The goal of this paper is to discuss the potential of cluster theory to inform industry policy. The essay surveys recent literature published in Australia and in other OECD countries and draws out some of the key issues relevant to policy decisions. The discussion is organised in five sections....

The growth of business firms is an example of a system of complex interacting units that resembles complex interacting systems in nature such as earthquakes. Remarkably, work in econophysics has provided evidence that the statistical properties of the growth of business firms follow the same...

Roeger's method (Roeger, 1995), which analyses the relationship between primal and dual productivity measures, can also be used to directly estimate from readily available data the static welfare loss due to a suboptimal allocation of the factors of production

Using the universe of firms in Estonia, we study the implications of imports-led and FDI- facilitated automation for productivity and factor shares of tasks and value-added. First, in contrast to the findings for developed economies, we find that the aggregate labour share of value-added for...

Traditional measures of spatial industry concentration are restricted to given areal units. They do not make allowance for the fact that concentration may be differently pronounced at various geographical levels. Methods of spatial point pattern analysis allow to measure industry concentration...

The Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) appears to be the most widely used index of market or industrial concentration. It is a summary measure that indicates the degree of competition, market power, and efficiency within a market or an industry. The HHI is also used by government agencies when...

The Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) appears to be the most widely used index of market or industrial concentration. It is a summary measure that indicates the degree of competition, market power, and efficiency within a market or an industry. The HHI is also used by government agencies when...

The project explored the linkages between industry dynamics and economic activity, and the macro-congestion aspects of freight transport. The Kia Motors manufacturing plant near West Point, Georgia was selected for case study. The principal study effort went into collecting data elements in...

We provide the first direct estimates of distribution expenses incurred by manufacturing plants and assess their importance for aggregate output. Using a novel measure from the Indian Annual Survey of Industries, we document three key facts: (1) distribution expenses are large – they amount to...

We describe a dynamic model of financial intermediation in which fundamental characteristics of the economy imply a unique equilibrium path of bank and financial market lending. Yet we also show that economies whose fundamental characteristics have converged may continue to have very different...