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CITIES, TASKS, AND SKILLS
Author(s) -
Kok Suzanne,
Weel Bas ter
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1467-9787
pISSN - 0022-4146
DOI - 10.1111/jors.12125
Subject(s) - complementarity (molecular biology) , task (project management) , construct (python library) , variety (cybernetics) , measure (data warehouse) , economic geography , computer science , econometrics , economics , artificial intelligence , management , data mining , genetics , biology , programming language
This research applies a task‐based approach to measure and interpret changes in the employment structure of the 168 largest U.S. cities in the period 1990–2009. As a result of technological change some tasks can be placed at distance, while others require proximity. We construct a measure of task connectivity to investigate which tasks are more likely to require proximity relative to others. Our results suggest that cities with higher shares of connected tasks experienced higher employment growth. This result is robust to a variety of other explanations including industry composition, routinization, and the complementarity between skills and cities.