Large cities (central places) excessively export to smaller cities in their surrounding hinterland. Using Japanese inter-city trade data, we identify a substantial centrality bias: Shipments from central places to their hinterland are 50%-125% larger than predicted by gravity forces. This upward...

City size distributions are known to be well approximated by power laws across many countries. One popular explanation for such power-law regularities is in terms of random growth processes, where power laws arise asymptotically from the assumption of iid growth rates among all cities within a...

Standard approaches to studying industrial agglomeration have been in terms of scalar measures of agglomeration within each industry. But such measures often fail to distinguish spatial scales of agglomeration. In a previ- ous paper, Mori and Smith (2014) proposed a pair of quantitative measures...

We propose and apply a new theory-consistent algorithm, which uses disaggregated inter-city trade data to identify a pyramidic city system with central places and associated hinterlands. Because central places possess more industries than the cities in their hinterlands, and because industries,...

We propose and apply a new theory-consistent algorithm, which uses disaggregated inter-city trade data to identify a pyramidic city system with central places and associated hinterlands. Because central places possess more industries than the cities in their hinterlands, and because industries,...

The effect of labour costs on industry profits, employment and labour income is at the heart of the current European debate on industry competitiveness. High wages paid in European countries such as Germany are generally considered harmful for industry profitability. Though, high wages appear...

This paper estimates the impact of fiscal consolidation on unemployment and job market flows across EU countries using a recent database of consolidation episodes built on the basis of a "narrative" approach (Devries et al., 2011). Results show that the impact of fiscal consolidation on cyclical...

This paper proposes a methodology for benchmarking unemployment benefits systems, with a view to assess reform needs and priorities. The methodology permits to assess different dimensions of unemployment benefit systems and to consider alternative relevant benchmarks. Looking at all relevant...

This paper estimates the impact of fiscal consolidation on unemployment and job market flows across EU countries using a recent database of consolidation episodes built on the basis of a 'narrative' approach (Devries et al., 2011). Results show that the impact of fiscal consolidation on cyclical...