Industrial Location At the Intra-Metropolitan Level: A Negative Binomial Approach

The objective of this paper is to analyse the incidence of agglomeration economies on the new firms’ location decisions inside metropolitan areas. Following the literature we consider that agglomeration economies are related to the concentration of an industry (location economies) and/or the size of the city itself (urbanisation economies). We assume that those economies differ according the technological level of firms. So we use a sample of new firms belonging to high, intermediate and low technology levels. Our results confirm those sectoral differences and show some interesting location patterns of manufacturing firms Taking into account the renovated debate about the importance of the geography and distance in the location of economic activity, we introduce in the estimation the effect of the central city size as determinant for the location of new firms in the rest of the metropolitan area. This allows us to analyse if a suburbanisation effect exists and if that effect is the same depending on the industry and the central city size of the metropolitan area. Our main statistical source is the REI (Spanish Industrial Establishments Register), which has plant-level microdata for the creation and location of new industrial firms.

Cluster Analysis using Microgreographic data

In this paper we try to identify manufacturing and service clusters in Spain, using data from Mercantile Registers of 2006. The proposed methodology partially follows contributions of Duranton and Overman (2005), Brenner (2003 and 2004) and Ellison and Glaser (1997), but departing from them we improve such approaches by several ways. In order to sum up, we can detail our approach and divide it into five stages. Firstly, we divide space into homogeneous cells. Secondly, we create industry specific maps departing from firms’ georeferenced data. Thirdly, we create multiple random industry specific maps under two conditions: i) total number of firms at each industry remains constant and ii) total number of firms at each cell remains constant. Fourthly, we compare the observed spatial distribution of firms with random simulations of such distribution and we check if there is some kind of concentration compared to the random distribution. Fifthly, for each industry we map the areas where the concentration of firms is significantly higher than expected. Previous scheme allows us to identify real clusters (of different shapes and sizes) for all range of manufacturing and service activities and to use this information to design public policies related to such industries. Keywords: cluster analysis, geographic data, microeconomics, regional economics.

Agglomeration, accessibility and industrial location: evidence from spanish municipalities

This paper deals with the location decisions of manufacturing firms in Spain. We analyse how agglomeration economies and transport accessibility influence the location decisions of firms at municipality level and in three industries. The main empirical contributions of this paper are the econometric techniques used (spatial econometric models) and some of the explanatory variables (local gross domestic product, road accessibility, and the characteristics of firms in neighbouring municipalities). The results show that agglomeration economies and accessibility are important in industrial location decision-making.Agglomeration, Accessibility, Industrial location, Spatial econometrics, Spain

Spatial Exploration of Age Distribution in Catalan Municipalities

This paper takes the shelf and digs into the complex population's age structure of Catalan municipalities between 1999 and 2009. Catalonia is a very heterogeneous territory, and age pyramids vary considerably across different areas of the territory, existing geographical factors shaping municipalities' age distributions. By means of spatial statistics methodologies, this piece of research work tries to assess which spatial factors determine the location, scale and shape of local distributions. The results show that there exist different distributional patterns across the geography according to specific determinants

Industrial Location At the Intra-Metropolitan Level: A Negative Binomial Approach

The objective of this paper is to analyse the incidence of agglomeration economies on the new firms' location decisions inside metropolitan areas. Following the literature we consider that agglomeration economies are related to the concentration of an industry (location economies) and/or the size of the city itself (urbanisation economies). We assume that those economies differ according the technological level of firms. So we use a sample of new firms belonging to high, intermediate and low technology levels. Our results confirm those sectoral differences and show some interesting location patterns of manufacturing firms Taking into account the renovated debate about the importance of the geography and distance in the location of economic activity, we introduce in the estimation the effect of the central city size as determinant for the location of new firms in the rest of the metropolitan area. This allows us to analyse if a suburbanisation effect exists and if that effect is the same depending on the industry and the central city size of the metropolitan area. Our main statistical source is the REI (Spanish Industrial Establishments Register), which has plant-level microdata for the creation and location of new industrial firms

Can a knowledge-based cluster be created? The case of the Barcelona 22@district

The aim of this paper is to track the location decisions of knowledge-intense firms in a redeveloped urban district in the city of Barcelona in which government policy has promoted the formation of a cluster of knowledge-based activities. After decades of economic and industrial stagnation in a district called Poblenou, in the year 2000 the City Council of Barcelona implemented a plan to renew the area’s urban and economic structure. Under the development plan, knowledge-based firms were encouraged to set up in the area creating a cluster of Advanced activities. This paper examines the success of this local policy and aims to determine whether cluster amenities have played a part in attracting knowledge-based activities. First, we evaluate the cluster implementation via a differences-in-differences analysis comparing the increase in the number of knowledge-based firms in this specific area with the increase of this kind of firm elsewhere in the city and the metropolitan area. Second, to test whether cluster amenities are determinant factors for the location of knowledge-based firms, we perform a multivariate regression analysis explaining intra-city firm location at the ZIP code level. Data about new firms come from a business-census that contains detailed information about location determinants of these firms as well as their characteristics

Spatial distribution of economic activities- a network approach

The aim of this paper is to analyse co-location patterns of manufactures and service industries at a microgeographic level using Spanish data from the Mercantile Regis ter. Our approach allows us to analyse joint-location and co-location patterns of firms in different industries, and to overcome previous technical constraints in this type of analyses, partially thanks to using homogeneous cells instead of administrative units. This paper contributes to the empirical literature on industry location by develop ing a multisectorial co-location index computed by comparing differences between observed data about firms? location and randomly generated data. Multisectorial rela tionships are analyzed by transposing bilateral relations onto an n-dimensional space. Our results show that dispersed industries tend to locate jointly and that industries with lower joint-location patterns have spatial structures similar to those obtained through input?output relationships, suggesting weak role of co-location patterns as interindustry linkages are not the main location determinants

Spatial distribution of economic activities

In this paper we try to identify manufacturing and service clusters in Spain, using data from Mercantile Registers of 2006. The proposed methodology partially follows contributions of Duranton and Overman (2005), Brenner (2003 and 2004) and Ellison and Glaser (1997), but departing from them we improve such approaches by several ways. In order to sum up, we can detail our approach and divide it into five stages. Firstly, we divide space into homogeneous cells. Secondly, we create industry specific maps departing from firms' georeferenced data. Thirdly, we create multiple random industry specific maps under two conditions: i) total number of firms at each industry remains constant and ii) total number of firms at each cell remains constant. Fourthly, we compare the observed spatial distribution of firms with random simulations of such distribution and we check if there is some kind of concentration compared to the random distribution. Fifthly, for each industry we map the areas where the concentration of firms is significantly higher than expected. Previous scheme allows us to identify real clusters (of different shapes and sizes) for all range of manufacturing and service activities and to use this information to design public policies related to such industries