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Export performance is a highly debated topic in the literature, with no consensus on how to measure it or what factors determine it. Most studies divide these factors into internal and external determinants, with a focus on internal determinants. This study, however, focuses on external determinants, namely agglomeration economies such as localization and urbanization economies and export spillovers, and their impact on a firm's export intensity. Based on a large sample of Portuguese manufacturing SMEs over the period 2010 to 2018 (191,920 firm/year observations), the estimation results through the two-stage least squares method with fixed effects strongly indicate the existence of a positive relationship between agglomeration economies, particularly localization economies and export spillovers, and export performance. These findings suggest that firms located in areas with a high concentration of other firms in the same industry and other exporting firms tend to have better export performance, which has important implications for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers agglomeration economies. A new firm is planning to open a plant in a country divided into several regions. Each firm receives a positive externality if the new plant is located in its region. In a decentralized mechanism, the plant would be opened in the region where the new firm maximizes its individual benefit. Due to the externalities, it could be the case that the aggregate utility of all firms is maximized in a different region. Thus, the firms in the optimal region could transfer something to the new firm in order to incentivize it to open the plant in that region. We propose two rules that provide two different schemes for transfers between firms already located in the country and the newcomer. The first is based on cooperative game theory. This rule coincides with the τ -value, the nucleolus, and the per capita nucleolus of the associated cooperative game. The second is defined directly. We provide axiomatic characterizations for both rules. We characterize the core of the cooperative game. We prove that both rules belong to the core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of agglomeration, differentiating between urbanization and localization economies, on four distinct types of innovation in manufacturing and services. Furthermore, estimating multilevel panel regression models, we investigate the sorting of highly innovative firms into dense urban and/or specialized regions by considering both observable and unobservable firm characteristics. The results indicate that spatial sorting is important. A large portion of the regional differences in firm innovation rates is due to firm characteristics. Estimates that ignore unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level still point to a positive and significant impact of localization economies on different types of innovation. However, once we include firm fixed effects and distinguish between manufacturing and services, only some weak indication for positive effects of localization on radical innovations of manufacturing firms remains. In addition, the probability to adopt an existing product by an manufacturing firm seems to be positively influenced by urbanization economies. For the service sector, in contrast, we find adverse effects of localization on different kinds of innovation and no important effect of urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agglomeration economies are a fundamental explanation for the existence of cities. Spatial clustering allows for a variety of external benefits such as labor pooling, sharing of suppliers, and specialization; these in turn contribute to increased productivity and economic growth. Over the past several decades, the strength and nature of agglomeration economies have come into question. In the 1980s, it was argued that information and telecommunications technology reduced the need for physical proximity, and hence the value of agglomeration economies. Reduced agglomeration economies would explain the decentralization of economic activity and decline of central cities. We are now fully in the era of the information economy, with smart phones, cars, buildings, and appliances merging into the Internet of Things. At the same time, we observe the re-emergence of some downtowns and the continued growth of megalopolises around the USA, despite rising congestion. This essay traces the role and nature of agglomeration economies in the evolution of urban form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to infer the spatial extent of agglomeration economies for the creative service industries (CSI) in Barcelona and its relationship with firm performance controlling for urban characteristics and demand factors. Using micro-geographic data from the mercantile register for firms between 2006 and 2015, I estimated the effect of intra-industry and inter-industry agglomeration in rings around location on productivity in Barcelona. The main results are: (1) for CSI, at a micro-spatial level, localisation economies are important within the first 250 m; (2) for non-CSI, having employees in the CSI in close proximity (250–500 m) enhances their productivity; (3) for symbolic-based CSI firms, localisation economies—mainly understood as networking and/or knowledge externalities—have positive effects on TFP at shorter distances (less than 500 m), while for the two other knowledge-based CSI (i.e. synthetic and analytical) localisation economies seem not to be so important; and (4) market potential does not offset localisation economies for CSI. These results strongly suggest the importance of agglomeration externalities in CSI, which are strongly concentrated in the largest cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international trade literature highlights the importance of firm productivity and economies of scale on the firm's international export success. In the context of agglomeration economies, firms enjoy productivity gains when they are located close to related firms and they gain from knowledge spillovers and other positive externalities. They may also benefit from a potentially large supply of diverse workers that possess distinct knowledge and problem-solving skills. In such environments, firms may be more prone to export. In this paper, we employ a comprehensive German data set that combines survey and administrative data. We ask whether German firms (i.e., establishments) export more as a result of localization and urbanization externalities, and labor market pooling associated with workforce diversity, while controlling for a variety of establishment characteristics. Using a fractional response model, we provide evidence that manufacturers and smaller establishments benefit more from externalities and especially from knowledge spillovers. There is less evidence supporting the benefit of workforce diversity; however, that factor may be associated with between-establishment variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a self-collected longitudinal dataset that comprehends the population of academic spinoffs created in Portugal from 1995 until 2007 we investigate to what extent these firms are geographically clustered and the determinants of their geographical distribution at the time of their formation. We focus on university and agglomeration economies-related mechanisms at the municipality level. Our results show that overall academic spinoffs do not exhibit a tendency to cluster, nevertheless some local clusters do exist. Additionally, our findings show that the presence of university incubators and/or university research parks is the most relevant university-related mechanism, whereas regarding agglomeration economies all seem to be important to explain academic spinoffs distribution across municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts multilevel analysis to study the agglomeration-performance nexus for domestic firms in sub-Saharan Africa. We show that contextual factors can explain up to 30 % of the variance in firms' productivity, more than half of which depends on the geographic location. Our results show also that African firms' productivity is positively correlated to the size of the agglomeration when they locate in larger cities specialized in different sectors, while the relation turns negative when they face direct competition from firms in the same industry. These effects are similar in the services and the manufacturing industries, even if in the latter positive spillovers are found to be conditional to the presence of backward and forward linkages with nearby firms. Finally, we are able to show that these effects are also confirmed when domestic firms locate close to foreign multinationals, especially those coming from the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we put forth the view that the potential for urbanization economies increases with interaction opportunities. From that premise follow three fundamental properties that an agglomeration index should possess: (1) to increase with the concentration of population and conform to the Pigou-Dalton transfer principle; (2) to increase with the absolute size of constituent population interaction zones; and (3) to be consistent in aggregation. Limiting our attention to pairwise interactions, and invoking the space-analytic foundations of local labor market area (LLMA) delineation, we develop an index of agglomeration based on the number of interaction opportunities per capita in a geographical area. This leads to Arriaga's mean city-population size, which is the mathematical expectation of the size of the LLMA in which a randomly chosen individual lives. The index has other important properties. It does not require an arbitrary population threshold to separate urban from non-urban areas. It is easily adapted to situations where an LLMA lies partly outside the geographical area for which agglomeration is measured. Finally, it can be satisfactorily approximated when data is truncated or aggregated into size-classes. We apply the index to the Spanish NUTS III regions, and evaluate its performance by examining its correlation with the location quotients of several knowledge intensive business services known to be highly sensitive to urbanization economies. The Arriaga index's correlations are clearly stronger than those of either the classical degree of urbanization or the Hirshman-Herfindahl concentration index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test whether new firms locate close to incumbent firms of the same industry. Tendencies to coagglomerate may explain the general wisdom that industry location is highly persistent over time. We perform separate analysis for East and West Germany which enables us to study two integrated areas that have been characterized by different conditions in the period under study. A comparison of actual coagglomeration patterns with counterfactual patterns reveals that about 40 percent of the West German industries show coagglomeration patterns. In East Germany, coagglomeration between new and incumbent firms is prevalent in only 5 percent of the industries. The considerably lower degree of coagglomeration in East Germany may be due to a higher level of spatial reallocation within industries during the transformation from a socialist regime to a market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One reason firms exist is to serve as knowledge repositories. Firms compete against other firms and need profits to survive. Firms must be entrepreneurial to discover and act on profit opportunities. Knowledge required to spot profit opportunities is disbursed among economic actors and often is tacit knowledge that can only be obtained by those in close proximity. This gives rise to agglomeration economies, which can be leveraged within firms. In a competitive economy people have an incentive to keep knowledge from people in other firms, but to share it with those in their firm. One role of the firm is to act as a repository of knowledge for those within the firm's boundaries, and to lower the cost of obtaining knowledge about profit opportunities. Entrepreneurs need firms to contain and capture the profits from their innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical evolution of four prominent industry clusters is compared: automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, tires in Akron, Ohio, semiconductors in Silicon Valley, California, and cotton garments in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Detailed data are collected concerning the intellectual and geographic origins of entrants into the clusters and other regions to probe the mechanisms underlying geographic clustering. The main mechanism at work in the four clusters involves employees leaving established firms to found their own firms or shape new entrants in their industry. Questions and policy implications related to the spinoff mechanism and the mobility of employees are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]