What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns

Why do firms cluster near one another? We test Marshall's theories of industrial agglomeration by examining which industries locate near one another, or coagglomerate. We construct pairwise coagglomeration indices for US manufacturing industries from the Economic Census. We then relate coagglom...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ellison, Glenn, Glaeser, Edward L., Kerr, William R.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Economic Association 2013
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82638
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3164-0855
Description
Summary:Why do firms cluster near one another? We test Marshall's theories of industrial agglomeration by examining which industries locate near one another, or coagglomerate. We construct pairwise coagglomeration indices for US manufacturing industries from the Economic Census. We then relate coagglomeration levels to the degree to which industry pairs share goods, labor, or ideas. To reduce reverse causality, where collocation drives input-output linkages or hiring patterns, we use data from UK industries and from US areas where the two industries are not collocated. All three of Marshall's theories of agglomeration are supported, with input-output linkages particularly important.