The economic complexity of US metropolitan areas

ABSTRACT We calculate measures of economic complexity for US metropolitan areas for the period 1998–2015 based on employment data. We show that the concept translates well to the regional setting and to local and traded industries. Large cities and the Northeast have the highest complexity, while most traded industries are more complex than most local ones. In cross-section, metropolitan complexity is associated with higher incomes, though to a lesser extent recently than in the past. However, within-city increases in complexity from year to year are associated with income decreases. Our findings highlight the need for caution when interpreting the relationship between complexity and socioeconomic outcomes.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Regional studies

• Publication date

  2019-01-23

• Fields of study

  Geography, Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/00343404.2021.1884215arXiv 1901.08112
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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