Texte remanié de : Tesis de doctorado : Urbanismo : México, UNAM : 2000 : Productividad y ventajas competitivas en el sistema urbano nacional. / Bibliogr. p. [485]-513.

This study presents an analytical model of the interaction between urban form and the demand for transit travel, in which residential location, transit demand, and the spatial dispersion of non-work activities are endogenously determined. In this model, travel demand is considered a derived demand brought about by the necessity to engage in out-ofhome activities whose geographical extent is affected by urban form. In a departure from the urban monocentric model, residential location is defined as a job-residence pair in an urban area in which jobs, residences, and non-work activities are dispersed. Transit demand is then determined by residential location, work trips, non-work trip chains, and goods consumption. Theoretically derived hypotheses are empirically tested using a dataset that integrates travel and land-use data. There is evidence of a significant influence of land-use patterns on transit patronage. In turn, transit demand affects consumption and non-work travel. Although much reliance has been placed on population density as a determinant of transit demand, it is found here that population density does not have a large impact on transit demand and, moreover, that the effect decreases when residential location is endogenous. To increase transit use, urban planners have advocated a mix of residential and commercial uses in proximity to transit stations. In this study, it is found that the importance of transit-station proximity is weakened by idiosyncratic preferences for residential location. In addition, when population density and residential location are jointly endogenous, the elasticity of transit demand with respect to walking distance to a transit station decreases by about 33 percent over the case in which these variables are treated an exogenous. The research reported here is the first empirical work that explicitly relates residential location to trip chaining in a context in which individuals jointly decide residential location and the trip chain. If is found that households living farther from work use less transit and that trip-chaining behavior explains this finding. Households living far from work engage in complex trip chains and have, on average, a more dispersed activity space, which requires reliance on more flexible modes of transportation. Therefore, reducing the spatial allocation of non-work activities and improving transit accessibility at and around subcenters would increase transit demand. Similar effects can be obtained by increasing the presence of retail locations in proximity to transit-oriented households. Although focused on transit demand, the framework can be easily generalized to study other forms of travel.

M. Tech. Comparative Local Development

<p>This dissertation consists of three separate essays that use dynamic models to better understand the human capital accumulation process. First, I analyze the role of migration in human capital accumulation and how migration varies over the business cycle. An interesting trend in the data is that, over the period of the Great Recession, overall migration rates in the US remained close to their respective long-term trends. However, migration evolved differently by employment status: unemployed workers were more likely to migrate during the recession and employed workers less likely. To isolate mechanisms explaining this divergence, I estimate a dynamic, non-stationary search model of migration using a national longitudinal survey from 2004-2013. I focus on the role of employment frictions on migration decisions in addition to other explanations in the literature. My results show that a divergence in job offer and job destruction rates caused differing migration incentives by employment status. I also find that migration rates were muted because of the national scope of the Great Recession. Model simulations show that spatial unemployment insurance in the form of a moving subsidy can help workers move to more favorable markets.</p><p>In the second essay, my coauthors and I explore the role of information frictions in the acquisition of human capital. Specifically, we investigate the determinants of college attrition in a setting where individuals have imperfect information about their schooling ability and labor market productivity. We estimate a dynamic structural model of schooling and work decisions, where high school graduates choose a bundle of education and work combinations. We take into account the heterogeneity in schooling investments by distinguishing between two- and four-year colleges and graduate school, as well as science and non-science majors for four-year colleges. Individuals may also choose whether to work full-time, part-time, or not at all. A key feature of our approach is to account for correlated learning through college grades and wages, thus implying that individuals may leave or re-enter college as a result of the arrival of new information on their ability and/or productivity. We use our results to quantify the importance of informational frictions in explaining the observed school-to-work transitions and to examine sorting patterns.</p><p>In the third essay, my coauthors and I investigate the evolution over the last two decades in the wage returns to schooling and early work experience. </p><p>Using data from the 1979 and 1997 panels of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we isolate changes in skill prices from changes in composition by estimating a dynamic model of schooling and work decisions. Importantly, this allows us to account for the endogenous nature of the changes in educational and accumulated work experience over this time period. We find an increase over this period in the returns to working in high school, but a decrease in the returns to working while in college. We also find an increase in the incidence of working in college, but that any detrimental impact of in-college work experience is offset by changes in other observable characteristics. Overall, our decomposition of the evolution in skill premia suggests that both price and composition effects play an important role. The role of unobserved ability is also important.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-153). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-143).

Thesis (Ph. D)--Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 2007. / "Proefschrift." The Netherlands TRAIL [Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics] Research School is a joint postgraduate research school of Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Radboud University of Nijmegen, University of Groningen, and University of Twente. Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-198).

Agglomeration economies have a relevant impact on local labour markets. The interaction of workers and firms in dense urban areas may generate productivity advantages that result in higher wages. They may be accompanied by an increase in local costs, but the existence of cities that continue to grow is a sign by itself that these gains supersede higher costs. Therefore, large urban areas have an expected positive impact on wages. However, not only the size of the city but also the sectoral composition is relevant to understand locational choices of firms of a specific sector. The industrial scope of agglomeration economies is investigated in the first chapter of this dissertation, and the main results indicate that there is not a unique optimal local industrial mix to foster productivity in different technological sectors. Furthermore, high-tech and low-tech manufacturing sectors benefit more from urban scale in Brazil, followed by services associated with higher knowledge intensity. These sectors are supposed to locate relatively more in large urban areas in order to profit from these advantages. Agglomeration economies may have static and dynamic effects for individuals. These effects are reinforced by a process of sorting of skilled workers into large urban areas. In fact, initial and return migration are mechanisms that select more skilled and more productive workers into large urban areas. Then, cities with a higher percentage of skilled workers attract more of these highly-qualified individuals. Second migration seems to reinforce these relations. The estimation of static agglomeration economies indicate that the inclusion of individual fixed effects decreases density coefficient significantly. Then, dynamic agglomeration economies are estimated considering previous work experience in cities. In this case, static agglomeration advantages become insignificant and whenever years of previous experience are combined with the current place of work, individuals working in less dense cities who had previous experience in denser areas will benefit the most from these gains. Finally, controlling for worker heterogeneity previous experience has a relevant and positive impact on wage growth only in cities with at least the same density level of the current place of work. Finally, city size has an important impact on the relative bargaining power of workers and firms in the labour market. When analysing the relationship of local wages and the business cycle, wage flexibility, measured by the wage curve, is higher in informal sectors in less dense areas. Therefore, large agglomerations are supposed to provide a higher bargaining power for workers, as they have further job opportunities. All these results indicate that agglomeration economies in Brazil are likely to stimulate spatial concentration and increase regional inequalities. Workers and firms self-select themselves into agglomerated urban areas, in which they find a more diversified environment and a larger share of high-skilled individuals. Bigger centres also provide the conditions for workers to bargain for higher wages, even if they are in the informal sector. / Economias de aglomeração possuem um impacto importante sobre o mercado de trabalho. A interação entre trabalhadores e firmas em áreas de elevada densidade pode gerar ganhos de produtividade que resultam em salários mais elevados. Tais áreas também podem possuir custos de vida mais elevados, mas o crescimento recente das cidades parece indicar que os ganhos se sobrepõem aos custos. Portanto, grandes áreas urbanas têm um impacto esperado positivo sobre os salários. No entanto, não só o tamanho da cidade, mas também a composição setorial é relevante para entender as escolhas de localização das empresas de um sector específico. O escopo industrial de economias de aglomeração é investigado no primeiro capítulo desta tese, e os principais resultados indicam que não há um único mix setorial local ótimo para fomentar a produtividade em diferentes setores tecnológicos. Além disso, setores de alta tecnologia e setores industriais de baixa tecnologia se beneficiam mais da escala urbana no Brasil, seguidos de setores de serviços associados a intensidade de conhecimento mais elevado. As economias de aglomeração podem ter efeitos estáticos e dinâmicos. Eles são reforçados por um processo de seleção de trabalhadores qualificados para grandes áreas urbanas. As migrações inicial e de retorno constituem mecanismos essencial para a auto-seleção de trabalhadores mais qualificados e mais produtivos para grandes áreas urbanas. Assim, cidades com maior percentual de trabalhadores mais habilidosos deverão atrais mais indivíduos qualificados. A estimação de economias de aglomeração estáticas indica que a inclusão do efeito fixo individual reduz o coeficiente da densidade de maneira significante. Quando economias de aglomeração dinâmica são estimadas tendo por base a experiência prévia de trabalho em cidades, as vantagens estáticas se tornam não-significantes. Conforme esses anos de experiência são iterados com a densidade do local de trabalho atual, indivíduos trabalhando em cidades menos densas com experiência em cidades mais densas serão os maiores beneficiados. Por fim, a experiência prévia de trabalho tem um efeito positivo sobre o crescimento do salário somente no caso da experiência em cidades com ao menos a mesma densidade da cidade atual. Finalmente, o tamanho da cidade tem um impacto importante sobre o poder de barganha relativo dos trabalhadores e das empresas no mercado de trabalho. Ao analisar a relação dos salários locais e do ciclo de negócios, a flexibilidade salarial, medida pela curva de salário, é maior em setores informais em áreas menos densas. Portanto, as grandes aglomerações supostamente oferecem maior poder de barganha dos trabalhadores, pois eles têm mais oportunidades de emprego. Esses resultados indicam que as economias de aglomeração no Brasil parecem estimular a concentração espacial e ampliar as desigualdades regionais. Trabalhadores e firmas se auto-selecionam para grandes áreas urbanas, nas quais encontram um ambiente mais diversificado e outros trabalhadores altamente qualificados. Adicionalmente, grandes centros proporcionam maior poder de barganha aos trabalhadores em negociações salariais, mesmo que estejam no setor informal

O objetivo deste estudo é compreender se certas características espaciais influenciam o desempenho exportador das firmas. A análise é feita com dados de dezenove setores exportadores dos municípios do Estado de São Paulo, que compõem a maior Aglomeração Industrial Exportadora do país. Os resultados obtidos, com o Modelo de Determinantes das Exportações, confirmam a hipótese que fatores espaciais são relevantes para as exportações das firmas. Indo ao encontro de uma das previsões do Modelo de Krugman-Livas, a especialização econômica aparece como uma dos principais determinantes das vendas para outros países. Os efeitos das economias de aglomeração foram significantes para a maioria dos setores estudados. Tais resultados evidenciaram que as economias de urbanização, que já foram apontadas em diversos estudos como importantes para o crescimento das cidades, parecem também ser relevantes para as firmas que exportam. Notou-se ainda que transbordamentos espaciais dos diversos setores levam a efeitos representativos para as exportações. Além disso, a acessibilidade a mercados afeta os setores de maneira diferenciada. / The aim of this study is to understand if spatial aspects influence firms export performance. The analysis is made with data from nineteen exporting sectors of the state of São Paulo, which constitute the largest industrial export agglomeration of the country. The results obtained through the Export Determinants Model confirm the hypothesis that spatial aspects are relevant for firms exports. As it appears in Krugman-Livas Model, economic specialization seems to be a major determinant of sales to other countries. Agglomeration economies effects were significant for almost all sectors, showing that urbanization economies, which have already been identified in various studies as important for the growth of cities, also seem to be relevant to firms which export. It was also observed that spillover effects into the sectors are representative for exports. Furthermore, access to markets affects sectors in a different way.

O objetivo desse trabalho é analisar a distribuição espacial do capital humano nos municípios Estado de São Paulo. Para tanto, será usada uma metodologia de investigação composta de regressões que buscam explicar a variação do capital humano municipal com base em seu estoque inicial e em outras variáveis de controle. Os resultados mostram que as pessoas com ensino superior possuem uma tendência apenas moderada de divergência espacial, que se desfaz gradativamente à medida que adicionamos novas variáveis de controle. Por outro lado, as pessoas com ensino básico ou analfabetas apresentam evidências muito mais concretas de convergência espacial. Esse resultado vai contra a literatura internacional da área que sugere existência de concentração espacial nas pessoas com alto capital humano. / This paper investigates the spatial distribution of the human capital in the municipalities of the Brazilian state São Paulo. For that purpose, a methodology consisted by linear regressions that aims to explain the human capital variations using control variables and the initial stock of human capital will be used. The result shows that people with college degrees have a moderate trend of spatial divergence, which is gradually undone once we put new control variables in the regression. On the other side, people with basic education or no education at all present a more robust trend of spatial convergence. This result is not supported by the international evidence of the area, which shows the existence of a strong spatial divergence trend in the people with high human capital.