Identification of employment concentration and specialization areas : theory and application

This paper presents a new method to identify 'Employment Concentration & Specialization areas' for a particular industry, by simultaneously analyzing absolute and relative employment concentration. This allows for analyzing the performance of these areas in relation to different characteristics such as infrastructure availability and the housing and labor market. This is relevant for scientists, corporate decision makers and local governments, as it can support investment decisions related to new plants or infrastructure. The method is developed and applied to five industries in a Dutch province subdivided in 502 areas. Keywords: Employment concentration, Geographical analysis, Location patterns, Agglomeration economies. JEL classification: R12, R30, J2

Co-location synergies : specialized versus diverse logistics concentration areas

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of spatial concentration of logistics firms by empirically analyzing synergies through co-location and investigating whether co-location of logistics establishments in specialized logistics concentration areas results in benefits compared to co-location in diverse logistics concentration areas. Methodology: A survey among managers of 128 logistics establishments located in logistics concentration areas was used to test for differences between synergies through co-location on specialized versus diverse logistics parks. Findings: The findings show that logistics firms co-located on fresh logistics parks more often share knowledge, combine transport and storage capacity, and trade products last minute than other co-located logistics firms do. Research implications: This research shows that there are synergies through co-location of logistics activities on specialized logistics parks. Managers of logistics companies may need to take these benefits into account in location decisions, academics in facility location models, and policy makers in spatial planning. Originality/value: Although anecdotic evidence suggests that co-location of logistics activities can bring several benefits to the co-located logistics companies and hence, can be important to incorporate in the location decisions of these companies, these benefits are not (much) empirically researched before. This paper analyzes synergies through co-location of logistics establishments on specialized and diverse logistics parks

Identification of employment concentration areas

This paper presents a method to identify 'Absolute and Relative Employment Concentration (AREC) areas' for a particular industry. Two novel characteristics of the method are that it simultaneously analyzes absolute and relative employment concentration, and that it combines spatial concentration per area with the spatial concentration in neighboring areas. The method is easy to understand and apply. It is developed to assist regional policy makers and corporate decision makers with their investment decisions related to new infrastructure or plants. The identifcation of concentration areas also allows for analyzing the performance of these areas in relation to characteristics such as infrastructure availability and the housing and labor market. This can yield new academic insights that are relevant for regional planners. An application of the newly developed method to five industries in a Dutch province subdivided into 502 areas illustrates the value of the method in comparison to other methods

To co-locate or not? : location decisions and logistics concentration areas

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Reproducibility in the absence of selective reporting : An illustration from large-scale brain asymmetry research

Altres ajuts: Max Planck Society (Germany).The problem of poor reproducibility of scientific findings has received much attention over recent years, in a variety of fields including psychology and neuroscience. The problem has been partly attributed to publication bias and unwanted practices such as p-hacking. Low statistical power in individual studies is also understood to be an important factor. In a recent multisite collaborative study, we mapped brain anatomical left-right asymmetries for regional measures of surface area and cortical thickness, in 99 MRI datasets from around the world, for a total of over 17,000 participants. In the present study, we revisited these hemispheric effects from the perspective of reproducibility. Within each dataset, we considered that an effect had been reproduced when it matched the meta-analytic effect from the 98 other datasets, in terms of effect direction and significance threshold. In this sense, the results within each dataset were viewed as coming from separate studies in an "ideal publishing environment," that is, free from selective reporting and p hacking. We found an average reproducibility rate of 63.2% (SD = 22.9%, min = 22.2%, max = 97.0%). As expected, reproducibility was higher for larger effects and in larger datasets. Reproducibility was not obviously related to the age of participants, scanner field strength, FreeSurfer software version, cortical regional measurement reliability, or regional size. These findings constitute an empirical illustration of reproducibility in the absence of publication bias or p hacking, when assessing realistic biological effects in heterogeneous neuroscience data, and given typically-used sample sizes

Transformatie in het onderwijs. Hoe met vernieuwingen om te gaan?

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Co-location synergies: specialised versus diverse logistics concentration areas

Although anecdotal evidence suggests that co-location can bring about several benefits for co-located logistics companies, implying the need to incorporate such considerations in location decisions, these benefits have hardly been analysed empirically. This paper provides detailed insights for decision making by precisely analysing the synergies attained through the co-location of logistics firms in specialised and diverse logistics concentration areas. The paper analyses whether co-location in logistics concentration areas that specialise in fresh produce provides additional benefits over co-location in diverse logistics concentration areas that do not specialise in any particular type of products. A survey of managers of 127 logistics firms located in logistics concentration areas tested for differences in synergies through co-location in specialised versus diverse logistics concentration areas. Logistics firms co-located in fresh produce logistics parks share knowledge, combine transport and storage capacities, and trade products more than logistics firms co-located in diverse logistics concentration areas

Proximity matters : synergies through co-location of logisitics establishments

Although anecdotal evidence suggests that co-location of logistics establishments can bring about several benefits for the co-located logistics firms. These benefits have not been widely researched. This article seeks to contribute to an understanding of the spatial concentration of logistics establishments by empirically analysing the synergies they achieve through co-location. A survey of managers of 507 logistics establishments in the south of the Netherlands tested for differences in behaviour and circumstances between co-located and non-co-located establishments. The results show that synergies arise through co-location of logistics establishments: co-located logistics establishments more often combine transport capacity, have better availability of truck drivers, are better accessible, have better availability of repair and maintenance facilities, and have better expansion opportunities than do non-co-located logistics establishments. This means that regional aspects can be important variables in the location decisions of logistics firms