Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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of universities is to produce creative workers that drive the knowledge
economy.
It is a robust finding in the economics literature that human skills have a
positive impact on regional competitiveness. Glaeser et al. (1995), using a
data set of 203 US cities between 1960 and 1990, found that a key variable
for cities is the initial education level of the population: cities with higher
median years of schooling show faster subsequent per capita income
growth. A one standard deviation rise in median years of schooling raises
income 2.78% over the same period. Higher education is found to influence
growth through influencing the growth of technology. Berry and Glaeser
(2005), using data on 318 metropolitan area in the United States over 1990-
2000, have found that places with higher levels of human capital have
attracted more skilled people over the last three decades. They show a strong
correlation between the initial share of metropolitan area adults with college
degrees and change in that variable over the 1990s. They suggest that this
phenomenon might have been explained by the fact that labour demand is
often created by local entrepreneurs who start firms in their own city. If
skilled people are increasingly likely to start firms that hire other skilled
people, this could explain why an initially high level of skills would lead to
a growth in the skill composition of a city over time. Shapiro (2006) found
that a 10% increase in a metropolitan area‘s concentration of collegeeducated
residents was associated with a 0.8% increase in subsequent
employment growth in the United States between 1940 and 1990. Roughly
60% of the employment growth effect of college graduates is found to be
explained by enhanced productivity growth. Moretti (2004) finds that
productivity of plants in cities that experience large increases in the share of
college graduates rises more than the productivity of similar plants in cities
that experience small increases in the share of college graduates. According
to his most robust estimates, a 1% increase in the city share of college
graduates is associated with a 0.5-0.6 percentage-point increase in output.
Because the stock of human capital grows slowly over time, the contribution
of human capital spillovers to economic growth is not large. The most
robust estimates in the Moretti paper indicate that human capital spillovers
are responsible for an average of 0.1 percent increase in output per year
during the 1980s. Simmie et al. (2002) analysed innovation in five European
cities and suggested that the top reason why firms would choose to locate
the development of new innovation in a particular city region was the
availability of professional experts specialising in the relevant technology.
Large cities have the advantage that they will be able to have a larger
supply of jobs for highly qualified couples. Costa and Kahn (2000) found
that college-educated couples have over 1940-1990 become increasingly
located in large metropolitan areas in the United States. They find that the