TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rossi-Hansberg,Esteban
AU  - Sarte,Pierre-Daniel
AU  - Owens,Raymond,III
TI  - Firm Fragmentation and Urban Patterns
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11839
PY  - 2005
Y2  - December 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11839
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11839.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Princeton University
Department of Economics
Fisher Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
Tel: 609/2584024
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: erossi@princeton.edu

Pierre-Daniel Sarte
Research Department.
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
PO Box 27622
Richmond, VA  23261
Tel: 804-697-8210
Fax: 804-697-8255
E-Mail: pierre.sarte@rich.frb.org

Raymond Owens
Research Department.
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
PO Box 27622
Richmond, VA  23261
E-Mail: raymond.owens@rich.frb.org
AB  - 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 internal structure 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 firm fragmentation produces the diverse set of facts documented in the paper.
ER  -