We are happy to share that FSI’s SK Center Fellow and APARC's Korea Program Deputy Director Yong Suk Lee is the recipient of the 2018 Urban Land Institute United Kingdom Academic Prize for his paper “Entrepreneurship, small business and economic growth in cities.”

The winner of the Urban Land Institute Prize is selected by The Journal of Economic Geography (JoEG) Editors, Oxford University Press, and the Urban Land Institute. The prize is awarded annually to the author(s) of the best JoEG paper published online in the previous calendar year. Papers are evaluated on the basis of their creativity, quality of scholarship, and contribution to advancing understanding of the geographic nature of economic systems and global economic change.

Lee’s paper investigates whether entrepreneurship causes local employment and wage growth, and if so, how large the impact is. Empirical analysis of this question is difficult due to the joint determination of entrepreneurship and economic growth. Lee’s article uses two different sets of variables—the homestead exemption levels in state bankruptcy laws from 1975 and the share of metropolitan statistical area (MSA) overlaying aquifers—to instrument for entrepreneurship and examine urban employment and wage growth between 1993 and 2002. Lee’s research shows that the creation of small businesses indeed causes substantial employment and payroll growth in cities.

Download Lee’s paper >>