Pierre-Philippe Combes

Pierre-Philippe COMBES initially joined the Department in 2013 as an Associated Professor. As of 2021 he is a member of our permanent faculty as a CNRS Professor. In 2024, he became an Exceptional-Class Research Director. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). 

His research interests are in urban economics and economic geography, with a special interest in the working of local labour and housing markets and the location choices of firms and households, resulting in possible economic spatial disparities. Recently, it included applications to the urbanization process in France since the 18th century and to emerging economies in Africa and China.

His work is regularly published in the top, international, peer-reviewed journals in economics, such as Econometrica, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Political Economy, or the Journal of the European Economic Association, as well as in specialised reviews such as the Journal of Urban Economics, the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the Journal of Development Economics.

Pierre-Philippe COMBES joins us from the University-ENS of Lyon (2016-2021). Prior to that, he was at the Aix-Marseille University (2003-2016), Boston University (2001-2003) and CERAS-École des Ponts et Chaussées (1998-2001).

He is a graduate of the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE) where he was an Associated Professor from 1998 to 2014. He holds a PhD in Economics from CREST (EHESS-APE programme, now Paris School of Economics - PSE).

To learn more about Pierre-Philippe COMBES, consult his website

Featured Publications

• An Anatomy of Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Clément Gorin, Shohei Nakamura, and Mark Roberts. Regional Science and Urban Economics 115, 104152 (2025).
   
• Housing Costs and Real Income Differences across Chinese Cities, with Ziyang Chen, Sylvie Démurger, and Xiuyan Liu. Journal of Development Economics 176, 103527 (2025).
   
• The Production Function for Housing: Evidence from France, with Gilles Duranton and Laurent Gobillon, Journal of Political Economy 129(10), 2766-2816 (2021).
   
• Delineating Urban Areas Using Building Density, with Marie-Pierre de Bellefon, Gilles Duranton, Laurent Gobillon, and Clément Gorin, Journal of Urban Economics 125, 103226 (2021).
   
• The Costs of Agglomeration: House and Land Prices in French Cities, with Gilles Duranton and Laurent Gobillon. Review of Economic Studies, 86, 1556-1589 (2019).
   
• Gender and Promotions: Evidence from Academic Economists in France with Clément Bosquet and Cecilia García-Peñalosa, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 121, 1020-1053 (2019).
   
• Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the French Labor Market, with Bruno Decreuse, Morgane Laouénan, and Alain Trannoy. Journal of Labor Economics  34 (1), 107–160 (2016).
   
• The Empirics of Agglomeration Economies, with Laurent Gobillon in Handbook of Urban and Regional Economics, vol. 5, Gilles Duranton, Vernon Henderson, Will Strange (eds.), Elsevier-North Holland, Amsterdam, 247–348 (2015).
   
• The Productivity Advantages of Large Cities: Distinguishing Agglomeration from Firm Selection, with Gilles Duranton, Laurent Gobillon, Diego Puga and Sébastien Roux. Econometrica 80 (6), 2543–2594 (2012).
   
• The Rise and Fall of Spatial Inequalities in France: A Long-Run Perspective, with Miren Lafourcade, Jacques-François Thisse and Jean-Claude Toutain. Explorations in Economic History 48, 243–271 (2011).
   
• Estimating Agglomeration Economies with History, Geology, and Worker Effects, with Gilles Duranton, Laurent Gobillon and Sébastien Roux. In Agglomeration Economics, E. Glaeser (ed.), NBER-U. of Chicago Press (2010).
   
• Economic Geography: The Integration of Regions and Nations, with Thierry Mayer and Jacques-François Thisse. Princeton University Press (2008). Chinese translation at China Renmin University Press (2011). French version Economica (2006).
   
• Spatial Wage Disparities: Sorting Matters !, with Gilles Duranton and Laurent Gobillon. Journal of Urban Economics 63, 723-742 (2008).
   
• The Trade Creating Effects of Business and Social Networks: Evidence from France, with Miren Lafourcade and Thierry Mayer. Journal of International Economics 66, 1–29 (2005).
   
• Economic Structure and Local Growth: France, 1984-1993. Journal of Urban Economics 47, 329–355 (2000).

See all publications