Human Capital Externalities and the Urban Wage Premium: Two Literatures and their Interrelations

In this paper, a survey is presented of the recent developments in two empirical literatures at the crossroads of labour and urban economics: studies about localised human capital externalities (HCE) and about the urban wage premium (UWP). After surveying the methods and main results of each of these two literatures separately, several interrelations between them are highlighted. In particular, the discussion focuses on whether HCE can be interpreted as one fundamental cause of the UWP and whether one literature can learn conceptually from the other.