Real Estate & Planning Research Seminar by Professor Yanos Zylberberg, from the University of Bristol. Title: "The Death and Life of Great British Cities."

If you are interested in attending this Seminar please contact our Department School Office at repschooloffice@reading.ac.uk

Abstract: This paper studies how industrial structure shapes the life and death of cities. We identify English and Welsh settlements from historical maps between 1790– 1820, isolate exogenous variation in the nature of their rise during the nineteenth century, and estimate the causal impact of their (heterogeneous) size and industrial specialization on their later dynamics. We find a strong, negative effect of specialization, irrespective of secular industrial trends—consistent with dynamic externalities a la Jacobs. We then develop a spatial model to capture the role of productivity, amenities, land, and trade in explaining the distribution of economic activity across industries and cities. The dynamics in the model arise from city-specific externalities and aggregate, exogenous industry trends. We show how the early specialization of British cities—fostered by openness to trade and transportation—interact with these respective dynamic forces to explain current spatial inequalities.

Read the full Paper here

Bio: Yanos Zylberberg is currently a Professor at the University of Bristol. His research is at the intersection of economic geography, development, and economic history.