Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines

Edward L. Glaeser (), Sari Pekkala Kerr and William Kerr
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Edward L. Glaeser: Harvard University

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2015, vol. 97, issue 2, 498-520

Abstract: We study entrepreneurship and growth through the lens of U.S. cities. Initial entrepreneurship correlates strongly with urban employment growth, but endogeneity bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near cities led to specialization in industries, like steel, with significant scale economies and that those big firms subsequently damped entrepreneurship across several generations. Proximity to historical mining deposits is associated with reduced entrepreneurship for cities in the 1970s and onward in industries unrelated to mining. We use historical mines as an instrument for our modern entrepreneurship measures and find a persistent link between entrepreneurship and city employment growth. © 2015 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Keywords: entrepreneurship; U.S. cities; urban employment; employment growth; endogeneity; scale economies; historical mining; 1970s; city employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E00 E20 J20 J21 J40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (196)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines (2015)
Working Paper: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND URBAN GROWTH:AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT WITH HISTORICAL MINES (2013)
Working Paper: Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines (2012)
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