Related papers: There's Nothing in the Air
Economic growth is measured as the rate of relative change in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Yet, when incomes follow random multiplicative growth, the ensemble-average (GDP per capita) growth rate is higher than the time-average…
The so-called great divergence in the income per capita is described in the Unified Growth Theory as the mind-boggling and unresolved mystery about the growth process. This mystery has now been solved: the great divergence never happened.…
We consider the role of unobservables, such as differences in search frictions, reservation wages, and productivities for the explanation of wage differentials between migrants and natives. We disentangle these by estimating an empirical…
The size of cities is known to play a fundamental role in social and economic life. Yet, its relation to the structure of the underlying network of human interactions has not been investigated empirically in detail. In this paper, we map…
If AI displaces human workers faster than the economy can reabsorb them, it risks eroding the very consumer demand firms depend on. We show that knowing this is not enough for firms to stop it. In a competitive task-based model, demand…
It is a widely observed phenomenon that wealth is distributed significantly more unequal than wages. In this paper we study this phenomenon using a new extension of P\'olyas urn, modelling wealth growth through wages and capital returns. We…
Analysis of the urban population fraction data for sixteen populous countries over the last fifty years reveals a universal increase in urbanization, exhibiting four qualitatively distinct temporal patterns: (i) continuously accelerating…
We determine the distribution of size and growthrates of German business firms in 1987-1997. We find a log-normal size distribution. The distribution of growth rates has fat tails. It can be fitted to an exponential in a narrow central…
Data describing historical economic growth are analysed. They demonstrate convincingly that the takeoffs from stagnation to growth, claimed in the Unified Growth Theory, never happened. This theory is again contradicted by data, which were…
Understanding how nitrogen dioxide (NO2) varies both within and across cities is essential for assessing urban health inequalities, yet the joint influence of city size and internal structure remains poorly quantified. While it is expected…
Automation raises productivity and reduces paid human labor, but it also reallocates income and ownership claims. This paper studies that tradeoff in a static benchmark and in a stationary heterogeneous-agent general equilibrium. Firms…
A simple generative model of a foraging society generates significant wealth inequalities from identical agents on an equal opportunity landscape. These inequalities arise in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium regimes with some societies…
The increasing urbanization process we have been witnessing in the last decades is accompanied by a significant increase in traffic congestion in cities around the world. The effect of the congestion is represented in the enormous time…
The Fourth Industrial Revolution commonly refers to the accelerating technological transformation that has been taking place in the 21st century. Economic growth theories which treat the accumulation of knowledge and its effect on…
The relationships between diversity, productivity and scale determine much of the structure and robustness of complex biological and social systems. While arguments for the link between specialization and productivity are common, diversity…
Ride-sharing platforms like Uber market themselves as enabling `flexibility' for their workforce, meaning that drivers are expected to anticipate when and where the algorithm will allocate them jobs, and how well remunerated those jobs will…
Understanding the statistical dynamics of growth and inequality is a fundamental challenge to ecology and society. Recent analyses of wealth and income dynamics in contemporary societies show that economic inequality is very dynamic and…
Recent advances in the urban science make broad use of the notion of scaling. We focus here on the important scaling relationship between the gross metropolitan product (GMP) of a city and its population (pop). It has been demonstrated that…
The vast majority of travel takes place within cities. Recently, new data has become available which allows for the discovery of urban mobility patterns which differ from established results about long distance travel. Specifically, the…
Voluntary insurance contracts constitute a puzzle because they increase the expectation value of one party's wealth, whereas both parties must sign for such contracts to exist. Classically, the puzzle is resolved by introducing non-linear…