Agglomeration, Urban Wage Premiums, and College Majors

Journal of Regional Science, 2017

Shimeng Liu

Abstract:

       The aim of this paper is to examine the manner and extent to which worker skill type affects agglomeration economies that contribute to productivity in cities. I use college majors to proxy for skill types among workers with a bachelor's degree. Workers with college training in information-oriented and technical fields (e.g., STEM areas such as engineering, physical sciences, and economics) are associated with economically important within-field agglomeration economies and also generate sizeable spillovers for workers in other fields. In contrast, within-field and across-field spillovers for workers with college training in the arts and humanities are much smaller and often nonexistent. While previous research suggests proximity to college-educated workers enhances productivity, these findings suggest that not all college-educated workers are alike. Instead, positive spillover effects appear to derive mostly from proximity to workers with collegetraining in information-oriented and technical fields.