Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning

Laurent Gobillon, Pierre-Philippe Combes and Yanos Zylberberg

No 15308, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: A recent literature has used a historical perspective to better understand fundamental questions of urban economics. However, a wide range of historical documents of exceptional quality remain underutilised: their use has been hampered by their original format or by the massive amount of information to be recovered. In this paper, we describe how and when the flexibility and predictive power of machine learning can help researchers exploit the potential of these historical documents. We first discuss how important questions of urban economics rely on the analysis of historical data sources and the challenges associated with transcription and harmonisation of such data. We then explain how machine learning approaches may address some of these challenges and we discuss possible applications.

Keywords: Urban economics; History; Machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C45 C81 N90 R11 R12 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cmp, nep-geo and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15308 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning (2022)
Working Paper: Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning (2022)
Working Paper: Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning (2022)
Working Paper: Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning (2022)
Working Paper: Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning (2021)
Working Paper: Urban economics in a historical perspective: Recovering data with machine learning (2021)
Working Paper: Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15308

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15308

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().