Department of Planning, Public Policy & Management, University of Oregon
Abstract
Examining committee: Colleen Chrisnger, faculty advisorThis paper undertakes a comparative analysis of earnings and employment growth in
clustered and non-clustered industries in Washington State for the years 2003 through 2009.
Further investigation compares cluster effects on different regional levels within counties and
Workforce Development Areas. Location Quotients (LQs) were the principal measure of
assessing the agglomeration of industry clusters. To evaluate the relationships between LQ and
wage and employment growth, four regression models were used. Results indicate that private
firms within an industry cluster have a significantly lower employment growth rate, on average,
than firms not in a cluster. It is noteworthy that the research detects no significant relationship
between wage growth and whether firms are located in an industry cluster
