IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/15636.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What makes cities bigger and richer? Evidence from 1990-2000 in the US

Author

Listed:
  • González-Val, Rafael

Abstract

This paper analyses the determinants of growth of American cities, understood as growth of the population or per capita income, from 1990 to 2000. This empirical analysis uses data from all cities with no size restriction (our sample contains data for 21,655 cities). The results show that while population growth in cities appears to be independent of initial size, the growth of city per capita income is negatively correlated to initial per capita income: the richest cities grew less in this period. To try to explain these differentiated behaviors, we examine the relationship between urban characteristics in 1990 and city growth (both in population and in per capita income) using a Multinomial Logit Model. The geographical situation of cities seems to play a key role in their growth.

Suggested Citation

  • González-Val, Rafael, 2009. "What makes cities bigger and richer? Evidence from 1990-2000 in the US," MPRA Paper 15636, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:15636
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15636/1/MPRA_paper_15636.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/24732/1/MPRA_paper_24732.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55023/1/MPRA_paper_55023.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    2. Hausman, Jerry & McFadden, Daniel, 1984. "Specification Tests for the Multinomial Logit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(5), pages 1219-1240, September.
    3. Henderson, Vernon & Kuncoro, Ari & Turner, Matt, 1995. "Industrial Development in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 1067-1090, October.
    4. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-95-4 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
    6. Andrew T. Young & Matthew J. Higgins & Daniel Levy, 2008. "Sigma Convergence versus Beta Convergence: Evidence from U.S. County-Level Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 1083-1093, August.
    7. John M. Quigley, 1998. "Urban Diversity and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 127-138, Spring.
    8. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Glenn C. Loury, 1979. "Market Structure and Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 395-410.
    10. Small, Kenneth A & Hsiao, Cheng, 1985. "Multinomial Logit Specification Tests," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(3), pages 619-627, October.
    11. Glaeser, Edward L. & Scheinkman, JoseA. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1995. "Economic growth in a cross-section of cities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 117-143, August.
    12. Mitchener, Kris James & McLean, Ian W, 2003. "The Productivity of US States since 1880," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 73-114, March.
    13. Huriot,Jean-Marie & Thisse,Jacques-François (ed.), 2000. "Economics of Cities," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521641906, January.
    14. J. Scott Long & Jeremy Freese, 2006. "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables using Stata, 2nd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 2, number long2, April.
    15. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rafael González-Val, 2011. "What makes cities bigger and richer? New Evidence from 1990–2000 in the US," ERSA conference papers ersa11p325, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Rafael González-Val, 2015. "Cross-sectional growth in US cities from 1990 to 2000," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 83-106, January.
    3. Rafael González-Val, 2015. "Cross-sectional growth in US cities from 1990 to 2000," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 83-106, January.
    4. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    5. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2001. "Nursery Cities: Urban Diversity, Process Innovation, and the Life Cycle of Products," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1454-1477, December.
    6. Yuri Jo & Chang-Yang Lee, 2014. "Technological Capability, Agglomeration Economies and Firm Location Choice," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(8), pages 1337-1352, August.
    7. Kwok Tong Soo, 2018. "Innovation across cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 295-314, March.
    8. Jordan Rappaport & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "The U.S. as a coastal nation," Research Working Paper RWP 01-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    9. Aurélie LALANNE & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    10. Findeisen, Sebastian & Südekum, Jens, 2008. "Industry churning and the evolution of cities: Evidence for Germany," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 326-339, September.
    11. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2000. "Diversity and Specialisation in Cities: Why, Where and When Does it Matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(3), pages 533-555, March.
    12. Sánchez-Vidal, María & González-Val, Rafael & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2014. "Sequential city growth in the US: Does age matter?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 29-37.
    13. Bun Song Lee & Kim Sosin & Sung Hyo Hong, 2005. "Sectoral Manufacturing Productivity Growth in Korean Regions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(7), pages 1201-1219, June.
    14. Reggiani, Aura & Bucci, Pietro & Russo, Giovanni & Haas, Anette & Nijkamp, Peter, 2011. "Regional labour markets and job accessibility in City Network systems in Germany," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 528-536.
    15. Mori, Tomoya & Turrini, Alessandro, 2005. "Skills, agglomeration and segmentation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 201-225, January.
    16. Mario Polèse, 2005. "Cities and National Economic Growth: A Reappraisal," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(8), pages 1429-1451, July.
    17. Tomoya Mori & Tony E. Smith, 2009. "A Reconsideration of the NAS Rule from an Industrial Agglomeration Perspective," KIER Working Papers 669, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    18. Daniel Broxterman & Anthony Yezer, 2021. "Human capital divergence and the size distribution of cities: Is Gibrat’s law obsolete?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(12), pages 2549-2568, September.
    19. Rafael González-Val, 2011. "Deviations from Zipf’s Law for American Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(5), pages 1017-1035, April.
    20. Ho Yeon KIM & Petra de Jong & Jan Rouwendal & Aleid Brouwer, 2012. "Shrinking population and the urban hierarchy [Housing preferences and attribute importance among Dutch older adults: a conjoint choice experiment]," ERSA conference papers ersa12p350, European Regional Science Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    City growth; Multinomial logit;

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:15636. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.