The Annals of Regional Science

, Volume 40, Issue 1, pp 157–172 | Cite as

Industrial diversity and metropolitan unemployment rate

  • Keizo Mizuno
  • Fumitoshi Mizutani
  • Noriyoshi Nakayama
Original Paper
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

The main goal of our study is to evaluate whether or not industrial diversity helps reduce the frictional unemployment rate of a metropolitan area. We used a data set from Japan’s 118 metropolitan areas. Our analysis shows that although industrial diversity might reduce the frictional unemployment rate of a metropolitan area, its effect is not statistically significant in our model. Second, the location quotient for industries, considered to be related to types of unemployment other than frictional, has a stronger impact on unemployment rate than industrial diversity does. In particular, it was found that the location quotients for both the manufacturing and the construction industry have a negative relationship with the unemployment rate of a metropolitan area. We also discovered that the higher the percentage of graduates of post-secondary institutions there are in a metropolitan area, the lower its unemployment rate will be.

JEL Classification

J6 L1 R1 R5 
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  • Keizo Mizuno
    • 1
  • Fumitoshi Mizutani
    • 2
  • Noriyoshi Nakayama
    • 3
  1. 1.School of Business AdministrationKwansei Gakuin UniversityNishinomiyaJapan
  2. 2.Graduate School of Business AdministrationKobe UniversityNada-kuJapan
  3. 3.Graduate School of EconomicsNagoya City UniversityMizuho-kuJapan

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