In this paper, I examine the influence of natural geographic features on the location of production in Germany. In particular, I quantify how much of the geographic pattern of GDP can be attributed to natural features such as resource endowments and location ('geography'). At most, ~36% of GDP's...

New firm location decisions, relative to incumbents may be based on a choice between two types of advantages: natural advantages or those that arise from social embeddedness, the latter of which may particularly include knowledge spillovers. We analyze the relative importance of geographically...