A Tale Of Two Decades: Changes In Work And Earnings In Massachusetts, 1979–1999, Randy Albelda, Marlene Kim
Apr 2012
A Tale Of Two Decades: Changes In Work And Earnings In Massachusetts, 1979–1999, Randy Albelda, Marlene Kim
Marlene Kim
Over the past twenty years, Massachusetts has replaced the mantle of old-style manufacturing with a robust “new economy.” Our economic vitality has never been better. But not all individuals benefited from the 1990s boom as they had from the one a decade earlier. Some of our residents are worse off than they were before.
Introduction To The Special Issue On Manufacturing, Jennifer Clark, Pierre Clavel
Dec 2011
Introduction To The Special Issue On Manufacturing, Jennifer Clark, Pierre Clavel
Jennifer Clark
Manufacturing has long been the focus for progressive reforms. But these reforms, pushed by labor in the 1930s and 1940s, did not particularly involve city planners, and the idea of “progressive planning” that emerged in the 1960s focused on community and neighborhood struggles over urban renewal, highway clearances and the depredations of real estate developers—not necessarily manufacturing. The question now is whether, with changes in manufacturing, and new initiatives from the Obama administration, progressives can make a contribution through the manufacturing sector, and whether professional planners can play a role at all.We asked a group of geographers and planners—academics and …
Regional Industrial Structure And Agglomeration Economies: An Analysis Of Productivity In Three Manufacturing Industries., Joshua Drucker, Edward Feser
Dec 2011
Regional Industrial Structure And Agglomeration Economies: An Analysis Of Productivity In Three Manufacturing Industries., Joshua Drucker, Edward Feser
Joshua Drucker
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.
