SHARES OF EMPLOYMENT IN THE KNOWLEDGE SECTOR AMONG METROPOLITAN AREA ECONOMIES
Open Access
Author:
Yuskavage, Timothy Peter
Area of Honors:
Geography
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Rodney Allen Erickson, Thesis Supervisor Roger Michael Downs, Thesis Honors Advisor Rodney Allen Erickson, Thesis Supervisor N Edward Coulson, Thesis Supervisor
Keywords:
urban agglomeration economic geography human capital
Abstract:
There is a long of investigation into the nature of clustering among certain industries and certain locations going back to at least to Marshall and other. However, as the modern economy continues to shift from an industrial-based economy to a service-based economy, many previously-held conventions on urban clustering are being reexamined. This paper seeks to better explain why highly skilled ‘knowledge workers’ settle where they do and tries to explain why certain cities become hubs of innovation and growth while others fail to attract the stock of human capital necessary to achieve those gains. The bulk of analysis in this paper will utilize a linear regression between the share of employment in the knowledge sector of metropolitan areas against selected characteristics of the metropolitan areas that we believe will have a significant impact. The majority of data will come from the Census Bureau and will cover all of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas among the fifty states of the U.S. The output will show that isolating specific variables and their impacts is difficult because of the inherent tendency for some of the data to have interaction others. The output, however, will show a slight trend that larger, denser cities tend to have the higher rates of knowledge-sector employment among workers.
