Distance Hurt Detroit and Help New York? -- 11. New Evidence on Trends in the Cost of Urban Agglomeration -- Contributors -- Author Index -- Subject Index.

When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important, and even within cities industrial clusters remain vital. Agglomeration Economics brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving goods and transmitting information. The studies cover a wide range of topics and approach the economics of agglomeration from different angles. Together they advance our understanding of agglomeration and its implications for a globalized world.

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