IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4840.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Glenn Ellison
  • Edward L. Glaeser

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Glenn Ellison & Edward L. Glaeser, 1994. "Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach," NBER Working Papers 4840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4840
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4840.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bartik, Timothy J, 1985. "Business Location Decisions in the United States: Estimates of the Effects of Unionization, Taxes, and Other Characteristics of States," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(1), pages 14-22, January.
    2. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    3. Schmalensee, Richard, 1977. "Using the H-Index of Concentration with Published Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 59(2), pages 186-193, May.
    4. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    5. Carlton, Dennis W, 1983. "The Location and Employment Choices of New Firms: An Econometric Model with Discrete and Continuous Endogenous Variables," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 440-449, August.
    6. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1991. "Urban Development: Theory, Fact, and Illusion," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195069020.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    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:nbr:nberwo:4840. 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: () or (Joanne Lustig). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.