Files / Working Papers

The dominant narrative in America today is that urban and rural face divergent futures. The belief that technology is driving urban prosperity and rural decline shapes this view.

This perceived divide is also reflected in popular assumptions about the COVID- 19 pandemic as web searches for homes in rural communities have spiked, ostensibly driven by individuals seeking to flee the dangers of density.

There is no more important time to study economic geography. As a field, economic geography encompasses two things. It is both the way economic activity is organized across space, and an academic discipline that develops theory, ideas, and research to explain why economic activity is organized the way it is. For most of human history, economic activity sprung up around natural resourcesd farms around fertile soil, trading activities around natural ports, harbors or nodes between cities, and later factories and industrial activity around natural resources like water power, coal, petroleum, or iron ore. But economic activity today faces few such
constraints.

This paper develops a theory of large corporate headquarters’ location in post-industrial capitalism. It posits that human capital has become the primary factor in the location decisions of large corporate headquarters. It argues that such operations will locate in skilled cities that are also larger and globally connected. These hypotheses are tested using data from the Fortune 500 between 1955 and 2017. Count models are estimated to test the relative importance of human capital, population size and airport connectivity, alongside taxation and other factors identified in the relevant literature. The findings are consistent with the hypotheses.

Uncovering tomorrow’s innovation hotspots: The cities striving for emerging technology leadership is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by Pictet, that explores where interest, innovation and commercial activity around emerging technologies are active and growing at scale. Its primary aim is to identify cities that are in a position to challenge, in the future, the leadership of the world’s largest innovation hubs, widely regarded to be Silicon Valley, New York and London.

Canada’s Startup Ecosystems Are Growing, But Still Lag the Global Leaders

There is growing concern over rising economic inequality, the decline of the middle class, and a polarization of the U.S. workforce. This study authored by Richard Florida, Todd Gabe, and Jaison R. Abel, examines the extent to which low-wage workers in the United States transition to better jobs, and explores the factors associated with uch a move up the job ladder.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of “winner-take-all urbanism” and “winner
-take-all cities.” Large segments of the modern economy have been shown to conform to a “winner-take-all” pattern as superstar talent draws a disproportionate share of economic rewards.

This report takes a deep dive into America’s Service Class. The
Service Class includes 65 million workers who toil in precarious,
low-skill, low-pay jobs in fields like Food Preparation and Service, Retail Trade, Personal Care, and Clerical and Administrative positions.
Our research outlines the dramatic growth of the Service Class,
documents the low wages paid to Service Class workers, and charts
the large share of women and minorities that make up Service
Class workers.

This report examines job growth across Canada and the United States. It uses data from Emsi data for the period 2001–2016 for the 222 metros that had more than 100,000 jobs in 2016. This includes 203 U.S., 91 percent of the total, and 19 Canadian metros, 9 percent of them. We also look at job change for the more recent 2012–2016 post-economic crisis and recovery period. (Emsi compiles its labor market analytics from U.S. and Canadian government sources).

Once the province of American tech hubs like California’s Silicon
Valley, venture capital has gone global. This report by Richard Florida and Karen King uses detailed data
from Thomson Reuters to chart the world’s leading centers for venture capital investment.

Recent years have seen increasing apprehension over rising inequality and the growth of the so-called “1 percent.” For all the concern
expressed about the rise of the global super-rich, there is very little
empirical research related to them, especially regarding their location across the cities and metro areas. Our research uses detailed data from
Forbes on the more than 1,800 billionaires across the globe to
examine the location of the super-rich across the world’s cities and
metro areas.

This paper by Richard Florida and Marshall M.A. Feldman explores housing’s role in the ‘Fordist’ organization of the postwar US political economy.

Startup City Canada examines venture capital activity in Canada, identifying its leading cities and metros and mapping its urban orientation in the county’s three largest venture capital hubs: Toronto, Vancouver,and Montréal. This report is part of a larger, ongoing research project tracking the urban geography of venture capital and start-up activity.

This report presents the 2015 edition of the Global Creativity Index,
or GCI. The GCI is a broad-based measure for advanced economic
growth and sustainable prosperity based on the 3Ts of economic development
talent, technology, and tolerance. It rates and ranks 139 nations worldwide on each of these dimensions and on our overall measure of creativity and prosperity.

This research examines the factors
that shape the happiness of cities, whereas much of the existent literature has focused on the happiness of nations. It is argued that in
addition to income, which has been found to shape national-level happiness, human capital levels will play an important role in the
happiness of cities. Metropolitan-level data from the 2009 Gallup–Healthways Survey are used to examine the effects of human capital on city happiness, controlling for other factors. The findings suggest that human capital plays the central role in the happiness
of cities, outperforming income and every other variable.

Our research examines the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. We argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways
that go beyond the previously examined effects of income. Our analysis explores whether income has different effects on countries at different stages of economic development. Our
results indicate that post-industrial structures and values have a stronger effect on happiness in higher income countries, where the standard of living has surpassed a certain level. Income,
on the other hand, has a stronger impact on happiness in low-income countries.

The economic crisis contributed to sharp increases in US unemployment rates for all three of the major socio-economic classes. Results from regression models using individual-level data from the 2006–2011 US Current Population Surveys indicate that members of the Creative Class had a lower probability of being unemployed over this period than individuals
in the Service and Working Classes and that the impact of having a creative occupation became more beneficial in the 2 years following the recession. These patterns, if they continue,
are suggestive of a structural change occurring in the US economy—one that favours knowledge-based creative activities.

Where do musicians locate, and why do creative industries such as music continue to
cluster? This paper analyzes the economic geography of musicians and the recording industry in the US from 1970 to 2000, to shed light on the locational dynamics of music and creative industries more
broadly.

The geographic clustering of economic activity has long been understood in terms of economies of scale across space. This paper introduces the construct of geographies of scope, which we argue is driven by substantial, large-scale geographic concentrations of related skills, inputs and capabilities. We examine this through an empirical analysis of the entertainment industry across US metropolitan areas from 1970 to
2000.

China is currently seeking to transform its economic structure from a traditional industrial to a more innovative, human-capital driven, and knowledge-based economy. Our research examines the effects of three key factors on Chinese regional development in an attempt to gauge to what degree China has transformed from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy, based on higher
levels of (1) technology and innovation, (2) human capital and knowledge/professional/creative
occupations, and (3) factors like tolerance, universities, and amenities which act on the flow of the first two. We employ structural equation models to gauge the effects of these factors on the economic performance of Chinese regions. Our research generates four key findings.

This special issue publishes some of the interesting work that is going on within the creative economy research field. This concept of the creative economy has been the focus of our own
research for more than a decade. The most fundamental level building block of the creative economy is, of course, creative individuals. Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class
(2002) illustrated that every single human being has creative potential, and discussed the economic value of such creative individuals for innovation in industry. At the industry level,
“creative industries” has been the terminology to describe industries where individual creativity is systematically harnessed to achieve high levels of innovation, namely, high-tech industries with a high R&D or programming component, as well as cultural industries such as
entertainment or design (Caves, 2000; Throsby, 2001; Hesmondhalgh, 2002).

This article written by Richard Florida,
Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick examines the effects of this intra‐metropolitan distribution on economic
performance. The findings indicate that this distribution matters significantly to US regional performance. Suburban human capital matters more than center city human capital.

This article written by Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Jason Rentfrow examines the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. They argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways
that go beyond the previously examined effects of income.

In this paper, Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick examine the effects of satisfaction with individuals’ current location on the decision to stay.

In this paper Richard Florida, Robert Wuebker and Zoltan Acs examine recent patterns of venture capital investment which suggest that the venture capital industry is in the early stages of a profound transformation catalyzed in
part by the globalization of igh-impact entrepreneurship. This change in the allocation of early-stage venture investment has important implications for the financing of young firms, the speed of innovation and technological
transformation, and the locus of long-term economic growth.

In this Chapter of Daniel Araya’s and Michael A. Peter’s book, Education in the Creative Economy, Richard Florida, Brian Knudsen,and Kevin Stolarick argue that the university’s increasing role in economic growth stems from
deeper and more fundamental forces. The university’s role in these forces goes
beyond technology to both talent and tolerance.

This research examines the effect of skill
in cities on regional wages. In place of the extant literature’s focus on human
capital or knowledge-based or creative
occupations, we focus our analysis on actual skills.

Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander find that occupational or “creative class” measures tend to outperform educational measures in accounting for regional wages per capita across their sample of Swedish regions.

Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Peter J. Rentfrow examine the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. They argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways that go beyond the previously examined effects of income.

This study by Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander examines the effects of post-industrial economic structures and values on smoking and obesity.

Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander look at the roll of human capital and occupation based measures in shaping cross-national economic performance.

Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick examine the effects of beauty and aesthetics on community satisfaction.

Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Peter J. Rentfrow in this work aim to replicate and extend previous work by examining the geographic distribution and correlates of well-being within the US.

This report by Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander, and Peter J. Rentfrow examines results that suggest that residents of states with high levels of well-being were wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, and emotionally stable compared to residents of states with comparatively low levels of well-being. Analyses indicated that connections between well-being and class structure, diversity, and personality remained after controlled income.

Working Paper Series: Martin Prosperity Research prepared by Richard Florida, Charlotta Melander, and Tim Gulden on the role of cities and metropolitan areas.

Venture Capital, Technological Change, and
Industrial Development by Richard Florida and Martin Kenney.

University-Industry Research Centers, Federal Science Policy and the Research University by Richard Florida, Wesley Cohen and Lucien Randazzese.

This article by Richard Florida seeks to shed light on the factors that shape the organization of scientific research in profit-seeking enterpises.

The study has explored the factors driving globalization in the automotive industry and has begun the task of exploring the effect of globalization on the quality, quantity and location of jobs in that industry.

University of Toronto Magazine

By Richard Florida, Irene Tinagli, Patrik Strom, and Evelina Wahlquist

By Richard Florida and Irene Tinagli

By Richard Florida and Irene Tinagli

By Richard Florida and Lewis Branscomb, ChemTech – June 1998