Intra-Firm Spillovers? The Stock and Flow Effects of Collocation

Evan Rawley and Robert Seamans

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: We examine the impact of collocation on local within-firm performance, or intra-firm spillovers, by decomposing spillovers into one-time stock and recurring flow effects. Stock effects include one-time learning effects. Flow effects include ongoing resource sharing as well as cannibalization. Using data on the population of U.S. hotels and restaurants from 1977-2007, we exploit changes in the number of collocated establishments owned by the same firm to estimate the relative importance of stock and flow benefits. We find that collocation improves the productivity of new and existing establishments by 1-2%, even when correcting for endogenous sorting into collocation. The results, in conjunction with our field work, suggest that collocation generally facilitates the transfer of knowledge within the firm, but that flow effects of collocation are more sensitive to the broader economic environment.

Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:15-01

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