City Slicker: Profile of Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: CHRIS WELLISZ
- Published: December 2, 2019
Background and biography
- Grew up in New York City in the 1970s; witnessed high crime, sanitation strikes, and near-bankruptcy conditions in the city.
- Experienced a New York turnaround by the mid-1980s but retained fascination with urban street life.
- Education and early career:
- Undergraduate at Princeton University; considered political science before choosing economics.
- Graduate student at the University of Chicago; influenced by Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, and Paul Romer.
- At the time of the profile, age is stated as 52.
- Family and personal life:
- Father Ludwig, an architect; mother Elizabeth, an asset manager.
- Married to Nancy; they have three children.
- Moved to the suburbs of Boston several years before the profile for more living space, better schools, and a reasonably fast commute.
Research focus and contributions
- Central research theme: urbanization and the economics of place; uses theoretical tools to study cities as engines of innovation and growth.
- Major contributions and findings:
- Early work on agglomeration theory—dense and diverse cities as “hothouses of innovation, energy, and creativity.”
- 1992 paper “Growth in Cities”:
- Used 30 years of data covering 170 US cities.
- Found local competition and diversity, rather than specialization, are primary drivers of urban growth.
- Research with Joseph Gyourko on city decline:
- Housing durability implies slumping cities become cheaper, explaining why people often stay.
- Identified land-use restrictions as a key factor making housing much more expensive than construction costs in cities like New York and Boston.
- 2000 paper “Consumer City” (with Jed Kolko and Albert Saiz):
- Argued people are drawn to both opportunities and amenities (theaters, museums, restaurants).
- Developing-world cities:
- Focuses on rapidly growing cities in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America as an under-studied frontier where economists can make a difference.
- Research in Lusaka, Zambia (with Nava Ashraf and Alexia Delfino) found women are more likely to go into business if the rule of law is strong enough to mitigate unequal relations with men.
- Topics studied across career: rent control, real estate bubbles, property rights, civil disobedience, carbon emissions, barriers to female entrepreneurship.
Policy views and recommendations
- On place-based policy and labor mobility:
- Breaks with traditional orthodoxy that favors helping people rather than places.
- Argues labor mobility has declined due to high housing costs and reduced demand for relatively unskilled factory work.
- Together with Lawrence Summers, recommends tailoring proemployment measures to economically distressed areas:
- Examples include reducing the payroll tax or increasing tax credits to low earners.
- Advocates boosting investment in education targeted to distressed regions.
- On regulation and housing affordability:
- Characterizes building and zoning regulations as a tax on development; some regulation is warranted to account for noise, congestion, and pollution, but overly stringent regulation limits density and drives up housing costs.
- Skeptical of historic preservation rules when they impede the supply of affordable housing.
- Views mass-produced cheap housing or commercial space as the realistic route to affordability, even if aesthetically unappealing.
- On policies that discourage urban living:
- Criticizes the mortgage interest deduction, highway subsidies, and school systems that disadvantage inner-city students as antiurban and contributors to climate change.
- Notes city dwellers typically consume less electricity and gasoline due to smaller homes and mass transit.
Public engagement and communication
- Reached broader audiences with the 2011 bestselling book Triumph of the City, surveying urbanization globally from ancient Baghdad to modern Bangalore.
- Frequent public speaker (academic forums, TED Talks) and noted for eloquence and enthusiasm.
- Teaching and mentorship:
- Takes teaching seriously and is generous with advising time; praised for teaching perspective rather than getting stuck in technical minutiae.
Intellectual stance and influences
- Describes himself as a Chicago-trained economist and a believer in free markets; opposes spatial redistribution that takes from rich areas to give to poor areas, while acknowledging policy should vary by place.
- Influenced by:
- Gary Becker’s broad application of economic tools to social topics.
- Endogenous growth thinkers (Robert Lucas, Paul Romer) emphasizing innovation and knowledge spillovers in cities.
- Jane Jacobs’s celebration of lively street life, while disagreeing with some preservationist outcomes that limit affordability.
Empirical and methodological approach
- Emphasizes applied theory combined with empirical work; values “walking in the streets” and getting “hands messy in the data.”
- Uses historical data sets and city-level comparisons as laboratories to test growth and agglomeration theories.
IMF F&D, December 2019 — Profile by Chris Wellisz
Content in this bundle
- شخصيات اقتصادية
- Gente del mundo de la economía: El urbanita ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019
- L’éloge de la ville
- City Slicker: Profile of Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019
- Люди в экономике. Горожанин – Финансы и развитие – декабрь 2019 года
- City Slicker: Profile of Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019