The returns to skills and the nature of work differ systematically across labor markets of different sizes. Prior research has pointed to worker interactions, technological innovation, and specialization as key sources of urban productivity gains, but has been limited by the available data in...

Where does adaptation to innovation take place? The author presents evidence on the role of agglomeration economies in the application of new knowledge to production. All else equal, workers are more likely to be observed in new work in locations that are initially dense in both college...

Where does adaptation to innovation take place? The supply of educated workers and local industry structure matter for the subsequent location of new work - that is, new types of labor-market activities that closely follow innovation. Using census 2000 microdata, the author shows that regions...

Declining internal migration in the United States is driven by increasing home attachment in locations with initially high rates of population turnover. These 'fast' locations were the population growth destinations of the 20th century, where home attachments were low, but have increased as...

This paper studies how U.S. local labor markets respond to employment losses after recessions. Following each recession between 1973 and 2009, we find that areas that lose more jobs during the recession experience persistent relative declines in employment and population. Most importantly and...

Using survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document descriptively that unemployment has a relatively large effect on individual mortgage default rates: The average default rate for the employed is 2.4%; whereas for the unemployed, it is 8.5%. Once several other characteristics...

Gentrification has provoked considerable debate and controversy about its effects on neighborhoods and the people residing in them. This paper draws on a unique large-scale consumer credit database to examine the mobility patterns of residents in gentrifying neighborhoods in the city of...

There have been considerable debate and controversy about the effects of gentrification on neighborhoods and the people residing in them. This paper draws on a unique large-scale consumer credit database to examine the relationship between gentrification and the credit scores of residents in the...

Can social influence effects help explain regional heterogeneity in refinancing activity? Neighborhood social influence effects have been shown to affect publicly observable decisions, but their role in private decisions, like refinancing, remains unclear. Using precisely geolocated data and a...

Using a sample of the 48 mainland U.S. states for the period 1973-2009, we study the ability of U.S. states to expand their own state employment through the use of state deficit policies. The analysis allows for the facts that U.S. states are part of a wider monetary and economic union with free...