Mayer J (1997). Is having a rich natural resource endowment detrimental to export diversification? UNCTAD Discussion Paper, No.124, March.

CEO Marissa Mayer was asked questions like why the underline icon had been removed from the formatting options in Yahoo! Mail and why there was so much spam in Yahoo!

The related question of whether the exploitation of natural resources helps or hinders growth continues to divide economists see Sachs and Warner, 1995 UNCTAD, 1996, 139 142 and Mayer, 1997.

The results based on these measures, however, are not necessarily consistent. (See UNCTAD Discussion Papers Series, Dynamic products in world exports , by Jörg Mayer, Arunas Butkevicius and Ali Kadri, No. 159, May 2002.

Gyourko, Mayer, and Sinai justify their claim by arguing that these cities really are unique. They have only limited land, and if one assumes ever increasing GDP and rising income inequality, there will always be more and more wealthy people to bid up prices in these scarce areas.

Prices in the cities that Gyourko, Mayer, and Sinai identify as superstars generally appreciated by no more than one or two percent a year more than in the average city from 1950 to 2000, and even that difference is probably largely due to an increase in the size and quality of homes.

More people want to meet Bill Gates or Marissa Mayer than vice versa. If we were to create a real market, it would become unpleasantly commercial a bit like those charity auctions where celebrities or tycoons donate the pleasure of their company for lunch with the highest bidder, except that the VIP pockets the money.

Finally, as Gyourko, Mayer, and Sinai themselves note, even these small long term differences in home price across cities have tended to be offset by lower rent price ratios in the superstar cities. For an investor, the rate of return is the sum of the rate of appreciation and the rent price ratio, so the low rent price ratio reduces the advantage of faster appreciation.

In a much talked about recent paper entitled Superstar Cities, economists Joseph Gyourko, Christopher Mayer, and Todd Sinai argue that such high status cities not only London, Paris, and New York, but also cities like Philadelphia and San Diego may show an ever widening gap in housing values when compared with other cities. The authors seem to be saying, in effect, that a housing boom in these areas can go on forever.