We quantify agglomeration spillovers by estimating the impact of the opening of a large new manufacturing plant on the total factor productivity (TFP) of incumbent plants in the same county. Articles in the corporate real estate journal Site Selection reveal the county where the "Million Dollar Plant" ultimately chose to locate (the "winning county"), as well as the one or two runner-up counties (the "losing counties"). The incumbent plants in the losing counties are used as a counterfactual for the TFP of incumbent plants in winning counties in the absence of the plant opening. Incumbent plants in winning and losing counties have economically and statistically similar trends in TFP in the 7 years before the opening, which supports the validity of the identifying assumption. After the new plant opening, incumbent plants in winning counties experience a sharp relative increase in TFP. Five years after the opening, TFP of incumbent plants in winning counties is 12% higher than TFP of incumbent plants in losing counties. Consistent with some theories of agglomeration, this effect is larger for incumbent plants that share similar labor and technology pools with the new plant. We also find evidence of a relative increase in skill-adjusted labor costs in winning counties, indicating that the ultimate effect on profits is smaller than the direct increase in productivity.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
13833.
Length: Date of creation: Mar 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13833
Note: LS PR Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Rose, Andrew K & Spiegel, Mark, 2009.
"The Olympic Effect,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
7248, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Andrew K. Rose & Mark M. Spiegel, 2009.
"The Olympic Effect,"
NBER Working Papers
14854, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Enrico Moretti, 2008.
"Real Wage Inequality,"
NBER Working Papers
14370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: