Cities and cultures

By Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri. World Scientific Studies in International Economics, 2005

386 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate the existence of wage premium due to cultural diversity across US cities. Using census data from 1970 to 1990, we find that at the urban level richer diversity is systematically associated with higher average nominal wages for white US-born males. We measure cultural diversity in a city using the variety of languages spoken by city-residents. While the positive correlation between wages and diversity survives a battery of robustness checks, it seems to be larger once foreign cultures have been assimilated. Finally, instrumental variable estimation hints at causation going from diversity to wages. Comparing real and nominal wages across cities, we interpret these results as evidence that diversity enhances productivity.

Subfields: Demography, Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c945ab0f43f82e88b3f702626f58592068872d6f

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Citations in the corpus

The territorial dynamics of innovation in China and India (2012, neutral): “, net inflow of people from other regions)8 is also included in the model in order to measure the capacity of the region to benefit from external human capital and knowledge by attracting new workers, increasing the size of its labour pool and its ‘diversity’ in terms of skills and cultural backgrou”
Inside the Black Box of Regional Development - human capital, the creative class and tolerance (2008, background): “Ottaviano and Peri (2005) show how diversity among individuals, in the form of immigrants, increases regional productivity.”
Cultural Diversity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Firm-level Evidence from London (2013, methodology): “Alternative instruments include (1) a shift-share instrument based on Ottaviano and Peri (2006), which generates predicted ethnic/migrant shares, based on 2003 data and changes in London’s population over the period 2003–07; (2) an interaction term between borough-level diversity in 2001 and…”
Cultural Diversity and Local Labour Markets (2014, methodology): “Secondly, another prominent instrumental variable that has been used in the 186 Jens Suedekum et al. C ulturalD iversity and L ocalL abour M arkets 187 related study by OTTAVIANO and PERI (2005) is the geographical distance of metropolitan areas to major immigration hubs.”
Why Some Rural Places Prosper and Others Do Not (2009, background): “…advantages of specialization in a particular industry versus an agglomeration or cluster of interlinked industries, it has examined ethnic and cultural diversity versus homogeneity (Knack and Keefer 1997; Collier 2001; Rupasingha, Goetz, and Freshwater 2002, 2006; Ottaviano and Peri 2005, 2006).”
Human Genetic Diversity and Comparative Economic Development (2008, background): “The benefits of heterogeneity are further highlighted by Ottaviano and Peri (2005, 2006) who have empirically demonstrated the productivity enhancing effects of cultural diversity in American cities.”
Same difference? Minority ethnic inventors, diversity and innovation in the UK (2015, methodology): “Similar measures are used widely in the development literature, as well as some area-level studies (Easterley and Levine, 1997; Alesina and Ferrara, 2005; Ottaviano and Peri, 2005; Ottaviano and Peri, 2006).”
Multiculturalism and Entrepreneurial Intentions: Understanding the Mediating Role of Cognitions (2018, background): “Appreciation of socioculturally diverse knowledge is the basis of a range of commercial activities in cities, such as London, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Singapore, Miami, etc. (Bates, 1997; Bellini, Ottaviano, Pinelli, & Prarolo, 2013; Collins, 2003; Ottaviano & Peri, 2005).”