Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Paul Schweinzer, MSc

Urban Agglomeration

In recent work, Paul Schweinzer and his co-authors propose a simple model of distribution of economic activity across cities of endogenously determined size and number. This distribution is determined by individual incentives in the tradition of threshold models of social interaction. The individuals in this model are endowed with idiosyncratic entrepreneurial creativity, the realisation of which requires spatial agglomeration linked to a crowding cost that is higher in cities than in rural dwellings. While the focus on distributive aspects comes at the cost of highly stylised behaviour, the work provides a tractable framework to think about the interlinkages between the various measures of urban development which have become increasingly available in accessible datasets and are of growing interest to scholars and policy makers.

In earlier work, Paul Schweinzer explored more theoretical questions such as mixed moral hazard and adverse selection models in teams, bidding behaviour of risk-averse agents in auctions, possibilities for full implementation when a Principal has access to statistical information on the Agents’ types, and efficient reorganisation of waiting queues.

During his visit to Munich, Mr Schweinzer intends to pursue both his research on urban economics as well as foundational questions of modelling entrepreneurship.

Paul Schweinzer earned his Magister degree from the University of Vienna, his MSc from the London School of Economics and his PhD from the University of London. After a postdoc at the University of Bonn, he worked at the University of York, before returning to his native Austria to take up the chair of microeconomics at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. He is also a CESifo Research Network Affiliate.