Are bigger cities better for household´s well-being? The case of United States

Abstract

The linkages between the city size and the economic growth has been widely investigated, however, little attention has been focused on the effects over deprivation in an urban context. This paper investigates the agglomeration effects over the Socioeconomic Well-being Index, a more complex measure of urban poverty constructed by the sum of two weighted sub-indexes. The empirical analysis follows an IV robust exercise performed for 130 principal cities in United States from 2006 and 2016. This study is the first of its kind by considering heterogenous agglomeration effects on deprivation across ethnicities. Our findings revealed that an increase in the size of city is associated with a positive and significant impact on the well-being of White households, although it is negative for Afro-Americans and Hispanics.