Urban Economics in a Historical Perspective: Recovering Data with Machine Learning

Pierre-Philippe Combes, Laurent Gobillon and Yanos Zylberberg

No 14392, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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 However, a wide range of historical documents of exceptional quality remain underutilised: their use has been hampered by their original format or by the massive amount of information to be recovered.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and when the flexibility and predictive power of machine learning can help researchers exploit the potential of these historical documents.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)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2021-05
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)

Published - published in: Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2022, 94, 103711

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https://docs.iza.org/dp14392.pdf (application/pdf)

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 (2020)
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