What Drives the Geography of Jobs in the US? Unpacking Relatedness

Teresa Farinha, Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Andrea Morrison and Ron Boschma ()

No 1813, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: There is ample evidence of regions diversifying in new occupations that are related to pre- existing activities in the region. However, it is still poorly understood through which mechanisms related diversification operates. To unpack relatedness, we distinguish between three mechanisms: complementarity (interdependent tasks), similarity (sharing similar skills) and local synergy (based on pure co-location). We propose a measure for each of these relatedness dimensions and assess their impact on the evolution of the occupational structure of 389 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) for the period 2005-2016. Our findings show that new jobs appearing in MSA?s are related to existing ones, while those more likely to disappear are more unrelated to a city?s jobs' portfolio. We found that all three relatedness dimensions matter, but local synergy shows the largest impact on entry and exit of jobs in US cities.

Keywords: evolutionary economic geography; regional capabilities; jobs; skills; relatedness; similarity; complementarity; local synergy; US cities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O18 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03, Revised 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-lma, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: What drives the geography of jobs in the US? Unpacking relatedness (2019)
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