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...

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...

To test the localized tastes hypothesis, we use historical dialect similarity as an instrument to predict the persistent component of regional taste differences. Analyzing wholesale markets for fruits and vegetables in Japan, we find that predicted taste differences have a strong, statistically...

To test the localized tastes hypothesis, we use historical dialect similarity as an instrument to predict the persistent component of regional taste differences. Analyzing wholesale markets for fruits and vegetables in Japan, we find that predicted taste differences have a strong, statistically...

To test the localized tastes hypothesis, we use historical dialect similarity as an instrument to predict the persistent component of regional taste differences. Analyzing wholesale markets for fruits and vegetables in Japan, we find that predicted taste differences have a strong, statistically...

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,...

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...

The aim of this paper is to provide a new mechanism for the spatial mismatch hypothesis. Spatial mismatch can here be the result of optimizing behavior on the part of the labor market participants. In particular, the unemployed can choose low amounts of search and long-term unemployment if they...