Why Has Urban Inequality Increased?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baum-Snow, Nathaniel; Freedman, Matthew; Pavan, Ronni
• 署名单位: University of Toronto; University of California System; University of California Irvine; University of Rochester
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20160510
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1-42
• 关键词: capital-skill complementarity; labor-market; wage inequality; immigrant inflows; technical change; native outflows; city size; PRODUCTIVITY; determinants; workers

摘要

This paper examines mechanisms driving the more rapid increases in wage inequality in larger cities between 1980 and 2007. Production function estimates indicate strong evidence of capital-skill complementarity and increases in the skill bias of agglomeration economies in the context of rapid skill-biased technical change. Immigration shocks are the source of identifying variation across cities in changes to the relative supply of skilled versus unskilled labor. Estimates indicate that changes in the factor biases of agglomeration economies rationalize at least 80 percent of the more rapid increases in wage inequality in larger cities.