Graduate Urban Economics, Spring 2019

Syllabus

Schedule

  1. Week 1 (2/28): Introduction, Urbanization in China (lecture notes)
    • Required: Chauvin, Juan Pablo, Glaeser, Edward, Ma, Yueran, and Tobio, Kristina, “What is Different about Urbanization in Rich and Poor Countries? Cities in Brazil, China, India, and the United States.” Journal of Urban Economics, 2016
    • Optional: J. Vernon Henderson, “Urbanization in China: Policy Issues and Options,” Recommendation to China Economic Research and Advisory Program, 2009
  2. Week 2 (3/7): Monocentric City Model (lecture notes)
    • Required: Brueckner, Jan K., “The Structure of Urban Equilibria: A Unified Treatment of the Muth-Mills Model”, Ch. 20, Handbook of Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol 2, 1987
    • Optional: Duranton, Gilles and Puga, Diego, “Urban Land Use”, Handbook of Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol 5, 2015. The first two sections (up to p14) cover the basic model from our class.
  3. Week 3 (3/14): Empirical Work on Monocentric City and Land Use (lecture notes on Leroy and Sonstelie, lecture notes on decentralization in China)
    • Required: LeRoy, Stephen F. and Sonstelie, Jon, “Paradise Lost and Regained: Transportation Innovation, Income, and Residential Location”, Journal of Urban Economics, 1983
    • Required: Baum-Snow, Brandt, Henderson, Turner, Zhang. “Roads, Railroads and Decentralization of Chinese Cities,” Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
  4. Week 4 (3/21): Spatial Equilibrium across Cities (lecture notes)
    • Required: Roback, Jennifer. “Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life,” Journal of Political Economy, 1982
    • Recommended: Glaeser, Edward, and Gottlieb, Joshua, “The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States,” Journal of Economic Literature, 2009
  5. Week 5 (3/28): Sorting within Cities (lecture notes)
    • Required: Bayer, Patrick, Ferreira, Fernando, and McMillan, Robert, “A Unified Framework for Measuring Preference for Schools and Neighborhoods,” Journal of Political Economy, 2007
    • Optional: Bayer, Patrick, McMillan, Robert, and Rueben, Kim “An Equilibrium Model of Sorting in an Urban Housing Market,” NBER WP 10865
  6. Week 6 (4/4): Microfoundations of Agglomeration (lecture notes)
    • Required: Duranton, Gilles and Puga, Diego, “The Micro-Foundations of Urban Agglomeration Economies,” Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Vol 4, 2004
      1. Note: This is a long paper and so I only want you to understand the basic models of sharing, matching, and learning. Therefore you can skip sections: 2.3.2, 2.4, 3.1.5, 3.3, 4.2.2, 4.3.
      2. Note: above link is to the final working paper, which is a clearer digital copy than the handbook article
  7. Week 7 (4/11): Agglomeration in China (lecture notes)
    • Required: Au, Chun-Chung and Henderson, J. Vernon, “Are Chinese Cities Too Small?”, Review of Economic Studies, 2006
    • Optional: Au, Chun-Chung and Henderson, J. Vernon, “How migration restrictions limit agglomeration and productivity in China”, Journal of Development Economics, 2006
  8. Week 8 (4/18): Agglomeration and Firm Concentration (lecture notes)
    • Required: Ellison, Glenn and Glaeser, Edward, “Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach,” Journal of Political Economy, 1997
    • Optional: Guimaraes, Paulo, Figueiredo, Octavio, and Woodward, Douglas, “Measuring the Localization of Economic Activity: A Parametric Approach.” Journal of Regional Science, 2007
  9. Week 9 (4/25): New Economic Geography (lecture notes)
    1. Required: Krugman, Paul, “Increasing Returns and Economic Geography,” Journal of Political Economy, 1991
    2. Optional: Krugman, Paul, “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade,” American Economic Review, 1980
  10. Week 10 (4/27): Analysis in R
    1. Using R to understand theory models: an R notebook on Krugman AER 1980
    2. Spatial methods in R (presentation)
    3. Spatial methods in R: R notebook
  11. Week 11 (5/9): Agglomeration and Increasing Returns: Evidence from China (lecture notes)
    • Faber, Ben. “Trade Integration, Market Size, and Industrialization: Evidence from China’s National Trunk Highway System,” Review of Economic Studies.
  12. Week 12 (5/16): Consumer Cities and Website-based Datasets in Economics Research (lecture notes)
    1. Required: Couture, Victor and Handbury, Jessie, “Urban Revival in America, 2000 to 2010,” Working Paper, 2017
    2. Optional: Glaeser, Edward, Kolko, Jed, and Saiz, Albert, “Consumer City”, Journal of Economic Geography, 2001
    3. Optional: Schiff, Nathan, “Cities and Product Variety: Evidence from Restaurants,” Journal of Economic Geography, 2015
  13. Week 13 (5/23): Economics of Density (lecture notes)
    • Required: Ahlfeldt, Gabriel, Redding, Stephen, Sturm, Daniel, and Wolf, Nikolaus, “The Economics of Density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall,” Econometrica, 2015.
  14. Week 14 (5/29): Introduction to Housing Economics; Chinese Housing Market (lecture notes)
    1. Required: Glaeser, Edward, Huang, Wei, Ma, Yueran, and Shleifer, Andrei, “A Real Estate Boom with Chinese Characteristics,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2017.
    2. Optional: Wu, Jing, Gyourko, Joseph, Deng, Yongheng, “Evaluating the risk of Chinese housing markets: What we know and what we need to know,” China Economic Review, 2016
    3. Optional: Wu, Jing, Gyourko, Joseph, Deng, Yongheng, “Evaluating conditions in major Chinese housing markets,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2012
  15. Week 15 (6/6): Durable Housing (lecture notes)
    1. Required: Glaeser, Edward and Gyourko, Joseph, “Urban Decline and Durable Housing,” Journal of Political Economy, 2005
    2. Required: Rosenthal, Stuart S., “Are Private Markets and Filtering a Viable Source of Low-Income Housing? Estimates from a “Repeat Income” Model, American Economic Review, 2014.
  16. Week 16 (6/13): Student Presentation and Closing Thoughts