From Sectoral to Functional Urban Specialization

Gilles Duranton and Diego Puga

No 2971, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We document and then develop a model explaining and relating changes in firms? organization and in urban structure. Sharing of business services by headquarters and of sector-specific intermediates by production plants within a city reduces costs, while congestion increases with city size. A fall in the costs of remote management leads to a shift in urban structure, from a configuration where cities specialize by sector and host integrated headquarters and production plants, to a configuration where cities specialize by function, with headquarters from different sectors and business services clustered in a few large cities and production plants from each sector clustered in smaller separate cities.

Keywords: Functional specialization; Cities; Business services; Headquarters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L23 R12 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP2971 (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: From sectoral to functional urban specialisation (2005)
Working Paper: From Sectoral to Functional Urban Specialization (2002)
Working Paper: From Sectoral To Functional Urban Specialisation (2001)
Working Paper: From sectoral to functional urban specialisation (2001)
Working Paper: From sectoral to functional urban specialisation (2001)
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:2971

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP2971

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 ().