This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in the economic performance of industries, clusters and regions. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry within a region may be declining...

We examine how exposure of Chinese firms to the Covid-19 shock varied with a cluster index (measuring spatial agglomeration of firms in related industries) at the county level. Two data sources are used: entry flows of newly registered firms in the entire country, and an entrepreneur survey...

Clusters are geographic concentrations of industries related by knowledge, skills, inputs, demand, and/or other linkages. A growing body of empirical literature has shown the positive impact of clusters on regional and industry performance, including job creation, patenting, and new business...

We study the informational content of factor structures in discrete triangular systems. Factor structures have been employed in a variety of settings in cross sectional and panel data models, and in this paper we formally quantify their identifying power in a bivariate system often employed in...

It is standard practice in empirical work to allow for clustering in the error covariance matrix if the explanatory variables of interest vary at a more aggregate level than the units of observation. Often, however, the structure of the error covariance matrix is more complex, with correlations...

We analyze different disability policy strategies using policy scores developed by the OECD for the period 1990 to 2007. Applying model-based and hierarchical agglomerative clustering, we investigate the existence of distinct country clusters, characterized by particular policy combinations. In...

In recent empirical literature on spatial agglomeration, many papers find evidence consistent with location-specific externalities of some sort. Our willingness to accept evidence of agglomeration economies depends on how well key estimation problems have been addressed. Three issues are...

In this paper, I examine the relationship between increasing returns to scale and the geographic concentration of economic activity. Using data on U.S. counties, I estimate the structural parameters of the Krugman (1991) model of economic geography. The specification I use, which is derived from...

We consider a model with several regions whose technological ability and factor endowments are identical and in which transport costs between regions are non-negligible. Nonetheless, certain goods are sometimes produced by multiple firms all of which are located in the same region. These goods...