AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES IN JAPAN: TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY, GROWTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Arup Mitra and Hajime Sato

Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, 2007, vol. 19, issue 3, 197-209

Abstract: This paper examines if the effects of agglomeration economies are manifested in technical efficiency and generate faster economic growth and higher (lower) levels of employment (unemployment). Using the prefecture level data for each of the two†digit groups of industries in Japan, it estimates a region†specific technical efficiency index based on the stochastic frontier production function framework. The factor analysis shows that in most of the industry†groups, efficiency has a positive association with external scale variable(s). Though the relationship is not very strong, it would be erroneous to ignore the effect of agglomeration economies on efficiency. For some light goods industries, the agglomeration effect is relatively stronger. Economic growth varies positively with external scale variable(s) and the unemployment rate tends to fall with respect to growth and concentration. This suggests that measures against industrial concentration may be counter†productive, particularly in the context of globalization when countries greatly need to raise productivity.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-940X.2007.00136.x

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:bla:revurb:v:19:y:2007:i:3:p:197-209

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0917-0553

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().