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This paper examines the productivity advantage of large cities for creative industries (CIs) in China. Using Chinese firm‐level data for CIs from 2012 to 2014, we find that agglomeration economies, rather than firm selection, determine the difference between the productivity distributions of CIs in large and small cities. There are heterogeneous effects of agglomeration economies, with stronger impacts on productive firms and firms in broadcasting and TV & film. We also find that the productivity advantage of large cities for CIs is stronger when the cities have better communication and transportation infrastructure. Our results imply that the efficacy of place‐based policies for developing CIs depends on local infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines empirically the economic relationship between local labour market size and firm returns to training. Anchoring in the literature of micro‐foundation of agglomeration economies, we suspect that this relation is driven by two mechanisms: (i) labour pooling which should positively influence the returns to training through matching and learning effects and (ii) the risk of labour poaching, which tends to reduce the returns to training in larger labour markets. Our estimates, based on a large sample of French industrial firms, reveal that returns to training are increasing with the labour market size, suggesting that labour pooling dominates labour poaching effects. On average, returns to training lie between 6.7 and 7.7%, more in line with the microeconomic literature on education than previous studies focusing on training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the location patterns of manufacturing industries in Brazil using a distance‐based measure and micro‐geographic panel data for a 10‐year period. Our results show that 89.9% and 91% of manufacturing at the 3‐digit level have statistically significant localization for 2006 and 2015, respectively, and that these patterns remain high when we consider 4‐digit classification. High‐tech industries have location patterns at short distances, being localized mainly in large urban areas, while low‐tech industries are also localized at long distances. We also present evidence that agglomeration economies affect the degree of spatial concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the influence of agglomeration and spatial sorting on wages in Brazilian cities. The empirical strategy is based on a two‐step estimation. The first step estimates a wage equation with the observed characteristics of workers and firms and location effects. The second step decomposes the location effects into employment density and fixed effects of firm and worker. We estimate an urban wage premium for a developing country with the simultaneous inclusion of worker and firm fixed effects, instrumental variables, and nighttime lights. We find agglomeration effects of 4.3–5.7%, which are larger than those obtained for developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on the extent to which polycentric urban regions can substitute for the agglomeration economies provided by large cities. Building on an open‐source software tool that helps identifying polycentric developments in urban regions, we analyse the spatial structure (in terms of size, dispersion and polycentricity) of 94 regions across 34 European countries and link this to their level of total factor productivity. We find that both more polycentric regions and more dispersed regions are associated with lower productivity levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we explore the role of agglomeration economies on unemployment‐to‐work transition rates in French employment areas. Mobilizing administrative exhaustive data files from individuals registered at the employment agency, we estimate local transition rates that are independent of differences in local characteristics of job seekers. Then, observed disparities between areas are explained by population density, our measure for agglomeration effects, and some demographic and labor market characteristics. We retain econometrics models considering spatial dependency for our dependent variable but also endogeneity of our main variable of interest. We find a negative relationship between population density and unemployment to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of a rural roads programme depend on labour mobility, how the programme is financed, and agglomeration economies. If financed by a rural poll tax and cross‐price effects and agglomeration economies are sufficiently small, the wage will rise, with some return migration. Taxes on trade act as countervailing distortions, yielding urban households some relief. Rural‐urban commuting promotes the exploitation of agglomeration economies; taxes on international trade are then inferior to a poll tax. The change in the value, at producer prices, of the rural sector's net supply vector can be a poor measure of the programme's social profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One is that agglomeration economies will suffer in both large and small cities, because many women workers have left the workforce in order to take care of children who are no longer in school. I Urban empires: Cities as global rulers in the new urban world i is a collection of essays on the theme that large cities have become economic behemoths ("urban empires") that rule the world. The book contains a number of essays explaining why large cities are so economically important, which mainly emphasize versions of increasing returns to scale/agglomeration economies: physical proximity of people and firms generates new ideas and increases productivity. [Extracted from the article]