The agglomeration economies associated with information technology activities: an empirical study of the US economy

Christian Le Bas and Frédéric Miribel

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2005, vol. 14, issue 2, 343-363

Abstract: This paper deals with the effects of the geographic concentration of economic activity on productivity through agglomeration economies. We split economic activity into information technology (IT)-related activity and all other activities. The main contribution of this paper is to measure and compare the agglomeration economies associated with the geographic concentration of these two types of economic activities. We set out three empirical models of productivity equations (concentration model, localization model, density model) and give estimates based on US data at the state and county levels for the year 1990. We show that the geographic concentration of IT employment has a greater positive effect on labor productivity than the geographic concentration of all other activities. This confirms stronger agglomeration economies in the geographic areas where IT activity is more concentrated. This analysis suggests that the so-called 'death of distance' argument is not relevant for IT activity. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:indcch:v:14:y:2005:i:2:p:343-363

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial and Corporate Change is currently edited by Josef Chytry

More articles in Industrial and Corporate Change from Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().