IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wvu/wpaper/18-03.html

The Spatial Distribution of Urban Consumer Service Firms: Evidence from Yelp Reviews

Author

Listed:
  • Brad Humphreys

    (West Virginia University)

  • Josh Matti

    (West Virginia University)

Abstract

A growing literature employs distance-based measures of localization to assess the spatial distribution of firms with a focus on manufacturing across a country. We analyze the spatial concentration of a variety of consumer services firms in the Phoenix, AZ area using geo-referenced Yelp data from over 29,000 establishments. Results from a K-density approach indicate substantial localization and service differentiation among localized firms. Firm concentration varies across service cost and quality; higher quality/cost establishments tend to cluster. Our results further understanding of the modern urban landscape as cities are increasingly centers of consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Brad Humphreys & Josh Matti, 2018. "The Spatial Distribution of Urban Consumer Service Firms: Evidence from Yelp Reviews," Working Papers 18-03, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    • Handle: RePEc:wvu:wpaper:18-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=econ_working-papers
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey H. Fischer & Joseph E. Harrington Jr., 1996. "Product Variety and Firm Agglomeration," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 281-309, Summer.
    2. Anas, Alex, 2007. "A unified theory of consumption, travel and trip chaining," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 162-186, September.
    3. Gilles Duranton & Henry G. Overman, 2005. "Testing for Localization Using Micro-Geographic Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1077-1106.
    4. Billings, Stephen B. & Johnson, Erik B., 2016. "Agglomeration within an urban area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 13-25.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Janet S. Netz & Beck A. Taylor, 2002. "Maximum Or Minimum Differentiation? Location Patterns Of Retail Outlets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 162-175, February.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Hyunjin Kim & Michael Luca, 2019. "Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity," NBER Chapters, in: Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics, pages 249-273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Behrens, Kristian & Bougna, Théophile, 2015. "An anatomy of the geographical concentration of Canadian manufacturing industries," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-69.
    9. Marcon, Eric & Traissac, Stéphane & Puech, Florence & Lang, Gabriel, 2015. "Tools to Characterize Point Patterns: dbmss for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(c03).
    10. Konishi, Hideo, 2005. "Concentration of competing retail stores," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 488-512, November.
    11. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2006. "Urban Resurgence and the Consumer City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 1275-1299, July.
    12. Barlet, M. & Briant, A. & Crusson, L., 2013. "Location patterns of service industries in France: A distance-based approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 338-351.
    13. Gilles Duranton & Henry G. Overman, 2008. "Exploring The Detailed Location Patterns Of U.K. Manufacturing Industries Using Microgeographic Data," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 213-243, February.
    14. Ellison, Glenn & Glaeser, Edward L, 1997. "Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 889-927, October.
    15. Picone, Gabriel A. & Ridley, David B. & Zandbergen, Paul A., 2009. "Distance decreases with differentiation: Strategic agglomeration by retailers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 463-473, May.
    16. Takahashi, Takaaki, 2013. "Agglomeration in a city with choosy consumers under imperfect information," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 28-42.
    17. Glenn Ellison & Edward L. Glaeser & William R. Kerr, 2010. "What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1195-1213, June.
    18. Eric Marcon & Florence Puech, 2003. "Evaluating the geographic concentration of industries using distance-based methods," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 409-428, October.
    19. Eric Marcon & Florence Puech, 2010. "Measures of the geographic concentration of industries: improving distance-based methods," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 745-762, September.
    20. Nakajima, Kentaro & Saito, Yukiko Umeno & Uesugi, Iichiro, 2012. "Measuring economic localization: Evidence from Japanese firm-level data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-220.
    21. Zhou, Tingyu & Clapp, John M., 2015. "The location of new anchor stores within metropolitan areas," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 87-107.
    22. Jenny Schuetz & Richard K. Green, 2014. "Is The Art Market More Bourgeois Than Bohemian?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 273-303, March.
    23. Humphreys, Brad R. & Zhou, Li, 2015. "Sports facilities, agglomeration, and public subsidies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-73.
    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. Josh Matti & Jane E. Ruseski, 2024. "The location of urban healthcare services: Evidence from Phoenix Yelp reviews," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(1), pages 92-117, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Josh Matti & Jane E. Ruseski, 2024. "The location of urban healthcare services: Evidence from Phoenix Yelp reviews," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(1), pages 92-117, July.
    2. Gabriel Lang & Eric Marcon & Florence Puech, 2020. "Distance-based measures of spatial concentration: introducing a relative density function," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 64(2), pages 243-265, April.
    3. Marcon, Eric & Puech, Florence, 2017. "A typology of distance-based measures of spatial concentration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 56-67.
    4. Marta R. Casanova & Vicente Orts & José M. Albert, 2017. "Sectoral scope and colocalisation of Spanish manufacturing industries," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 65-92, January.
    5. Eric Marcon & Florence Puech, 2012. "A typology of distance-based measures of spatial concentration," Working Papers halshs-00679993, HAL.
    6. Edilberto Tiago Almeida & Raul Mota Silveira Neto & Jaime Macedo Brito Bastos & Rubens Lopes Pereira Silva, 2021. "Location patterns of service activities in large metropolitan areas: the Case of São Paulo," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 67(2), pages 451-481, October.
    7. Billings, Stephen B. & Johnson, Erik B., 2016. "Agglomeration within an urban area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 13-25.
    8. Behrens, Kristian & Bougna, Théophile, 2015. "An anatomy of the geographical concentration of Canadian manufacturing industries," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-69.
    9. Eva Coll‐Martínez & Ana‐Isabel Moreno‐Monroy & Josep‐Maria Arauzo‐Carod, 2019. "Agglomeration of creative industries: An intra‐metropolitan analysis for Barcelona," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(1), pages 409-431, February.
    10. Kristian Behrens & Brahim Boualam & Julien Martin, 2016. "The resilience of the Canadian textile industries and clusters to shocks, 2001-2013," CIRANO Project Reports 2016rp-05, CIRANO.
    11. Isabelle M. Nilsson & Oleg A. Smirnov, 2017. "Clustering vs. relative location: Measuring spatial interaction between retail outlets," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(4), pages 721-741, November.
    12. Ekaterina Aleksandrova & Kristian Behrens & Maria Kuznetsova, 2020. "Manufacturing (co)agglomeration in a transition country: Evidence from Russia," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 88-128, January.
    13. William R. Kerr & Scott Duke Kominers, 2015. "Agglomerative Forces and Cluster Shapes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(4), pages 877-899, October.
    14. Yi Deng & Gabriel Picone, 2013. "Strategic Clustering and Competition by Alcohol Retailers: An Emperical Anlysis of Entry and Location Decisions," Working Papers 1013, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    15. Edilberto Tiago de Almeida & Raul da Mota Silveira Neto & Roberta de Moraes Rocha, 2022. "Manufacturing location patterns in Brazil," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(4), pages 839-873, August.
    16. Bartelme, Dominick & Ziv, Oren, 2023. "JUE Insight: Firms and industry agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. Nakajima, Kentaro & Saito, Yukiko Umeno & Uesugi, Iichiro, 2012. "Measuring economic localization: Evidence from Japanese firm-level data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-220.
    18. Marcon, Eric & Traissac, Stéphane & Puech, Florence & Lang, Gabriel, 2015. "Tools to Characterize Point Patterns: dbmss for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(c03).
    19. Kristian Behrens & W. Mark Brown & Théophile Bougna, 2018. "The World Is Not Yet Flat: Transport Costs Matter!," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 712-724, October.
    20. Rawaa Laajimi & Julie Le Gallo & Saloua Benammou, 2020. "What Geographical Concentration of Industries in the Tunisian Sahel? Empirical Evidence Using Distance‐Based Measures," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 111(5), pages 738-757, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L80 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

    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:wvu:wpaper:18-03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Feng Yao (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewvuus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.