This paper extends the urban growth model of Duranton and Puga (2022) to explore the impact of cities on local firms and households and the aggregate economy of Germany. We adopt alternative micro-foundations for agglomeration economies and a non-linear specification of human capital accumulation. This allows us to characterize the social optimum and to bring the model in line with semi-endogenous growth. We also innovate by incorporating consumptive amenities and fiscal transfers into the model. On the empirical side we exploit the structural equations of the model and rich sets of micro-data for Germany's labor markets, housing rents, and household travel-to-work data, to estimate the population elasticities of urban benefits and costs. We are the first to establish elasticities for urban costs for Germany, an estimated elasticity of commuting costs with respect to distance travelled of 0.071, and an estimate for the population elasticity of travel congestion of 0.068. Our estimates for static and dynamic agglomeration elasticities are 0.017 and 0.020, respectively. We innovate on the calibration strategy to capture the important role of consumptive amenities and fiscal transfers in Germany. The model innovations and calibration are shown to be strongly supported by several pieces of evidence. Our key policy counterfactual is a proportionate increase of the population in Germany's Top Seven metropolises by 10% which implies a significant overall welfare benefit of 1.12% per person. This involves mild losses for city incumbents but strong gains for city newcomers. We also address the effects of a counter-factual shift to the social optimum and a counterfactual removal of fiscal transfers. Our final exercise evaluates the implications of cities and agglomeration economies for aggregate growth in Germany. We find that these account for 0.011 additional percentage points of growth in income per capita per year.

This paper develops a model with an endogenous number of cities to explore whether local governments establish the optimal city size when activities in the city are associated with emissions that harm consumers. In contrast to extant research, our model is fully micro-founded with respect to the urban sector and the agglomeration mechanism as well as the modeling of pollution and pollution abatement. We derive two key insights. First, if the national government implements a permit system (equivalently, pollution taxes) that allow for emissions as in the first-best, cities chosen by local governments are too small. Second, if no emission scheme is implemented, or if emission policies are too lax, cities steered by local governments may become too large. The tractability of the model also allows us to uncover the determinants of optimal city sizes, emissions, emission intensities and determinants of locally chosen city sizes, as well as to address the second-best emission policy and extensions to city asymmetries, a fiscal externality, local pollution, generalized commuting costs and further pollution sources.

Is urbanization good for the environment? This paper establishes a simple core-periphery model with monocentric cities, which comprises key forces that shape the structure and interrelation of cities to study the impact of the urban evolution on the environment. We focus on global warming and the potential of unfettered market forces to economize on emissions. The model parameters are chosen to match the dichotomy between average "large" and "small" cities in the urban geography of the United States, and the sectoral greenhouse gas emissions recorded for the United States. Based on numerical analyzes we find that a forced switch to a system with equally sized cities reduces total emissions. Second, any city driver which pronounces the asymmetry between the core and the periphery drives up emissions in the total city system, too, and the endogenous adjustment of the urban system accounts for the bulk of the change in emissions. Third, none of the city drivers gives rise to an urban environmental Kuznets curve according to our numerical simulations. Finally, the welfare-maximizing allocation tends to involve dispersion of cities and the more so the higher is the marginal damage from pollution.

Städte und Regionen entwickeln sich zurzeit ungleich und erzeugen gesellschaftlich und politisch Aufmerksamkeit. Die Sorge vor einem weiteren Aufreißen der Lücken zwischen Stadt und Land und zwischen Gewinner- und Verliererregionen des Strukturwandels sitzt tief und damit auch die Sorge vor sozialen und politischen Verwerfungen. Wie lässt sich die Entwicklung von Städten und Regionen erklären? Was sind zentrale Treiber der Regionalentwicklung? Was soll und was kann Regionalpolitik leisten?

This paper develops a simple general equilibrium model which establishes a link between the patience of economic agents and the well-being of nations. We show that firms in long-term oriented countries can mitigate hold-up inefficiencies by engaging with their suppliers in relational contracting-informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships. Our model predicts that countries with a higher level of patience will exhibit greater economic well-being and higher total factor productivity. We provide empirical evidence in line with the predictions of our theory.

This paper develops a quantitative spatial general equilibrium model for the German economy to address two issues. First, we explore the role of commuting for local labor markets and their capacity to absorb productivity shocks. Second, we address the role of housing markets for quantitative analyses. Germany is an exciting laboratory because commuting across local labor markets is pervasive, unique data are available, and because Germany’s high degree of trade openness poses a thrilling counterpoint to the United States. Our key findings for German counties are that the employment and resident elasticities associated with local productivity shocks are much above unity, yet disparate (the former larger than the latter), very heterogeneous, and only poorly predicted by simple labor market statistics. Allowing the supply of land/housing to be price elastic increases the elasticities and reinforces our conclusions. The regional heterogeneity of the land/housing shares in Germany turns out to be inessential for our findings, the level of the land/housing share plays an important role, however. We perform a plethora of robustness checks which allow us to gain perspective on extant findings for the United States.

This paper contributes to the theoretical research exploring the interface between comparative advantage (locational fundamentals) and agglomeration economies. A simple model is developed which highlights costly trade of final outputs and of intermediates. We derive the novel insight that the interaction between comparative advantage and agglomeration economies involves a fundamental tension which is intricately affected by trade costs. A reduction of trade costs fosters the dispersive impact of comparative advantage in sectors governed by this force whilst the impact of agglomeration economies is enhanced by a fall in trade costs in industries where increasing returns prevail. The key implication for international trade is that the relative wage between large and small economies is not only shaped by the primitive determinants of agglomeration economies and comparative advantage but also, in a different way, by trade costs. The key implication for an economic geography setting where labor is mobile is that partial agglomeration emerges when agglomeration economies are strong relative to comparative advantage, and this is more likely when trade costs are lower (higher) in industries governed by increasing returns (comparative advantage). The model provides a foundation for an urban system in which the larger city exhibits more diversity in production.

This paper explores the quantitative consequences of transatlantic trade liberalization envisioned in a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union. Our key innovation is to develop a new quantitative spatial trade model and to use an associated technique which is extraordinarily parsimonious and tightly connects theory and data. We take input-output linkages across industries into account and make use of the recently established World Input Output Database (WIOD). We also explore the consequences of labor mobility across local labor markets in Germany and the countries of the European Union. We address the considerable uncertainties connected both with the quantification of non-tariff trade barriers and the outcome of the negotiations by taking a corridor of trade liberalization paths into account.

The division of labor between and within countries is driven by two fundamental forces, comparative advantage and increasing returns. We set up a simple Ricardian model with a Marshallian input sharing mechanism to study their interplay. The key insight that emerges is that the interaction between agglomeration economies and comparative advantage involves a fundamental tension which is intricately affected by trade costs. A reduction of trade costs fosters the dispersive impact of comparative advantage in sectors governed by this force whilst the impact of agglomeration economies is enhanced by trade cost reductions in the increasing returns sector. The key implication for international trade is that the wage ratio between large and small economies is not only shaped by the primitives that determine agglomeration economies and comparative advantage but also, and differentially, by the sectoral levels of trade costs. The fundamental implication for an economic geography context where labor is mobile across locations is that partial agglomeration emerges when agglomeration economies are strong relative to comparative advantage, and this is more likely the lower are trade costs in increasing returns sectors and the higher are trade costs in sectors governed by comparative advantage. The model may serve as a foundation for an urban system where the endogenously emerging larger city exhibits more diversity in production.

Der Welthandel ist seit den 1950er Jahren fast regelmäßig schneller gewachsen als die globale Wirtschaftsleistung. China ist inzwischen zum Exportweltmeister aufgestiegen. Möglich wurde dies durch kontinuierliche multilaterale Handelsliberalisierungen, die allerdings seit Beginn dieses Jahrhunderts stocken. Derzeit dominieren regionale Abkommen die globale Handelspolitik. Die Abkehr vom Multilateralismus ist auch als Hinwendung zu einem machtbasierten System zu verstehen. Die Interessen der schwächeren Handelsnationen werden dabei weniger berücksichtigt. Mit dem Handel wächst zudem das Verkehrsaufkommen, was ökologisch unerwünschte Folgen mit sich bringt.

This paper explores the quantitative consequences of transatlantic trade liberalization envisioned in a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union. Our key innovation is to base our estimate on a new quantitative trade model with an associated recent technique which is far more parsimonious and has a far tighter connection between theory and data than previous approaches. We make use of the recently established detailed World Input Output Database (WIOD). This allows us to take input-output linkages pertaining among industries into account. We also explore the consequences of labor mobility across the countries of the European Union.

This paper explores the quantitative consequences of transatlantic trade liberalization envisioned in a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union. Our key innovation is to base our estimate on a new quantitative trade model with an associated recent technique which is far more parsimonious and has a far tighter connection between theory and data than previous approaches. We make use of the recently established detailed World Input Output Database (WIOD). This allows us to take input-output linkages pertaining among industries into account. We also explore the consequences of labor mobility across the countries of the European Union.

The last century has witnessed dramatic changes in the world economy. The service (tertiary) sector, which at the beginning of the 20th century was of little importance relative to agriculture and manufacturing, has become the dominant sector today, accounting for 80% and more of value added in advanced countries and around 70% and of employment. Innovations in transport technologies and in information and communications technologies have radically reduced the costs of trading goods and have also made an increasing share of services tradeable. We propose a tractable micro-founded Ricardo-Marshall model to study the implications of the rise of the service sector and its interaction with international trade and factor mobility for the location of economic activity. Our model highlights a tension between nontradeable producer services which exert an agglomerative force and trade costs and comparative advantage in final goods and services which act as dispersion forces.

This paper explores the role of country asymmetries for trade and industrial policies with heterogeneous firms. The analysis delivers a number of novel results. First, trade policies, infrastructure policies and industrial policies which improve the business conditions in one country have negative productivity and welfare effects on the trading partner. Second, symmetric trade liberalization is immiserizing for a trading partner whose business conditions are inferior. Third, there are gains from trade even for a country whose monopolistically competitive sector with heterogeneous firms is wiped out by switching from autarky to trade.

The risk of market exit that business firms face is significant and differs widely across countries. This paper explores the links between countries' business conditions and the exit risk at the country level. We set up a general equilibrium model which allows us to derive sharp predictions concerning how key factors which shape a country's business and trade environment impact on the exit risk of firms which operate in these environments. The model is able to explain the negative correlation between countries' average labor productivity and the perceived risks of exit borne out in the facts and its predictions accord with evidence on country differences in business conditions.

Summary The last decade has been shaped by dramatic developments in international trade, international investment and production, both in terms of the scale of events and in terms of their qualitative nature. Intriguing questions have been thrown up concerning the labor market impact of these developments, notably welfare issues (the evolution of real wages, employment and unemployment), the distribution of income (the wage structure) and employment volatility. Path-breaking innovations in the theories of trade, location and the multinational firm allow a fresh look at these labor market effects. This paper takes stock of these theoretical innovations and contrasts these with the recent empirical research efforts to uncover the labor market implications of trade and FDI. We identify research gaps and highlight promising avenues for future research.

We develop a two-country model with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous firms where entrants pay a sunk cost and randomly draw their productivity level. Governments collect lump-sum taxes and subsidize these sunk entry costs for the domestic entrepreneurs. One motive for this policy, valid already in autarky, is to tighten market selection. This selection effect leads to better firms that produce and sell more output at lower prices. In the open economy there is another, strategic motive for entry subsidies as the tightening of market selection leads to a competitive advantage for domestic producers in international trade. Our analysis shows that entry subsidies in the Nash equilibrium are first increasing, then decreasing in the level of trade freeness. Comparing the non-cooperative and the cooperative policies, we furthermore show that there is first too much and then too little entry subsidization in the course of trade integration.