Cities and Clusters: Economy-Wide and Sector-Specific Effects in Corporate Location

Giulio Bottazzi (1) , Ugo Gragnolati (2)

1 Institute of Economics of Sant'Anna [Pisa]
2 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne

Are the observed spatial distributions of firms decided mostly by economy-wide urbanization economies or rather by sector-specific localization economies? This paper finds that the latter kind of forces weight systematically more than the former in deciding firm location. The analysis uses Italian data on a variety of manufacturing and service sectors spatially disaggregated at the level of local labour market areas.

Mots clés: Model selection; Firm location; Sector-specific localization economies; Urbanization economies; Maximum likelihood estimation

Domaines: Economies et finances

Giulio Bottazzi, Ugo Gragnolati. Cities and Clusters: Economy-Wide and Sector-Specific Effects in Corporate Location. Regional Studies, 2015, 49 (1), pp.113-129. ⟨10.1080/00343404.2012.739281⟩. ⟨hal-01297044⟩