IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/11-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impacts of Central Business District Location: A Hedonic Analysis of Legal Service Establishments

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Limehouse
  • Robert McCormick

Abstract

This analysis examines the business impacts on law firms of locating in Central Business Districts (CBDs) in major U.S. cities. Specifically, we measure the price premium that law firms pay to locate in CBDs. Using micro-level data from the 1992 and 2007 Census of Services, we find that after controlling for firm size, firm specialization characteristics, and MSA and county attributes, law firms within CBDs pay about 15 to 20 percent more in overhead compared to those firms outside CBDs – a result consistent across time between 1992 and 2007. When including an important additional measure of firm quality, however, we find that this impact is reduced to about 7 to 9 percent, but still statistically significant. Additional results show that there is a significant correlation between firm quality and CBD location. We also find that firm size and firm specialization measures are important factors in the choice to locate within CBDs. We argue that these results indicate that CBD location for law firms may serve as networking, quality sorting, and branding mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Limehouse & Robert McCormick, 2011. "Impacts of Central Business District Location: A Hedonic Analysis of Legal Service Establishments," Working Papers 11-21, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:11-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2011/CES-WP-11-21.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivar Ekeland & James J. Heckman & Lars Nesheim, 2004. "Identification and Estimation of Hedonic Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 60-109, February.
    2. James J. Heckman & Rosa L. Matzkin & Lars Nesheim, 2010. "Nonparametric Identification and Estimation of Nonadditive Hedonic Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(5), pages 1569-1591, September.
    3. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    4. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    5. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    6. Ihlanfeldt, Keith R. & Taylor, Laura O., 2004. "Externality effects of small-scale hazardous waste sites: evidence from urban commercial property markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 117-139, January.
    7. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1986. "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 822-841, August.
    8. Mohammad Arzaghi, 2005. "Quality Sorting and Networking: Evidence from the Advertising Agency Industry," Working Papers 05-16, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    9. Thomas N Hubbard & Luis Garicano, 2003. "Specialization, Firms, and Markets: The Division of Labor Within and Between Law Firms," Working Papers 03-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Frank F. Limehouse & Peter C. Melvin & Robert E. McCormick, 2010. "The Demand for Environmental Quality: An Application of Hedonic Pricing in Golf," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 261-286, June.
    11. Mohammad Arzaghi & J. Vernon Henderson, 2008. "Networking off Madison Avenue," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 1011-1038.
    12. Klein, Benjamin & Leffler, Keith B, 1981. "The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 615-641, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel H. Weinberg, 2013. "Talent Recruitment and Firm Performance: The Business of Major League Sports," Working Papers 13-54r, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Feb 2014.
    2. repec:cen:wpaper:13-54 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:11-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dawn Anderson). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.