Working Papers
Tasks, Cities and Wage Growth. 2023. New draft coming soon!
[ Abstract | Ruhr Economic Papers Version]
Wage growth is stronger in larger cities, but this relationship holds exclusively for non-manual workers. Using rich German administrative data, I study the heterogeneity in the pecuniary value of big city experience, a measure of dynamic agglomeration economies, and its consequences for the city-size wage gap. After 15 years of work experience in Munich the cumulative earnings premium relative to median-sized cities is 15% for workers in the most manual occupations, 25% for workers in the least manual occupations and 30% for workers in the most analytical occupations. This cumulative wage premium is 3 to 5 times the static city-size wage gap.
The Local Effects of Industrial Complexes. 2026. (with Lennart Palm and Ugur Yesilbayraktar)
[ Abstract | Working Paper]
We examine the local effects of South Korea’s large-scale place-based industrial policy of constructing industrial complexes in left-behind regions. We compile a novel dataset on industrial complex designations dating back to the 1960s and link it to administrative establishment surveys. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design, we estimate the causal effects of industrial complex designation on local economic outcomes. We find that industrial complex designation increases aggregate local employment by approximately 15 percent ten years after designation and raises manufacturing output by roughly 40 percent. Employment growth occurs not only in the subsidized manufacturing sector but also in the services and construction sectors, which are not directly targeted by the policy. We find that each additional job in an industrial complex generates 1.3 to 1.9 jobs in the local economy, including itself. These additional jobs are created entirely in the services and construction sectors. In contrast, all manufacturing employment gains are attributable to activity within the industrial complexes, with nearly three quarters arising from the expansion of establishments that existed prior to the construction of the complex. We find no evidence that industrial complexes increase manufacturing establishments’ productivity, as measured by output or value added per worker. However, we document increases in investment, as measured by tangible assets, consistent with the policy primarily alleviating capital constraints rather than raising productivity.
The Spatial Distribution of Tasks and Wages. (with Anja Grujovic) New draft coming soon!
[ Abstract | Working Paper]
Since the 1980s, the segregation of workers by skill across cities has consistently increased with high-skill workers sorting into larger cities. We show that changes in job task content can partially explain the evolution of spatial sorting by worker skill. Building on stylized facts of worker sorting, we propose a framework in which spatial sorting by worker skill arises from more productive cities having a comparative advantage in skill-intensive tasks. In equilibrium, initially more productive locations grow larger and attract more high-skill workers, and the urban wage premium is larger for both high-skilled workers and occupations with a higher share of skill-intensive tasks. Our framework yields two novel predictions. First, the observed skill-bias in the urban wage premium stems from a task-bias in agglomeration economies. Second, a worker's productivity in a specific city is determined by her occupation's task content and the city's comparative advantage in the production of skill-intensive tasks. %how much an occupation benefits from cities' productive advantages depends on both its task content and the strength of a city's comparative advantage in skill-intensive tasks. Consequently, our model shows that the evolution of spatial sorting by skill can be explained by changes in job task content. Using administrative data from Germany, we find support for our model's predictions. The urban wage premium ranges from 1.7 to 2.5 percentage points depending on job task content. Moreover, we observe strong spatial sorting of occupations by their analytical task content.
Work in Progress
The Political Consequences of the Spanish Flu.