Spatial Polarization

Fabio Cerina, Elisa Dienesch, Alessio Moro and Michelle Rendall

Working Paper CRENoS from Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia

Abstract: We document the emergence of spatial polarization in the U.S. during the 1980- 2008 period. This phenomenon is characterized by stronger employment polarization in larger cities, both at the occupational and the worker level. We quantitatively evaluate the role of technology in generating these patterns by constructing and calibrating a spatial equilibrium model. We find that faster skill- biased technological change in larger cities can account for a substantial fraction of spatial polarization in the U.S. Counterfactual exercises suggest that the differential increase in the share of low-skilled workers across city size is due mainly to the large demand by high-skilled workers for low-skilled services and to a smaller extent to the higher complementarity between low- and high-skilled workers in production relative to middle-skilled workers.

Keywords: Employment Polarization; City Sizes; Spatial Sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/node/7221
https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/sites/default/files/wp-19-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Spatial Polarisation (2023)
Working Paper: Spatial Polarization (2023)
Working Paper: Spatial Polarization (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201909

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