Technology and industrial agglomeration: evidence from computer usage

Christopher Wheeler ()

No 2005-016, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract: Although the association between industrial agglomeration and productivity has been widely examined and documented, little work has explored the possibility that these `external' productivity shifts are the product of more advanced technologies. This paper offers a look at this hypothesis using data on individual-level computer usage across a sample of U.S. metropolitan areas over the years 1984, 1989, 1993, and 1997. The results indicate that, for a wide array of industries at the two-, three-, and four-digit SIC level, an industry's scale within a metropolitan area is positively associated with the frequency of computer use by its workers. However, in spite of these observable differences in workplace technology, I also find that estimated localization effects on wages are largely not explained by computer usage. Even after controlling for computer use, there remain significant own-industry scale effects in labor earnings.

Keywords: Technology; Industrial location (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Technology and industrial agglomeration: Evidence from computer usage* (2009)
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DOI: 10.20955/wp.2005.016

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