Employment Concentration across US Counties

Marcel Fafchamps, Klaus Desmet and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and CEPR

No 180, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper examines the spatial distribution of jobs across US counties and investigates whether sectoral employment is becoming more or less concentrated. The existing literature has found deconcentration (convergence) of employment across urban areas. Cities only cover a small part of the US, though. Using county data, our results indicate that deconcentration is limited to the upper tail of the distribution. The overall picture is one of increasing concentration (divergence). While this seemingly contradicts the well documented deconcentration in manufacturing, we show that these aggregate employment dynamics are driven by services. Non-service sectors - such as manufacturing and farming - are indeed becoming more equally spread across space, but services are becoming increasingly concentrated.

Keywords: Spatial Distribution; Convergence; Sectoral Employment; US Counties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O51 R11 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-12-01
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Related works:
Journal Article: Employment concentration across U.S. counties (2006)
Working Paper: Employment Concentration Across US Counties (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:wpaper:180

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