Abstract
This paper addresses the question to what extent the performance of industrial sites is affected by their local economic structure and accessibility. For this aim, we test for the existence of statistically significant relationships between agglomeration externalities (specialization, diversity, and competition), accessibilty measures and the employment growth of a particular industry on a particular site. We use data on employment growth of site-industries on 68 formal industrial sites in the municipality of Amsterdam between 1998 and 2006. We show that at the site-industry level, specialization hampers growth. Furthermore, we find that industrial sites that are easily accessible from the highway grow relatively fast, as well as sites located in the Amsterdam harbour area.
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Acknowledgments
This research has been funded by the BSIK-programme ‘Vernieuwend Ruimtegebruik’. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Research and Statistics of the municipality of Amsterdam for providing the data for employment and establishments on industrial sites in Amsterdam. They thank Erik Louw, Frank van Oort, Piet Rietveld and two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their helpful comments. They also thank Laura de Dominicis and Chris Jacobs for their assistance in preparing the maps. The usual disclaimer applies.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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de Vor, F., de Groot, H.L.F. Agglomeration externalities and localized employment growth: the performance of industrial sites in Amsterdam. Ann Reg Sci 44, 409–431 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-008-0272-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-008-0272-5