INTRAMETROPOLITAN FIRM LOCATION AND LAND-USE PATTERNS IN PHILADELPHIA.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

GRUENSTEIN, JOHN MICHAEL LEO.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Economics.

0501.

Local Subjects:

0501.

Physical Description:

229 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 41-07A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

This study extends bid-rent theory by including interindustry effects and stochastic elements in the traditional model and uses firm-specific and aggregate employment data to estimate net and gross density functions, production functions with land, and areal share equations. These theoretical and empirical refinements allow better understanding of intrametropolitan firm location and land-use patterns, which is important for research into employment suburbanization and analysis of policies concerning urban economic development, fiscal affairs, and transportation planning.

In many past studies, gross employment densities--total employment divided by total land--have been assumed to correspond to bid-rent patterns. Two factors drive "wedges" between bid-rents and gross densities: interindustry differences in the factor of proportionality between bid-rent and net density, and mixed land-use patterns coming between net and gross densities.

In Chapter two a model which uses interindustry effects and stochastic elements to generate sharp differences among bid-rents, net and gross densities, and areal shares (percentages of land-use) is developed and simulated. Firm-specific data and spatially aggregated data for nineteenth century Philadelphia are then used to estimate net and gross density functions including distance from the center of the city and from transportation routes as independent variables. The results show positive gross density and negative net density effects of the transportation variables, which are explained by appeal to the theoretical model developed earlier. Furthermore, distance from the center remains an important explanatory variable even when the transportation variables are included, in contrast to an earlier finding for Chicago by Fales and Moses.

In Chapter three interindustry differences are explored more fully, in the context of a theoretical bid-rent model designed to capture the interaction of areal and industrial characteristics simultaneously, in contrast to many previous empirical models which can handle only one set of characteristics at a time. Firm-specific data are again used, this time to estimate industrial production functions with land and labor for two industries, textiles and metals. Land is found to be a significant input for textiles but not for metals. Technological economies of agglomeration are tested for by including distance from the center in the production function, but little support is found for their existence. Little support is also found for an elasticity of substitution different from one. Industry net density equations are also estimated and the parameters compared to the parameters of the production functions. In general, the interindustry relationship between the density function parameters is not especially consistent with the interindustry relationship between the production function parameters.

In Chapter four the stochastic bid-rent model is developed fully as an explanation for mixed land-use patterns. A model consisting of net density functions for population and employment and an equation predicting the relative areal shares of these uses is estimated with spatially aggregated data for 1970 Philadelphia. Selection bias in the density equations is modeled with a variable derived from the areal shares. Its coefficient is usually positive, tending to confirm the stochastic theory. The effect of including the bias term on the distance from center coefficients is also in the direction predicted by the theory.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A, page: 3186.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1980.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.