The economic dynamics of city structure: evidence from Hiroshima's recovery

Kohei Takeda and Atsushi Yamagishi

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We provide new theory and evidence on the resilience of internal city structure after a large shock, analyzing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Exploiting newly digitized data, we document that the city structure recovered within five years after the bombing. Our new dynamic quantitative model of internal city structure incorporates commuting, forward-looking location choices, migration frictions, agglomeration forces, and heterogeneous location fundamentals. Strong agglomeration forces in our estimated model explain Hiroshima's recovery, and we find an alternative equilibrium where the city center did not recover. These results highlight the role of agglomeration forces, multiple equilibria, and expectations in urban dynamics.

Keywords: agglomeration; history; expectations; atomic bombing; spatial dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 N45 O18 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2024-04-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-his and nep-mac
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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/126823/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: The economic dynamics of city structure: Evidence from Hiroshima's recovery (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:126823

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