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Immigrant Heterogeneity and Urban Development: A Conceptual Analysis

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Geography, Institutions and Regional Economic Performance

Part of the book series: Advances in Spatial Science ((ADVSPATIAL))

Abstract

In this chapter we examine the contribution of immigrant heterogeneity to the attractiveness of cities from both the production and the consumption side. Based on an extensive literature review, we hypothesize that the interaction of people from different cultural groups in cities will increase labour productivity in line with the concepts of Jacobs externalities. For the consumption side of the model – a far less researched issue – we hypothesize that urban cultural diversity increases the heterogeneity in the private goods provided, which will increase the utility of living in that area. We argue that future research should focus on the interaction of people from different cultures in the workplace in order to determine urban productivity externalities, and on immigrant-induced product heterogeneity in a city in order to determine immigrant-induced urban amenities. To answer these questions, the use of micro datasets is inevitable.

JEL code: R1, R3, J31, R23

Financial support from NORFACE research programme on Migration in Europe – Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics is acknowledged. Furthermore, the authors wish to thank Thomas de Graaff and Peter Mulder for useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In most of the research concerning productivity impacts, the degree of diversity in the labour market is expressed by a fractionalization index (see, for example: Alesina and La Ferrara 2005; Bellini et al. 2012; Ottaviano and Peri 2005, 2006; Ozgen et al. 2010, 2011; Suedekum et al. 2009). A culturally diverse region is then a region in which the probability is relatively high that two randomly selected individuals from the region’s population are from a different nationality or cultural background. Although the fractionalization index is most often used in this type of research, one can think of other measures that differentiate among groups and/or regions to indicate concentration, specialisation or inequality (like Herfindahl index or GINI-coefficient, to name a few) that could be applied in this field of research. More on this topic can be read in, for example, Maignan et al. (2003) who compare bio-ecological measures of diversity with economic measures of diversity. In Sect. 4.2 of this chapter we discuss issues concerning the measurement of culture itself.

  2. 2.

    Meta-analysis requires the acquisition of a cluster of applied modelling studies concerned with the same research question and the use of a common econometric specification, in order to draw a general quantitative synthesis conclusion.

  3. 3.

    It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss extensively different definitions and views on culture. We only focus on measuring culture relevant for the impact of immigrant diversity on economic outcomes.

  4. 4.

    Sometimes, country of birth of the parents is used to overcome underestimation of diversity.

  5. 5.

    See for example Combes et al. (2011) on these issues concerning the identification of agglomeration effects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Spatial Economics, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jessie Bakens & Peter Nijkamp

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  1. Jessie Bakens
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  2. Peter Nijkamp
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Correspondence to Jessie Bakens .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dept. of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom

    Riccardo Crescenzi

  2. , Institutional Analysis and, Università Bocconi, via Rontgen 1, Milano, 20121, Italy

    Marco Percoco

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Bakens, J., Nijkamp, P. (2013). Immigrant Heterogeneity and Urban Development: A Conceptual Analysis. In: Crescenzi, R., Percoco, M. (eds) Geography, Institutions and Regional Economic Performance. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33395-8_18

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