More than three quarters of the world’s economic activity is concentrated in cities. But what drives people and firms to agglomerate in urban areas? Clearly, some places may offer inherent benefits due to the location itself, such as a mild climate or the presence of natural harbours, but that does not tell the whole story. Rather urban areas also offer spaces for interaction among people and firms as well as the proximity to potential partners, customers, and competitors, which could have a significant impact on the appeal of a location for a firm. Using multiple novel methods based on a unique detailed geographical dataset, this dissertation explores how a location’s attractiveness is impacted by the presence of nearby firms in three studies. The first study explores the influence of the density of economic activity on wages at a given location and attempts to disentangle the separate mechanisms that could be at work. The second study is concerned with the locations of foreign-owned firms and more specifically whether foreign-owned firms are more influenced by agglomeration benefits than domestic firms. The final study switches from modelling the effects of location to modelling the location patterns themselves using economic theory-based spatial point processes. The results of these studies make significant contributions to empirical research both in economic geography and international business as a set of theoretical propositions are tested on a very detailed dataset using an advanced methodology. The results could also be of interest for practitioners as the importance of location decisions is further reinforced, as well as for policymakers as the analyses explore not only the benefits but also the detriments of agglomeration. Sergiy Protsiv is a researcher at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Stockholm School of Economics. He participated in several projects on clusters and regional development, most notably the European Cluster Observatory. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2012</p>

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No. of bitstreams: 1 hentz_c_me_prud.pdf: 4212199 bytes, checksum: 1a9410910ab0bee3c7e1c067fe19e403 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-05 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / A importância assumida pela agricultura familiar nas últimas décadas do século XX está circunscrita, ao menos do ponto de vista da retórica, a nova abordagem incorporada às políticas públicas a partir da década de 1990, quando se busca superar o viés meramente setorial e produtivista das políticas públicas voltadas ao espaço rural. Buscando atenuar os profundos impactos causados pelo processo de modernização agrícola, uma nova concepção territorial de desenvolvimento é posta no âmbito das políticas públicas, com o intento de desenvolver estratégias de desenvolvimento rural que assegurem melhores condições de vida no campo, sobretudo no que concerne à situação dos pequenos agricultores familiares que estão circunscritos ao processo produtivo de alimentos. Inserido neste contexto de mudanças, o Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos – PAA aliou elementos da política agrícola e da política de segurança alimentar, viabilizando a articulação entre a produção, a comercialização e o consumo, colaborando com o enfrentamento da fome e da pobreza no Brasil e, ao mesmo tempo, fortalecendo a agricultura familiar. No Oeste Catarinense, dentre os desdobramentos do projeto modernizante está o estreitamento das relações entre agricultura e indústria. Tais mudanças, suficientemente fortes, permitem a implantação de um novo processo produtivo denominado de “sistema de integração”, o qual se apresenta extremamente seletivo e excludente, deixando a margem do processo produtivo, parcela significativa de pequenos agricultores familiares. Sendo assim, este trabalho pretende balizar as reflexões teóricas acerca do papel do Estado nas políticas públicas de desenvolvimento rural, tomando o PAA, como estudo de caso nos municípios de Cunha Porã e Saltinho, inseridos na Microrregião Geográfica de Chapecó. Para tal, busca-se analisar as possibilidades de comercialização abertas pela instauração desta política pública e, até que ponto, esta tem propiciado alternativas econômicas e sociais para que a agricultura familiar consiga se inserir de forma autônoma nos mercados. A metodologia adotada esteve centrada em análise bibliográfica acerca dos temas que o compõem, entrevistas e trabalhos de campo com aplicação de questionário. É possível afirmar, diante dos resultados encontrados que, por mais louvável que seja esta política pública, atuando sozinha torna-se frágil e insuficiente. / The importance assumed by family farmers in the last decades of the twentieth century is limited, at least from the rhetorical point of view, to the new approach incorporated to public policies from the 1990s, when on seeks to overcome the purely sectoral and production bias of the public policies for rural areas. Seeking to mitigate the profound impact caused by the agricultural modernization process, a new territorial concept of development is put in the context of public policies with the intent of developing rural development strategies to ensure better living conditions in the field, especially regardingthe situation of small family farmers who are confined to the process of food production. Inserted into this context of change, the Food Acquisition Program - PAA allied elements of agricultural policy and food security policy, enabling the link between production, marketing and consumption, contributing to tackling hunger and poverty in Brazil and at the same time, strengthening family farming. In the West of Santa Catarina, among the consequences of the modernizing project is the strengthening of the relationship between agriculture and industry. Such changes if strong enough, allow the implementation of a new production process called "system of integration", which is extremely selective and exclusionary, leaving in the margin of the production process a significant portion of small family farmers. Thus, this work aims to delimit the theoretical reflections on the state's role in public policies for rural development, taking the PAA as a case study in the cities of Cunha Porã and Saltinho, located at the micro geographic region of Chapecó. Therefore, it seeks to analyze the marketing opportunities offered by the introduction of this public policy, and to what extentit has fostered social and economic alternatives for small farmers to insert autonomously in the markets. The methodology was focused on bibliographic analysis about the issues, interviews and field work with questionnaire. From the results, it can be concluded although the PAA is acommendable public policy, acting alone becomes fragile and insufficient. / FAPESP: 2014/02873-4