Agglomeration, Urban Wage Premiums, and College Majors
Journal of Regional Science
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the manner and extent to which worker skill type affects agglomeration economies that contribute to productivity in cities. I use college majors to proxy for skill types among workers with a bachelor’s degree. Workers with college training in information oriented and technical fields (e.g., STEM areas such as engineering, physical sciences, and economics) are associated with economically important within-field agglomeration economies and also generate sizeable spillovers for workers in other fields. In contrast, within-field and across-field spillovers for workers with college training in the arts and humanities are much smaller and often nonexistent. While previous research suggests proximity to college-educated workers enhances productivity, these findings suggest that not all college-educated workers are alike. Instead, positive spillover effects appear to derive mostly from proximity to workers with college training in information-oriented and technical fields.
