Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/246978 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
EHES Working Papers in Economic History No. 47
Publisher: 
European Historical Economics Society (EHES), s.l.
Abstract: 
This study investigates agglomeration effects for classical music production in a wide range of cities for a global sample of composers born between 1750 and 1899. Theory suggests a trade-off between agglomeration economies (peer effects) and diseconomies (peer crowding). I test this hypothesis using historical data on composers and employ a unique instrumental variable – a measure of birth centrality, calculated as the average distance between a composer's birthplace and the birthplace of his peers. I find a strong causal impact of peer group size on the number of important compositions written in a given year. Consistent with theory, the productivity gain eventually decreases and is characterized by an inverted U-shaped relationship. These results are robust to a large series of tests, including checks for quality of peers, city characteristics, various measures of composers' productivity, and across different estimations in which also time-varying birth centrality measures are used as instrumental variables.
Subjects: 
agglomeration economies
density effects
peer effects
productivity
urban history
cities
composer
JEL: 
D24
J24
N90
R12
Z11
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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