Productivity Improvement in the Specialized Industrial Clusters: The Case of the Japanese Silk-Reeling Industry

Yutaka Arimoto, Kentaro Nakajima and Tetsuji Okazaki

No 2011-10, CEI Working Paper Series from Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: We examine two sources of productivity improvement in the specialized industrial clusters. Agglomeration improves the roductivity of each plant through positive externalities, shifting plant-level productivity distribution to the right. Selection expels less productive plants through competition, truncating distribution on the left. By analyzing the data of the early twentieth century Japanese silk-reeling industry, we find no evidence confirming a right shift in the distribution in clusters or that gglomeration promotes faster productivity growth. These findings imply that the plant-selection effect was the source of higher productivity in the Japanese silk-reeling clusters.

Keywords: Economic geography; Heterogeneous firms; Selection; Productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L10 O18 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-his and nep-ure
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https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/28511/wp2011-10.pdf

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Working Paper: Productivity Improvement in the Specialized Industrial Clusters: The Case of the Japanese Silk-Reeling Industry (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hitcei:2011-10

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