Empirical Studies on the Sources of Agglomeration Economies

Abstract

2 previous empirical studies. It performs an empirical examination of the model with regional panel data of the manufacturing sector in Japan. A city level panel data constructed mainly from the Census of Manufacturers for the 1996−2006 is used for empirical analysis. The revenue function including parameters for the transportation costs of each industry is estimated. The results support the existence of positive transportation costs, and show the estimated transportation costs for the manufacturing sector are higher than those for the primary sector and lower than those for the service sector. Chapter 3 Plant Productivity Dynamics and Private and Public R&D Spillovers: Technological, Geographic and Relational Proximity Chapter 3 investigates the knowledge spillovers and examines the effects of R&D spillovers on total factor productivity (TFP) with a large panel of Japanese manufacturing plants matched with R&D survey data (1987–2007). This chapter simultaneously examines the role of public (university and research institutions) and private (firm) R&D spillovers, and the different effects due to technological, geographic, and relational (buyer-supplier) proximity. Estimating dynamic long difference models and allowing for a gradual convergence in TFP and geographic decay in spillover effects, the results show that technologically proximate private R&D stocks positively affect TFP growth, which decay with distance and become negligible at around 500 kilometers. In addition to knowledge spillovers from technologically proximate R&D stocks, ‘relational’ spillovers from buyer and supplier R&D stocks exert positive effects on TFP growth that are similar in magnitude. The elasticity of TFP is highest for public R&D (corrected for industrial relevance), in particular for plants operated by R&D-conducting firms. This chapter does not find evidence of geographic decay in the impact of public and relational spillovers. Over time, declining R&D spillovers appear to be responsible for a substantial part of the decline in the rate of TFP growth. The exit of proximate plants operated by R&D-intensive firms plays a notable role in this process and is an important phenomenon in major industrial agglomerations such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kanagawa. Chapter 4 Effects of Regional Human Capital on Business Entry: a Comparison of Independent Startups and New Subsidiaries in Different Industries Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 examine the effects of labor pooling. Chapter 4 aims to investigate