Working Paper #758
Agglomeration Effects in Colombia
Gilles Duranton
Colombia Development South America Urban
I estimate an elasticity of wages with respect to city population of about 5 percent for Colombian cities. This finding is robust to a number of econometric concerns. The second main finding is a negative effect of market access on wages. I find only mild evidence in favor of human capital externalities and no evidence of a complementarity between cities and skills. Despite precise estimates, I do not find stronger agglomeration effects for older workers as would be predicted by the existence of learning effects, nor do find I sizeable effects of roads or amenities on wages.