Measuring agglomeration by spatial effects: a proposal

Journal title RIVISTA DI ECONOMIA E STATISTICA DEL TERRITORIO
Author/s Maria Davì, Isidora Barbaccia
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1 Language English
Pages 27 P. 44-70 File size 568 KB
DOI 10.3280/REST2015-001002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

In this paper we examine the influence of spatial dependence on the estimation of the effect of standard measures of agglomeration on local growth. The hypothesis is that the forces of agglomeration do not use up their effects inside a single local area but extend to wider geographic areas, particularly on the adjacent territories. To account for these spatial effects, we propose a modification of the traditional agglomeration index, suggested by Maurel and Sédillot (1999), including both agglomeration of economic activity within an area and neighbour effects, that is, the effect of agglomeration that comes from neighbouring areas. In the empirical exercise we compute the a-spatial and the spatial indices for the set of Sicilian local labour systems (LLSs) using 21 manufacturing and services industries from the NACE-CLIO sectorial disaggregation. The results of the exploratory spatial analysis confirm the agglomeration index varies notably when spatial effects across areas are included: both the level of the index and the degree of spatial dependence increase when it is computed accounting for the spillovers across local areas. In addition, results from the estimation of a model of the local employment dynamics reveal the most of the residual spatial dependence - observed in this type of specification - can be accounted by the spa

Keywords: Spatial agglomeration, employment growth, ESDA

Jel codes: R12, C31, J21

  1. Leenders R. (2002), Modeling Social Influence through Network Autocorrelation: Constructing the Weights Matrix, Social Networks, 24, pp. 21-47.
  2. Amiti M. (1997), Specialisation Patterns in Europe, CEPR, Discussion Paper no. 363.
  3. Anselin L. (1988), Spatial Econometrics: Methods and Models. Dordrecht (The Netherlands): Kluwer Academic PublishersPress. Arbia G. (2001), The Role of Spatial Effects in the Empirical Analysis of Regional Concentration, Journal of Geographical Systems, 3, pp. 271-281.
  4. Arbia G., Espa G., Giuliani D., Dickson M.M. (2014), Spatio-temporal Clustering in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturing Industry: A Geographical Micro-level Analysis, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 49, pp. 298-304.
  5. Ardeni P.G. (a cura di) (1995), Teorie della crescita endogena. Torino: Giappichelli.
  6. Audretsch D.B., Feldman M.P. (1996), R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production, American Economic Review, 86, pp. 630-640.
  7. Barbieri G., Pellegrini G., Paradisi F. (2000), Concentration and Spatial Agglomeration of Italian Economy: A Very, Very Disaggregated Analysis, 22nd SCORUS Conference, Scorus Proceedings, Shenzten, pp. 18-23.
  8. Basile R., Mantuano M. (2007), La concentrazione geografica dell’industria in Italia: 1971-2001, ISAE, W.P., 87, Rome, pp. 9-52.
  9. Bertinelli L., Decrop J. (2005), Geographical Agglomeration: Ellison and Glaeser’s Index Applied to the Case of Belgian Manufacturing Industry, Regional Studies, 39, 5, pp. 567-583.
  10. Boggio L., Seravalli G. (2003), Lo sviluppo economico. Bologna: il Mulino.
  11. Brülhart M. (2001), Evolving Geographical Concentration of European Manufacturing Industries, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 137, 2, pp. 215-243.
  12. Busch M.L., Reinhardt E. (1999), Industrial Location and Protection: The Political and Economic Geography of US Nontariff Barriers, American Journal of Political Science, 43, 4, pp. 1028-1050.
  13. Capello R. (2004), Economia regionale. Bologna: il Mulino.
  14. Combes P.-P., Overman H. (2004), The Spatial Distribution of Economic Activities in the European Union. In Henderson V., Thisse J. (eds.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Amsterdam: Elsevier, vol. 4, pp. 2845-2909.
  15. Deidda S., Paci R., Usai S. (2002), Spatial Externalities and Local Economic Growth, CRENoS, W.P., 2/06, pp 1-40.
  16. Devereux M.P., Griffith R., Simpson H. (2004), The Geographic Distribution of Production Activity in the UK, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 34, pp. 533-564.
  17. Dumais G., Ellison G., Glaeser E.L. (2002), Geographic Concentration as a Dynamic Process, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, pp. 193-204.
  18. Duranton G., Overman H.G. (2005), Testing for Localization Using Micro-Geographic Data, Review of Economic Studies, 72, 4, pp. 1077-1106.
  19. Ellison G., Glaeser E.L. (1997), Geographic Concentration in US Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach, Journal of Political Economy, 105, 5, pp. 889-927.
  20. Ellison G., Glaeser E.L. (1999), The Geographic Concentration of Industry: Does Natural Advantage Explain Agglomeration?, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 89, pp. 301-316.
  21. Fujita M., Krugman P., Venables A.J. (1999), The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions and International Trade, Cambridge: MIT Press Glaeser E.L., Kallal H.D., Scheinkman J.A., Shleifer A. (1992), Growth in Cities, Journal of Political Economy, 100, 6, pp. 1126-1152.
  22. Guillain R., Le Gallo J. (2006), Measuring Agglomeration: An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Approach Applied to the Case of Paris and Its Surroundings, International workshop on Spatial Econometrics and Statistics, Rome, may 25-27.
  23. Haaland J.I., Jarle Kind H., Midelfart Knarvik K.H., Torstensson J. (1999), What Determines the Economic Geography of Europe?, CEPR Discussion Paper, 2072.
  24. Haining R. (2003), Spatial Data Analysis Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  25. Hart P.E. (1982), Entropy, Moments and Aggregate Business Concentration in the U.K., Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 44, 2, pp. 113-126.
  26. Henderson V. (1997), Externalities and Industrial Development, Journal of Urban Economics, 42, pp. 449-470.
  27. Kim Y., Barkley D.L., Henry M.S. (2000), Industry Characteristics Linked to Establishment Concentrations in Nonmetropolitan areas, Journal of Regional Science, 40, pp. 231-259.
  28. Krugman P. (1991), Geography and Trade, Cambridge: MIT Press.
  29. Lafourcade M., Mion G. (2007), Concentration, Agglomeration and the Size of Plants, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 37, 1, pp. 46-68.
  30. Le Blanc G. (2004), Regional Specialization, Local Externalities and Clustering in Information Technology Industries. In Paganetto L. (ed.), Knowledge Economy, Information Technologies and Growth, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, pp. 453-486.
  31. Mameli F., Faggian A., McCann P. (2008), Employment Growth in Italian Local Labour Systems: Issues of Model Specification and Sectoral Aggregation, Spatial Economic Analysis, 3, 3, pp. 343-359.
  32. Marcon E., Puech F. (2003), Evaluating the Geographic Concentration of Industries using Distance-based Methods, Journal of Economic Geography, 3, pp. 409-428.
  33. Marcon E., Puech F. (2010), Measures of the Geographic Concentration of Industries: Improving Distance-based Methods, Journal of Economic Geography, 10, 5, pp. 745-762.
  34. Maré D.C., Timmins J. (2006), Geographic Concentration and Firm Productivity, Motu Working Paper 06-08, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Wellington, New Zealand, pp. 1-44.
  35. Maurel F., Sédillot B. (1999), A Measure of the Geographic Concentration in French Manufacturing Industries, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 29, 5, pp. 575-604.
  36. Midelfart Knarvik K.H., Overman H.G., Redding S.J., Venables A.J. (2000), The Location of European Industry, European Commission, Economic Paper, 142.
  37. Musu I. (2007), Crescita economica. Bologna: il Mulino. Paci R., Usai S. (2006), Agglomeration Economies and Growth. The Case of Italian Local Labour Systems, 1991-2001, CRENoS W.P., 06/12, pp. 1-27.
  38. Patacchini E. (2008), Local Analysis of Economic Disparities in Italy: A Spatial Statistics Approach, Statistical Methods & Applications, 17, pp. 85-112.
  39. Rice P., Venables A.J., Patacchini E. (2006), Spatial Determinants of Productivity: Analysis for the Regions of Great Britain, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 36, pp. 727-752.
  40. Ripley B.D. (1977), Modelling Spatial Patterns, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, B 39 (2), pp.172-212.
  41. Rysman M., Greenstein S. (2004), Testing for Agglomeration and Dispersion, Economic Letters, pp. 1-7.
  42. Sforzi F. (1989), Analisi dei dati di censimento per la pianificazione territoriale: retrospettiva e prospettive, Studi e informazioni, 1, pp. 31-67.
  43. Usai S., Paci R. (2001), Externalities and Local Economic Growth in Manufacturing Industries, CRENoS W.P., 01/13, pp.1-44.

Maria Davì, Isidora Barbaccia, Measuring agglomeration by spatial effects: a proposal in "RIVISTA DI ECONOMIA E STATISTICA DEL TERRITORIO" 1/2015, pp 44-70, DOI: 10.3280/REST2015-001002