Architecture Commons^™

Regional Industrial Structure And Agglomeration Economies: An Analysis Of Productivity In Three Manufacturing Industries, Joshua Drucker, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

We investigate whether a more concentrated regional industrial structure – the dominance of a few large firms in a given industry in a region – limits agglomeration economies and ultimately diminishes the economic performance of firms in that industry, especially small ones. In an application to three industries using establishment-level production functions and a combination of confidential and publicly available data sources, we find a consistently negative and substantial direct productivity effect associated with regional industrial structure concentration and only mixed and relatively weak evidence that agglomeration economies are a mediating factor in that effect.

Regional Industrial Structure And Agglomeration Economies: An Analysis Of Productivity In Three Manufacturing Industries., Joshua Drucker, Edward Feser

Joshua Drucker

Agglomeration, Enterprise Size, And Productivity, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

Much research on agglomeration economies, and particularly recent work that builds on Marshall's concept of the industrial district, postulates that benefits derived from proximity between businesses are strongest for small enterprises. This paper investigates this hypothesis, examining the degree to which local business externalities differ in magnitude and type among large and small enterprises in two U.S. manufacturing sectors. A four factor micro-level production function with oft-cited sources of agglomeration economies (local input supply, labor pools, knowledge spillovers) modeled as technology parameters and dummy variables representing varying definitions of plant size (and type, i.e., single or multi establishment unit) are …

Old And New Theories Of Industry Clusters, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

The paper reviews the broad range of theories and ideas that constitute, often implicitly, the logic behind strategic cluster policies. The title of the paper notwithstanding, there is no theory of industry clusters, per se. Even Porter’s (1990) seminal contribution is more a theory of firm competitiveness than clusters. There is, instead, a variety of older and newer theories of 1) the interrelationships between economic actors that clusters describe, and 2) the implications of such interrelationships for economic growth and development. Industry clusters have proven a useful way of characterizing webs of relationships between and among firms and other institutions. …