A map of human capital in European cities

Human capital is a fundamental input in modern knowledge-based economies; it increases the individual productivity of workers, while also making their interactions more productive. Moreover, cities are the major loci of innovation. In Europe, evidence suggests that human capital levels are increasing in cities. However, the distribution of human capital shows a widening gap between top performers and laggards. This paper aims to analyse the spatial and relational geography of human capital in European cities. With the use of a novel and comprehensive data set based on the Urban Audit (UA-EUROSTAT), the European Values Study (EVS) and Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) data, we highlight the general spatio-temporal trends in the endowment, distribution, and evolution of European urban human capital. The economic literature on human capital identifies three main dimensions of this concept: namely, formal education; the sectoral composition of the labour force; and creativity. The link between human capital and relational and managerial capital, with particular reference to the functional urban hierarchy, is analysed on the basis of the presence of international and human capital-intensive firms in cities. In the present work we measure human capital along these four dimensions, and assess the extent to which spatial and temporal disparities affect European cities. Our approach is based on ESDA (Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis) and geographical information systems (GIS), while also taking into account the presence of networks among cities. In addition, we also address the time variation of the human capital indicators.The combination of these techniques allows us to provide an insightful analysis of the map of human capital in European cities, to verify its change in space and time, and to provide statistical support for decision makers. The wealth of information gathered by us allows a better understanding and interpretation of the current trends, thus offering a clearer explanation of the different performance levels of European cities, in terms of both human capital accumulation and economic activity