This paper uses a micro data set on auxiliary establishments from 1977 to 1997 in order to investigate the determinants of headquarter agglomerations and the underlying economic base of many larger metro areas. The significance of headquarters in large urban settings is their ability to...

"A firm's production activities are often supported by non-production activities. Among these activities are administrative units including headquarters, which process information both within and between firms. Often firms physically separate such administrative units from their production...

This paper examines outsourcing to test whether productivity-enhancing specialization is facilitated in bigger cities. First, the paper provides a theoretical model which shows that greater local demand for a given input promotes the entry of suppliers into a city; the increased number of...

Firms’ headquarters [HQ] support their production activity, by gathering information and outsourcing business services, as well as, managing, evaluating, and coordinating internal firm activities. In search of locations for these functions, firms often separate the HQ function physically from...

This paper examines outsourcing to test whether productivity-enhancing specialization is facilitated in bigger cities. First, the paper provides a theoretical model which shows that greater local demand for a given input promotes the entry of suppliers into a city; the increased number of...

Using plant-level data from the Plant Capacity Utilization (PCU) Survey, we examine how manufacturing plants’ use of temporary workers is associated with the nature of their output fluctuations and other plant characteristics. We find that plants tend to hire temporary workers when their...

More and more U.S. workers are counted as employees of firms that they do not actually work for. Among such workers are those who staffed by temporary help service (THS) agencies and leased employees who are on the payroll of professional employment organizations (PEOs) but work for PEOs’...

This paper addresses a longstanding puzzle involving the unbundling of services that has occurred over more than two decades in the U.S. advertising agency industry: How can the shift from the bundling to the unbundling of services be explained and what accounts for the slow pace of change?...