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A1767
Title: London calling: Agglomeration economies in literature since 1700 Authors:  Sara Mitchell - University of Southern Denmark (Denmark) [presenting]
Abstract: A unique, purpose-built panel dataset on prominent authors in the UK and Ireland born 1700-1925 is utilised to estimate the productivity gains associated with agglomeration of an industry with few capital requirements and no apparent need to cluster geographically. We find the average author experiences productivity gains of 10.68\% per annum when residing in London, controlling for spatial sorting by skill level. While we do not find evidence of dynamic learning effects, we confirm that our results are not driven by a dynamic spatial self-selection process or authors who strategically build a portfolio of works before moving to London and publishing in quick succession.