要旨：Young women outnumber young men in cities in many countries during periods of economic growth and urbanization. This gender imbalance among young urbanites is more pronounced in larger cities. We use the gradual rollout of special economic zones across China as a quasi-experiment to establish the causal impact of urbanization on gender-differential incentives to migrate. Our analysis suggests that a plausible explanation is rural women’s higher likelihood of marrying and marrying up in cities during rapid urbanization.

【論文】※4/14差替版

《Paper》

Abstract: We develop an urban growth model where human capital spillovers foster entrepreneurship and learning in heterogeneous cities. Incumbent residents limit city expansion through planning regulations so that commuting and housing costs do not outweigh productivity gains from agglomeration. The model builds on strong microfoundations, matches key regularities at the city and economy-wide levels, and generates novel predictions for which we provide evidence. It can be quantified relying on few parameters, provides a basis to estimate the main ones, and remains transparent regarding its mechanisms. We examine various counterfactuals to assess the effect of cities on economic growth and aggregate output quantitatively.

要旨：This paper revisits the core-periphery model of Krugman (1991) when his CES utility is replaced by a general additively separable sub-utility which captures the income effect and allows variable markups. New evolving paths and bifurcation patterns are created by the interaction between the agglomeration force generated by monopolistic competition, increasing returns to scale, trade cost and the dispersion force resulting from the pro-competitive effect. Autarky does not necessarily produce full dispersion and free trade may not correspond to agglomeration. Moreover, the demand parameter of manufactured goods is crucial to determining the firm location.