Cities and Skills

2001/04/01 by Edward L. Glaeser, Edward L. Glaeser, David C. Maré +1 · 14 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality #Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis

paper · doi:10.1086/319563

openalex publication_date 2001/04/01 · openalex created_date 2022/05/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Workers in cities earn 33% more than their nonurban counterparts. A large amount of evidence suggests that this premium is not just the result of higher ability workers living in cities, which means that cities make workers more productive. Evidence on migrants and the cross effect between urban status and experience implies that a significant fraction of the urban wage premium accrues to workers over time and stays with them when they leave cities. Therefore, a portion of the urban wage premium is a wage growth, not a wage level, effect. This evidence suggests that cities speed the accumulation of human capital.

Citations

• The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge

Cited by

• There's Nothing in the Air
• The making of regional inequality: Market stages in an Integrated or Fragmented world
• Housing, urban growth and inequalities: The limits to deregulation and upzoning in reducing economic and spatial inequality
• Location, Location, Location
• Place-based policies and geographical inequalities
• The Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors
• Urban Growth and Its Aggregate Implications
• Learners in cities: Agglomeration and the spatial division of cognition
• Matching in Cities
• The return to big-city experience: Evidence from refugees in Denmark
• Building Bridges and Widening Gaps
• Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?
• Neighborhood quality and labor market outcomes: Evidence from quasi-random neighborhood assignment of immigrants
• Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation