Corporate geography in multi-plant firms

This paper focuses on how multi-plant firms allocate their workforce and investments between headquarters or plants located in or close to the headquarters area (HQ plants) and those located in the same country but farther away from the headquarters area (non-HQ plants). Using survey data on Italian industrial multi-plant firms for the last decade, we find that, for the same firm, employment and investments grow significantly less in non-HQ plants compared to HQ plants. We discuss several possible interpretations of these "corporate geography" patterns.