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This study explores how the location choice and financial resources of music-tech startups impact their performance, focusing on the role of CEO type (founder vs. non-founder). Entrepreneurs face the challenge of choosing between leveraging existing networks in their home region or relocating to industry-specific hubs. While location decisions significantly influence access to resources and growth potential, recent findings on their impact remain mixed. This research aims to clarify these dynamics by examining how founder and non-founder CEOs affect startup performance, particularly in creative industries where financial resources and location play critical roles. By providing insights into these factors, the study enhances our understanding of the interplay between startup location, financial support, and leadership in the music-tech sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how state ownership affects financial reporting practices in China. Using several measures of state (government) ownership, we show that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in state ownership decreases financial statement comparability by 36.61%, and the impact is more pronounced when the central authority has majority control of the company. Moreover, lower earnings quality and lower levels of accounting conservatism among state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) may explain the lower accounting comparability between SOEs and non‐SOEs (NSOEs). Additionally, similar (different) managerial objectives converge (diverge) financial statement comparability between SOEs and NSOEs. Last, the geographical locations of firms also contribute to financial statement comparability. We employ a difference‐in‐differences design, changes regression and entropy balancing to mitigate potential endogeneity bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: With increased political polarization, Americans are displaying more animus across, and affinity within, ideological identity groups. We argue this dynamic incentivizes firms to minimize ideological misalignments across their workforce by locating new establishments in areas that are ideologically proximate to their current operations. We further argue that the desire to minimize ideological distance to new establishments is stronger in knowledge‐intensive industries and young organizations. We find support for these arguments through the analysis of over 220,000 new establishment openings from 2009 to 2014. Critically, we find the effect of ideological distance on location is stronger when societal polarization is high. Our theory, and findings, contribute to several literatures and advance our understanding of the impact of polarization on strategy. Managerial Summary: Being a liberal or a conservative is central to many Americans' identity. As political polarization rises, individuals increasingly trust and favor others who share their ideological identity, while distrusting and avoiding those that do not. This study investigates how these societal trends affect where firms choose to locate new facilities. Because social ties and trust across workers support collaboration, resource‐sharing and organizational performance, we argue that managers will seek ideological alignment within their firms by locating new establishments in areas that are ideologically proximate to existing operations. Analysis of over 220,000 new establishment openings from 2009 to 2014 supports this contention, and shows that the tendency to avoid ideologically distant locations is stronger when societal polarization is higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polluting firms typically relocate to avoid stringent environmental regulations. Based on China's Two Control Zones (TCZ) policy, we examine the impact of environmental regulation on firms' location decisions. The results show that in the upwind TCZ near interprovincial areas, the distance of polluting firms to the border is significantly reduced after environmental regulation is tightened. This finding provides new evidence for the need to strengthen regional joint prevention and control to prevent trans-regional pollution transfer.

This paper provides estimates of local employment multipliers from large, publicly subsidized firms. We use a synthetic control weighted difference‐in‐difference estimation procedure that matches treated areas with comparison areas to generate local employment multiplier estimates. We show that local employment multiplier estimates have a high degree of uncertainty, with a wide range of point estimates (both positive and negative) and varying degrees of statistical significance. There is a concentration of positive employment multipliers from manufacturing facilities, but little correlation between estimated multipliers and subsidy value. We demonstrate that our approach produces drastically different results than a traditional difference‐in‐difference approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science parks (SP) are one of the most common, but controversial, instruments of innovation policies worldwide today. The inconclusive results regarding the benefits provided by SPs suggest that not all companies equally benefit from being located in these innovative environments. The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between a company's characteristics and its capacity to effectively utilise the benefits provided by locating in a SP. Consequently, we aim to identify the most suitable company profile for hosting in SP-type spaces, as well as those companies for which location in an SP does not yield significant advantages. To achieve this goal, a comparative empirical study was conducted on the performance of a sample of 40 on-park companies, compared to a control group of 40 off-park companies. Using the fuzzy sets comparative qualitative analysis (fsQCA) methodology, we identify combinations of variables that define the company's profile and link them to its performance, measured in terms of job growth and sales. Our results suggest that the positive effect of the park on company growth is primarily evident in recently created companies with export capacity. This tenant profile can derive the most significant benefits from establishing themselves in a science park. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on knowledge spillovers provides evidence that higher education institutions (HEIs) positively affect regional firm location (i.e., start-ups or firms located in a region). However, less is known about how HEIs in different fields of study impact regional firm location in different industries. To investigate this question, we exploit the establishment of universities of applied sciences (UASs)—bachelor's degree-granting three-year HEIs in Switzerland. We find that the effects of UASs are heterogeneous across fields of study and industries. UASs specializing in "chemistry and the life sciences" and "business, management, and services" are the only UASs that positively affect regional firm location across several industries. Positive effects emerge in service industries characterized by radical service, incremental product, or process innovations. Thus, UASs are not a one-size-fits-all solution for increasing regional firm location. Instead, only UASs specializing in particular fields of study positively influence firm location in certain industries. Plain English Summary: Universities of applied sciences (UASs) foster regional firm location but not for all fields of study or industries. Most gains stem from UASs in Chemistry & Life Sciences or Business, Management & Services and emerge mainly in service industries. UASs as knowledge suppliers provide regional firms as knowledge consumers with results of applied research and with human capital. However, positive effects on firm location only emerge if knowledge outputs of UASs as suppliers match knowledge needs of firms as consumers. Our study shows that good matches occured for UASs in Chemistry & Life Sciences or Business, Management & Services with service industries, which are typically characterized by radical service innovations and incremental product or process innovations. For policymakers who want to push regional innovation ecosystems, our findings imply that establishing UASs which promote these ecosystems requires careful consideration of regional firms' knowledge needs. If UASs provide matching knowledge, UASs stimulate the regional innovation ecosystem and thereby firm location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I simulate firms competing in an urban landscape that is segregated by income level. Some firms are located close to wealthy neighborhoods and far from competitors, but other firms do not enjoy these advantages. The probability that a household selects a certain firm to patronize depends on that firm's price and its distance from the household. The firms have almost no information about the urban market they inhabit, but they can experiment with prices and learn what actions lead to higher profits. Firms that experience persistent losses go out of business. When transportation costs are low, households shop aggressively and the result that emerges resembles perfect competition. When transportation costs are high, households shop less aggressively, which gives firms greater market power. The results here more closely resemble monopolistic competition, with more firms surviving, higher prices and higher profits. However, this collusion is implicit, as there is no mechanism for the firms to communicate or explicitly collude with each other. I validate the model by conducting a Probit analysis of the factors that determine firm survival. I also conduct an econometric analysis of the factors that determine a firm's price, quantity sold, and profit. Firms locating close to rival have a higher probability of going out of business. If these firms do survive, on average their profits are no different than the profits of firms that are not located close to a rival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein we augment the traditional devolved environmental interjurisdictionalcompetition model with specific firm mobility in the presence of agglomeration economies. Now the number of firms in a jurisdiction becomes pertinent in the story of decentralized efficiency. Specifically, when agglomeration forces are sufficiently strong, firm movement is subdued. Placed-based environmental policies aimed at swaying a firm's location decision are rendered relatively ineffective. As a result, jurisdictions possess incentives to excessively overprotect environmental quality - a race-to-the-top. Firm taxation effects on devolved efficiency are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, it was assumed that hard location factors (e.g. workforce, land) were the primary influence on the location decisions of firms. In the course of the tertiarization of the economy and linked increases in the qualification of employees as well as changes in values and timemodels, soft location factors (e.g. image, cultural offerings) are expected to gain in importance. Therefore, this paper examines whether the importance of soft location factors has really increased in comparison to traditional, hard location factors. For this purpose, company surveys conducted by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mittlerer Niederrhein (Germany) in 2002 and 2017 are analysed. More than 1,000 firms took part in both surveys and evaluated more than 50 location factors in terms of their importance. The results of the study show that the importance of soft location factors related to quality of life (e.g. safety, image) and the city centre (e.g. parking) increased significantly over this time period. In comparison, the importance of the hard location factors stagnated or even decreased (without including the factor information and communication infrastructure). These results provide indications for the local authorities concerning which site conditions are important for retaining firms or attracting new companies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of location choice, firms face a trade-off between the increasing agglomeration benefits and the rising costs of doing business along the high-speed rail (HSR) corridors. This study examines the causal impact of the HSR extension on industrial movement patterns in China's Greater Bay Area (GBA). We analyze two firm-level datasets for the period 2007–2018 using the difference-in-differences method. We find that after the HSR extension, large-scale manufacturing firms exhibit a decentralization trend in the central GBA. We also find that the service sector shows a clustering pattern in the GBA. However, this pattern differs between the GBA and other regions, urban districts, and suburban counties, highlighting the redistribution effect of the HSR extension on industrial growth across regions. These findings have important implications for industrial policymaking, as they help decision-makers reflect on the potential industrial movement trend in relation to the impact of HSR expansion. • HSR has causal impact on firm/industry relocation in China GBA. • Large-scale manufacturing firms exhibit a decentralization trend. • Service sector shows a clustering pattern in the GBA. • Industrial movement pattern differs between the GBA and other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a model of fiscal competition for foreign direct investment and show that the decision of multinational firms to locate in the proximity of indigenous firms—which can be thought of as agglomeration—may be the result of the provision of government incentives that aim to capitalise on the potential for knowledge spillovers to indigenous industry. Somewhat different but complementary to existing literature, we also show that fiscal competition may increase the welfare of both winning and losing countries in the auction for the multinational firm when it leads to the relocation of multinationals away from countries that do not have the potential to benefit from knowledge spillovers to countries that do. As trade costs fall and the potential for knowledge spillovers increases, both outcomes become more likely in equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of relative energy prices on the geographical distribution of industrial investments across 41 countries. Employing a gravity model framework to analyse firms' investment location decisions, we estimate the model using global bilateral investment flows derived from firm-level M&A data. Our findings reveal that a 10% increase in the energy price differential between two countries results in a 3.2% rise in cross-border acquisitions. This effect is most pronounced in energy-intensive industries and transactions targeting emerging economies. Furthermore, policy simulations suggest that the impact of unilateral carbon pricing on cross-border investments is modest. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The location of industrial firms is an important matter of freight transport for the economical movement of goods in reducing transport costs and travel distance. This study suggests strategies for freight transport management, investigating the impact of transport infrastructure on the location choice of firms in the manufacturing industry by sector at the micro-spatial level using a time-fixed/region-random effects two-way error component model. The estimated models consider manufacturing firms classified into four sectors (i.e., high, medium-high, medium-low, and low technology). Different types of transport infrastructure variables were found to influence the location choice of firms, depending on the transport accessibility and cost-efficiency needs of each manufacturing sector. The findings presented in this paper provide evidence useful to establish geographical policy strategies towards infrastructure planning for smart growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of international competitiveness of domestic industries remains a key obstacle to the implementation of effective carbon prices in a world without harmonized climate policies. We analyze countries' noncooperative choices of emissions taxes under imperfect competition and mobile polluting firms. In our general equilibrium setup with trade, wage effects prevent all firms from locating in the same country. While under local or no pollution countries achieve the first-best, under transboundary pollution taxes are inefficiently low and lower than under autarky where only the "standard" free-riding incentive distorts emissions taxes. This effect is more pronounced when polluting firms are mobile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of new firms is an important determinant of regional economic development and agglomeration is a key factor affecting the formation and scale of operations of new firms. The present paper is among the first to explore the relationship between agglomeration economies (using localization and urbanization economies) and new firms' formation and scale of operations in a developing country. We make use of rich firm‐level data and find that agglomeration has a significant impact on the formation of new firms and their scale of operation in Punjab, Pakistan. Our findings also reveal that localization at all scales (small, medium and large) has a positive correlation with the arrival of new firms, while medium‐scale and large‐scale localization is positively correlated with the scale of operation of new firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature has provided empirical evidence showing the importance of location for understanding KIBS effective service provision. According to territorial servitization postulates KIBS are also fundamental for the development of the manufacturing firms. Despite KIBS can be an important source of innovation, limited attention is paid of KIBS in Latin America region. The purpose of this research is analysing the relationship between KIBS co-location and innovativeness of the manufacturing firms. Drawing on the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2017 for Latin-American countries, authors analyse 3,029 manufacturing firms using OLS method. Findings indicate that manufacturing firms’ location based on KIBS proximity is a critical determinant of innovativeness. This relationship is considerably stronger in Central American countries, where according to our data there is KIBS scarcity.

This study examines the spatial association between science- and technology-related entrepreneurship and neighbourhood walkability in eastern Nebraska, often referred to as the northern ‘Silicon Prairie’. Tech start-up firms are expected to gravitate toward more walkable or pedestrian-oriented urban locations to benefit from heightened social interaction, knowledge spillovers and a more vibrant, creative atmosphere. Data on start-up firms collected from the online database Crunchbase.com and a walkability index provided by the popular online service Walk Score® were used to evaluate the walkability–tech entrepreneurship nexus. The spatial relationship between walkability and firm location may have important implications for metropolitan areas seeking to incubate new firms and industries in situ, and potentially become leaders in new, innovative industries.

Using data on a sample of small Iowa towns consistently collected over two decades, we investigate how agglomeration economies, social capital, human capital, local fiscal policy, and natural amenities affect new firm entry. We find that human capital and agglomeration are more conducive to new firm entry than are natural amenities, local fiscal policy, or social capital. The impact of local fiscal policy is too small to overcome the locational disadvantages from insufficient endowment of human capital and agglomeration. A rural development approach that encourages firm entry in rural towns with the largest endowments of human capital and market agglomeration would be more successful than trying to raise firm entry in every town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the economic efficiency associated with firm location in a non-traded goods industry. This industry comprises of two segmented regions (markets) and a fixed number of potentially identical, oligopolistic firms. We consider the following two-stage game. In the first stage, firms determine the region in which they want to locate simultaneously and independently. In the second, given the pattern of firm location, every firm engages in Cournot competition in each market. If a potentially identical firm is located in a different region, the firm has a different cost function, and therefore, different fixed and marginal costs. Thus, the cost function of each firm is not firm-specific but region-specific. We define welfare as the sum of the region's social surplus, which includes consumer surplus and producer surplus. We obtain the following results. First, when only the marginal costs differ across regions, from a welfare perspective, an insufficient number of firms are located in the higher-cost region. Second, when only the fixed costs differ across regions, an excessive number of firms are located in the higher-cost region. Third, when a region has sufficiently higher fixed and marginal costs than another, an excessive number of firms are located in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the intra-government (vertical) tax competition on firms' location choices is seldom studied in the literature. In this paper, we use the local corporate income tax revenue retention rate to represent the outcome of the vertical tax strategic interactions between the central and local governments in China. Theoretically and empirically, we find that a higher local corporate income tax revenue retention rate attracts newly-established firms, even when we simultaneously take into account the effect of the horizontal tax competition, i.e., the local effective corporate income tax rates. Such positive effect of the local corporate income tax revenue retention rate on firms' location decisions is robust to a battery of sub-sample analyses and alternative model specifications, and is heterogeneous across firms with different ownership structures. This effect is more prominent in provinces with weaker agglomeration forces as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survival in a foreign market is not always the same as in the home market. This study examines interaction effects between cultural distance, country risk, entry mode, firm age, investment location and market size on firm survival. A distant culture is related to a lower survival rate but the greater the market size and the older the firm, the less severe the effect. Wholly owned subsidiaries have the highest survival rate. However, as market size and the age of the firm grow, the survival rate of equity joint ventures increases while that of wholly owned subsidiaries remains unaffected. Country risk is negatively related to survival rate. The negative impact of country risk in Eastern China is lower than any other region of China and manufacturing firms suffer less negative impact of country risk and cultural distance than non-manufacturing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates that small manufacturing firms in postwar Tokyo were exceptionally successful. Not only were they more productive than their national peers, they were also remarkably competitive vis-à-vis large factories in Tokyo. The existing explanations for this double outperformance do not take full account of the urban setting in which this process took place. Small factories compensated for higher labor costs by being more efficient users of urban space. They thrived thanks to Tokyo's particular urban form, which included a preference for mixed use and often blurred the boundaries between living and workplace. Small factories also benefited from being embedded in the relatively egalitarian structure of postwar Tokyo, as the city avoided spatial stratification despite megacity growth. Although Tokyo's small factories remain important, their competitive edge has eroded from the 1970s onward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse co-location patterns of manufactures and service industries at a microgeographic level using Spanish data from the Mercantile Register. Our approach allows us to analyse joint-location and co-location patterns of firms in different industries, and to overcome previous technical constraints in this type of analyses, partially thanks to using homogeneous cells instead of administrative units. This paper contributes to the empirical literature on industry location by developing a multisectorial co-location index computed by comparing differences between observed data about firms' location and randomly generated data. Multisectorial relationships are analyzed by transposing bilateral relations onto an n-dimensional space. Our results show that dispersed industries tend to locate jointly and that industries with lower joint-location patterns have spatial structures similar to those obtained through input–output relationships, suggesting weak role of co-location patterns as interindustry linkages are not the main location determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses Poisson regression techniques to analyze the location of biotechnology companies throughout the United States. Three hypotheses are considered: that firms locate in population centers in order to attract workers, that they locate near colleges and universities where potential workers are likely to be better educated, and that they locate in close proximity to researchoriented universities and institutes because high-technology firms frequently spin-off from these research centers. We find that clusters do tend to be located near population centers colleges and universities, but the influence of researchbased universities is particularly striking. This highlights a powerful policy instrument for regions hoping to promote high-tech industrial clusters: the creation and maintenance of a first-rate research-oriented university. While these ideas have been suggested in the past, our approach to defining, measuring, and analyzing these variables provides new insights into their significance, as well as suggesting avenues for future research.

We investigate the relation between a firm's geographic location and its dividend policy. We find that firms headquartered in the National Central Cities, cities with high-speed rail (HSR), and with shorter distance to the nearest National Central City pay higher dividends. We find evidence that attributes the higher dividends to an increase in the number of analysts' site visits, greater information transparency, and a reduction in financial constraints. Finally, the observed increases in dividends tend to be stronger for firms that benefit the most from improvements in the information environment after the arrival of HSR, such as firms located in regions without regional airports, firms located in areas with a lower regional gross domestic product, firms located a greater distance to the closest National Central City, and firms that are smaller, state-owned, have a shorter listing history in the exchanges, and have a more concentrated ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the spatial association between science- and technology-related entrepreneurship and neighbourhood walkability in eastern Nebraska, often referred to as the northern 'Silicon Prairie'. Tech start-up firms are expected to gravitate toward more walkable or pedestrian-oriented urban locations to benefit from heightened social interaction, knowledge spillovers and a more vibrant, creative atmosphere. Data on start-up firms collected from the online database Crunchbase.com and a walkability index provided by the popular online service Walk Score® were used to evaluate the walkability–tech entrepreneurship nexus. The spatial relationship between walkability and firm location may have important implications for metropolitan areas seeking to incubate new firms and industries in situ, and potentially become leaders in new, innovative industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public yield spreads of bonds vary widely between Chinese provinces/municipalities, with the average for the highest province double that of the lowest one. Although we find that these patterns are mainly attributable to economic and legal conditions, locational effects like geographic distance and public firm credit ratings also appear to be contributory. We show that these effects are induced by different regional informational environments and are robust to controlling for potential endogenous location choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's pursuit of low-cost overseas production and China's thirst for export markets have resulted in industrial decline in the U.S. and raised serious questions about national security. An economic decoupling from China is now actively discussed in Washington. We model the economic impact of a permanent 25% across-the-board tariff on imports from China to study its macroeconomic effects. We find significant gains in GDP and employment and a large reorientation of U.S. supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global market, food sales are connected with two opposing trends. On one hand, new markets are appearing and the number of suppliers is increasing as well as the range of goods. On the other hand, the growth in the number of producers means intensification of competition. Local food producers have to deal with the optimal location problem for their outlets, taking into account potential and existing competitors. The solution to the problem can be based on spatial competition theory conclusions particularly using some spatial competition models. The given methodology is chosen for the research purposes. The article gives some definitions of such concept as «economic space» and «spatial competition», which enables the analysis and helps find disadvantages of the existing spatial competition models. The agent's economic space is created for differentiation of interests and is a result of the competition. Spatial competition is an imperfect competition of producers (dealers) for the share of market space by means of price tools. Some regressions are built to look into relations between the number and density of firms and the number and density of population in the cities. The analysis is based on real data about shops' locations in Siberia Federal District. It is found that there is not any dependence between wages and the number and density of population in the cities. The built regressions show that additional centripetal forces exist in the cities. It means that simple theoretical models of spatial competition describe the reality inaccurately and it's more useful to apply more sophisticated models. So, the competition level depends on the agent's location. The competition is decreasing near administrative borders because the price is higher due to transport costs. However, diminishing of transport costs can lead to the concentration of production in large markets or near them.

The location patterns and organizational networks of both advanced producer services (APS) and cultural industries have attracted extensive attention in geography and other related disciplines. However, most research on these two sectors has examined each one in isolation, without paying attention on how they are engaged with each other. Drawing on a network analysis of the inter-firm service provision relationships between 245 cultural firms and their APS providers during the firms' public listing processes in mainland China, this paper presents a pilot study of the functional interactions between cultural industries and APS from a geographical perspective. Our purpose is to expand the research on these two economic sectors from the simple mapping and ranking of their individual industrial activities to an investigation of the city-based spatial relationships between them. The outcome reveals that while the leading cultural firms and their APS intermediaries have demonstrated similar location patterns across major Chinese cities, the spatial interactions and connections between them are much more complicated than their co-location tends to suggest. This paper enriches our understanding of the functions of local clusters and trans-local networks in the establishment of inter-industrial linkages between the different sectors of knowledge economies. The paper also sheds light on the impacts of institutional context on the (spatial) development of cultural industries in a transitional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aggregated models, such as spatial interaction (SIM) models are widely used in location analysis. Despite their popularity, there are certain limitations to their use. In particular, the method struggles to account for the passing-by population and multi-purpose trips of retail clients, temporal changes in accessibility and some bottom-up processes potentially important for services. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a promising technique that attempts to address all these problems. However, it still lacks examples of real-world applications. This article aims to provide an example of how hybrid ABM (H-ABM) can be built on a SIM foundation, by incorporating most of its ideas, such as distance-decay function, facility attractiveness parameters and demand elasticity. The author aligns the two models as close as possible and compares their input data, calibration procedures and results. In the final analysis, the hybrid agent-based model proved to be more realistic because it incorporated the time-space variability of supply (i.e., limited numbers of available places in swimming pools), demand (the popularity of certain entry hours) and transport (traffic jams during rush hours). The spatial interaction model was much faster to execute and turned out to be more convenient for more straightforward applications, which do not require detailed data concerning individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Creative firms are neither capital‐ nor land‐intensive in production. They predominantly rely on creative and specialized labor and, assuming a strong competition for workers, are therefore increasingly dependent on the location of their (potential) employees. If these creative and highly qualified employees are attracted by consumption amenities such as bars, clubs, and restaurants, then it follows that these same amenities may determine the location of creative service firms. I investigate this hypothesis by examining whether Berlin Internet start‐up firms locate in urban amenity‐rich places. Identification builds on the fall of the Berlin Wall. A 1 percent increase in amenity density raises the probability of a start‐up location by almost 2 percent. A comparison with other service industries suggests that amenities are significant to the location choice of creative sectors, whereas no effect can be observed for nonreative firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional differentiation between cities and the characteristics of their inter-urban networks in the emerging knowledge-intensive service economy have attracted extensive attention in urban studies. However, research on urban networks generated by advanced producer services (APS) activities has focused either on the structures of the networks in general or on the patterns created by various service sectors. In comparison, whether advanced services originating from different regions might generate different inter-city networks is less well studied. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper explores how APS firms with headquarters in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), in mainland China or overseas impact the internal urban system and the external relations of the PRD through their business networks. The findings indicate that while cities in the PRD are connected with each other and with other Chinese cities primarily through the business networks of local and national APS firms, the region’s linkages with overseas services centres are shaped predominantly by major international firms from the developed world. The variegated service geographies created by different types of APS firms within and outside China not only reflect the firms’ different development histories, client orientations in specific markets and home regions’ economic conditions, but they are also significantly shaped by China’s unique regulatory environment and complex state–market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]