In a recent study, Holmes and Stevens (2002) identify for the first time the positive relationship that exists between establishment scale and local industry concentration using a large cross-sectional plant-level data set for the United States. Using an exhaustive plant-level panel data set for...

We examine whether multinational companies are more footloose than their domestic counterparts in the host country, using data for the Irish manufacturing sector. First, we investigate whether plant survival rates differ between multinationals and indigenous plants. Second, we analyse whether...

This paper investigates the relationship between government support for R&D and R&D expenditure financed privately by firms using a comprehensive plant level data set for the manufacturing sector in the Republic of Ireland. We find that for domestic plants small grants serve to increase private...

We study the coagglomeration of domestic plants and foreign multinationals and the impact of this on domestic plant productivity and employment using data for Irish manufacturing. Relying on a recently developed index we find that coagglomeration has been important for a number of industries....

Despite a growing number of empirical studies on efficiency spillovers arising from the presence of multinational firms for a number of countries, general conclusions on this issue have been inhibited by differences in the data sets and estimation techniques used across studies. In this paper we...

This paper analyses empirically the link between regional inequalities and economic development. Our starting hypothesis in this regard is that the evolution of regional inequalities should follow a bell-shaped curve depending on the level of national economic development since growth by its...

We study the pattern of concentration of industries in EU countries and regions between 1972 and 1995. We find that changes in concentration levels were mainly due to industry mobility rather than historical accidents and past levels of concentration as often argued by the New Economic Geography...

Many previous studies have shown that the localisation of firms can be an important factor in attracting new foreign direct investment into a host country. What has been missing in this literature thus far, however, is an investigation into the reasons why industry clusters attract firms. We...

We examine the importance of a firm's own R&D activity and intra-sectoral spillovers on the decision to export and the export intensity using firm level panel data for Spain for the period 1990 to 1998. Our results are in line with preceding findings on the role played by firm-specific variables...

Using plant-level data for the Irish manufacturing sector over the period 1983-98, we study the coagglomeration of domestic plants and foreign multinationals in Ireland. To this end we make use of the index developed by Ellison and Glaeser (1997) and find coagglomeration to be important for a...