Do Local Factors Explain Local Employment Growth? Evidence from Canada, 1971–2001

Abstract

Shearmur R. and Polese M. (2007) Do local factors explain local employment growth? Evidence from Canada, 1971–2001, Regional Studies 41, 453–471. Why does employment grow in one region and not in another? This basic question underpins a substantial proportion of research in regional science and economic geography, and a wide variety of approaches have been deployed to explore it. These approaches can be divided into two broad and complementary categories. On the one hand, large-scale processes such as agglomeration economies, the concentration of high-order functions, access to markets, and cost-minimizing behaviour have been called upon to explain the patterns. On the other hand, detailed examination of the characteristics of each region has been undertaken: employment growth has been attributed to the presence in growing regions of certain factors. This paper presents a simple model of regional employment growth that draws upon the two approaches. It is concluded that the paper's model is a good predict...