The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities

Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri

Journal of Economic Geography, 2006, vol. 6, issue 1, 9-44

Abstract: What are the economic consequences to U.S. natives of the growing diversity of American cities? Is their productivity or utility affected by cultural diversity as measured by diversity of countries of birth of U.S. residents? We document in this paper a very robust correlation: US-born citizens living in metropolitan areas where the share of foreign-born increased between 1970 and 1990, experienced a significant increase in their wage and in the rental price of their housing. Such finding is economically significant and survives omitted variable bias and endogeneity bias. As people and firms are mobile across cities in the long run we argue that, in equilibrium, these correlations are consistent with a net positive effect of cultural diversity on the productivity of natives. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (608)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbi002 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Chapter: The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities (2021)
Chapter: The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities (2016)
Working Paper: The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities (2004)
Working Paper: The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities (2004)
Working Paper: The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US cities (2004)
Working Paper: The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities (2004)
Working Paper: The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities (2004)
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:oup:jecgeo:v:6:y:2006:i:1:p:9-44

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Geography is currently edited by Jorge De la Roca, Stephen Gibbons, Simona Iammarino, Amanda Ross and James Faulconbridge

More articles in Journal of Economic Geography from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().