Productive cities: Sorting, selection and agglomeration

Gilles Duranton, Frederic Robert-Nicoud and Kristian Behrens

No 7922, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Large cities produce more output per capita than small cities. This may occur because more talented individuals sort into large cities, because large cities select more productive entrepreneurs and firms, or because of agglomeration economies. We develop a model of systems of cities that combines all three elements and suggests interesting complementarities between them. The model can replicate stylised facts about sorting, agglomeration, and selection in cities. It can also generate Zipf's law for cities. Finally, it provides a useful framework within which to reinterpret existing empirical evidence.

Keywords: Agglomeration; City size; Selection; Sorting; Urban premium; Zipf's law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 R10 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7922 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Productive Cities: Sorting, Selection, and Agglomeration (2014)
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:7922

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7922

Access Statistics for this paper

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