□Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy
Luis Garicano and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Abstract:
We present a theory of the organization of work in an economy where knowledge is an essential input in production: a knowledge economy. In this economy a continuum of agents with heterogeneous skills must choose how much knowledge to acquire and may produce on their own or in organizations. Our theory generates an assignment of workers to positions, a wage structure, and a continuum of knowledge-based hierarchies. Organization allows low skill agents to ask others for directions. Thus, they acquire less knowledge than in isolation. In contrast, organization allows high skill agents to leverage their knowledge through large teams. Hence, they acquire more knowledge than on their own. As a result, organization decreases wage inequality within workers, but increases income inequality among the highest skill agents. We also show that equilibrium assignments and earnings can be interpreted as the outcome of alternative market institutions such as firms, or consulting and referral markets. We use our theory to study the impact of information and communication technology, and contrast its predictions with US evidence.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/Ineq.pdf
□Urban Structure and Growth
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and Mark L. J. Wright
Technical Appendix
Abstract:
Most economic activity occurs in cities. This creates a tension between local increasing returns, implied by the existence of cities, and aggregate constant returns, implied by balanced growth. To address this tension, we develop a theory of economic growth in an urban environment in which variation in the urban structure through the growth, birth, and death of cities is the margin that eliminates local increasing returns to yield constant returns to scale in the aggregate. We show that, consistent with the data, the theory produces a city size distribution that is well approximated by Zipf's Law, but that also displays the observed systematic under-representation of both very small and very large cities. Using our model, we show that the dispersion of city sizes is consistent with the dispersion of productivity shocks found in the data. Combined with the assumption that developing countries produce in industries with more volatile productivity shocks, this explains the greater dispersion in city sizes observed in developing countries.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/USG.pdf
□Establishment Size Dynamicsin the Aggregate Economy
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and Mark L. J. Wright
Abstract:
Why do growth and net exit rates of establishments decline with size? What determines the size distribution of establishments? This paper presents a theory of establishment dynamics that simultaneously rationalizes the basic facts on economy-wide establishment growth, net exit, and size distributions. The theory emphasizes the accumulation of industry specific human capital in response to industry specific productivity shocks. It implies that establishment growth and net exit rates should decline faster with size, and that their size distribution should have thinner tails, in sectors that use human capital less intensively, or correspondingly, physical capital more intensively. In line with the theory, we document substantial sectoral heterogeneity in US establishment dynamics and establishments size distributions, which is well explained by variation in physical capital intensities.
(This paper circulated previously with the title “Firm Size Dynamics in the Aggregate Economy”, NBER WP 11261)
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/fsdae.pdf
□Firm Fragmentation and Urban Patterns
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Pierre-Daniel Sarte and Raymond Owens III
Abstract:
We document several empirical regularities regarding the evolution of urban structure in the largest U.S. metropolitan areas over the period 1980-1990. These regularities relate to changes in resident population, employment, occupations, as well as the number and size of establishments in different sections of the metropolitan area. We then propose a theory of urban structure that emphasizes the location and integration decisions of firms. In particular, firms can decide to locate their headquarters and operation plants in different regions of the city. Given that cities experienced positive population growth throughout the 1980s, we show that our theory accounts for the diverse facts documented in the paper.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/FFUP.pdf
□The Knowledge Economy at the turn of the Twentieth Century:
The Emergence of Hierarchies
Luis Garicano and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Prepared for the 20th Annual Congress of the European Economic Association, Amsterdam 2005
Abstract:
The knowledge economy is nothing new. As Chandler's (1977) classic study documents, improvements in communication technology played a key role in the emergence of the modern American corporation in the late 19th century and the start of the 20th century. These technological changes revolutionized the organization of production thereby changing the demand for skilled and unskilled agents by creating a new class of professional salaried managers and a class of blue collar workers under their supervision. In this paper we present a simple equilibrium theory based on Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2005) in which organization is endogenous and depends crucially on the state of communication technology. With this theory we are able to study the emergence of hierarchies and the implications for the demand for workers of different skills and, therefore, wages.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/jeeap.pdf
□publications:
Offshoring in a Knowledge Economy
Pol Antràs, Luis Garicano and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Forthcoming in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2006
PDF
Abstract:
How does the formation of cross-country teams affect the organization of work and the structure of wages? To study this question we propose a theory of the assignment of heterogeneous agents into hierarchical teams, where less skilled agents specialize in production and more skilled agents specialize in problem solving. We first analyze the properties of the competitive equilibrium of the model in a closed economy, and show that the model has a unique and efficient solution. We then study the equilibrium of a two-country model (North and South), where countries differ in their distributions of ability, and in which agents in different countries can join together in teams. We refer to this type of integration as globalization. Globalization leads to better matches for all southern workers but only for the best northern workers. As a result, we show that globalization increases wage inequality in the South but not necessarily in the North. We also study how globalization affects the size distribution of firms and the patterns of consumption and trade in the global economy.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/OKE.pdf
□A Spatial Theory of Trade
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Forthcoming in the American Economic Review, December 2005
Technical Appendix: Proofs of Propositions 1 and 2 and Matlab Program
Abstract:
The equilibrium relationship between trade and the spatial distribution of economic activity is fundamental to the analysis of national and regional trade patterns, as well as the effect of trade frictions. We study this relationship using a trade model with a continuum of regions, transport costs, and agglomeration effects caused by production externalities. We analyze the equilibrium specialization and trade patterns for different levels of transport costs and externality parameters. Understanding trade via the distribution of economic activity in space naturally rationalizes the evidence on Border effects and the Gravity equation. For the former, the effect of trade barriers is amplified by the formation of new industrial clusters, which affects total factor productivity in some regions. The latter is an immediate implication of spatial agglomeration and congestion forces.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/SMoT.pdf
□A related note:
Specialization versus Concentration: A Note on Theory and Evidence
Karl Aiginger and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/SpeCon.pdf
□Urban Growth
Yannis Ioannides and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Forthcoming in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Urban growth refers to the process of growth and decline of economic agglomerations. The pattern of concentration of economic activity, and its evolution, has been found to be an important determinant, and in some cases the result, of urbanization, the structure of cities, the organization of economic activity, and national economic growth. The size distribution of cities is the result of the patterns of urbanization, which result in city growth and city creation. The evolution of the size distribution of cities is in turn closely linked to national economic growth.
点击下载: http://time.dufe.edu.cn/wencong/esteban/UG.pdf
原 作 者: Esteban Rossi-Hansbe
文章来源: http://www.princeton.edu/~erossi/papers.html
