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>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hhs-2154 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Protsiv, Sergiy |
| Publisher | Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, Institutionen för Marknadsföring och strategi, Stockholm : Stockholm School of Economics |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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