Determinants of industrial location: An application for Catalan municipalities

The aim of this article is to show the main determinants of industrial location processes. To better illustrate phenomena such as agglomeration economies, which are normally studied at the regional level, we use local data. We use the Poisson model to identify the location patterns of firms. Our main statistical source is the Spanish Industrial Establishments Register, which has plant-level microdata on location of new industrial establishments. Our results show that the characteristics of a municipality strongly affect the location decisions of industrial establishments and that these decisions also depend on the sector in which the firm is located and the size of the firm. Copyright RSAI 2005.