The textbook case for industrial policy is well understood. If some sectors are subject to external economies of scale, whereas others are not, a government should subsidize the first group of sectors at the expense of the second. The empirical relevance of this argument, however, remains...

We document that the plants belonging to small and mid-sized firms are geographically concentrated, while large firms are much more dispersed. These differences are sizable; firms with 2 plants have a dispersion that is 5 log points lower than predicted by industry location patterns, while the...