Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach / Glenn Ellison, Edward L. Glaeser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellison, Glenn.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Glaeser, Edward L.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4840.

NBER working paper series no. w4840

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1994.

Summary:

This paper discusses the prevalence of Silicon Valley-style localizations of individual manufacturing industries in the United States. Several models in which firms choose locations by throwing darts at a map are used to test whether the degree of localization is greater than would be expected to arise randomly and to motivate a new index of geographic concentration. The proposed index controls for differences in the size distribution of plants and for differences in the size of the geographic areas for which data is available. As a consequence, comparisons of the degree of geographic concentration across industries can be made with more confidence. We reaffirm previous observations in finding that almost all industries are localized, although the degree of localization appears to be slight in about half of the industries in our sample. We explore the nature of agglomerative forces in describing patterns of concentration, the geographic scope of localization, and the extent to which agglomerations involve plants in similar as opposed to identical industries.

Notes:

Print version record

August 1994.