Local Economic Development : An Accessibility Analysis

This paper examines the impact of job accessibility on wages and productivity using Swedish municipality level data on night and daytime wages. The empirical analysis is based on annual data for 290 Swedish municipalities over the period 2005-2011. The strength of this paper lies in its empirical method. By using both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) in a panel data setting, I find that empirical analysis have to take into account the joint determination of day and night time wages. The core of this paper builds on the theories of New Economic Geography and the Jacobs hypothesis. Accordingly, firms that cluster in space are assumed to benefit from urbanization externalities, allowing them access to a large variety of differentiated input service suppliers. Thus, the results of this paper are consistent with the Jacobs hypothesis