IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v31y1994i6p895-911.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Manufacturing Productivity and City Size in Canada, 1975 and 1985: Does Population Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Lewis Soroka

    (Department of Economics, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1)

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between manufacturing productivity and city size, based on Canadian data for 1975 and 1985. The results differ in some respects from those of US studies; in particular, in Canada city size appears to have a weaker impact on manufacturing productivity, and an impact which is diminishing over time. These findings may be a consequence of several differences in the characteristics of Canadian and US firms, as well as differences between the two urban systems; urbanisation economies in Canada may also have been weakened by regional development policies. There are, at the same time, some striking similarities in the industries which show positive urbanisation economies in the US and Canada. There is also a tendency in Canada for both industries with smaller firms and industries with higher rates of domestic ownership to exhibit greater urbanisation economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewis Soroka, 1994. "Manufacturing Productivity and City Size in Canada, 1975 and 1985: Does Population Matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 31(6), pages 895-911, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:31:y:1994:i:6:p:895-911
    DOI: 10.1080/00420989420080731
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420989420080731
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420989420080731?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moomaw, Ronald L., 1983. "Is population scale a worthless surrogate for business agglomeration economies?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 525-545, November.
    2. Leo Sveikauskas, 1975. "The Productivity of Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 89(3), pages 393-413.
    3. Henderson, J. Vernon, 1986. "Efficiency of resource usage and city size," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 47-70, January.
    4. Moomaw, Ronald L., 1985. "Firm location and city size: Reduced productivity advantages as a factor in the decline of manufacturing in urban areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 73-89, January.
    5. Segal, David, 1976. "Are There Returns to Scale in City Size?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(3), pages 339-350, August.
    6. Calem, Paul S. & Carlino, Gerald A., 1991. "Urban agglomeration economies in the presence of technical change," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 82-95, January.
    7. Ronald L. Moomaw, 1981. "Productivity and City Size: A Critique of the Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 96(4), pages 675-688.
    8. Hansen, Eric R., 1990. "Agglomeration economies and industrial decentralization: The wage -- productivity trade-offs," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 140-159, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Norman Sedgley & Bruce Elmslie, 2011. "Do We Still Need Cities? Evidence on Rates of Innovation from Count Data Models of Metropolitan Statistical Area Patents," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 86-108, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Selting, Anne C. & Allanach, Christopher & Loveridge, Scott, 1994. "The Role Of Agglomeration Economies In Firm Location: A Review Of The Literature," Staff Papers 13321, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    2. Shelby Gerking, 1993. "Measuring Productivity Growth in U.S. Regions: A Survey," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 16(1-2), pages 155-185, April.
    3. Yoshiaki Ushifusa & Akinori Tomohara, 2013. "Productivity and Labor Density: Agglomeration Effects over Time," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(2), pages 123-132, June.
    4. Daniel Graham, 2001. "Productivity growth in British manufacturing: spatial variation in the role of scale economies, technological growth and industrial structure," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 811-821.
    5. Marcus Berliant & Chia-Ming Yu, 2015. "Locational Signaling And Agglomeration," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 757-773, November.
    6. Daniel Graham, 2000. "Spatial Variation in Labour Productivity in British Manufacturing," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 323-341.
    7. Florian Lehmer & Joachim MOLler, 2008. "Group-specific Effects of Inter-regional Mobility on Earnings - A Microdata Analysis for Germany," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5), pages 657-674.
    8. Florian Lehmer & Joachim Möller, 2010. "Interrelations between the urban wage premium and firm-size wage differentials: a microdata cohort analysis for Germany," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 31-53, August.
    9. Daniel J Graham, 2009. "Identifying urbanisation and localisation externalities in manufacturing and service industries," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 63-84, March.
    10. Du, Congcong & Cao, Yunhui & Ling, Yushan & Jin, Zebin & Wang, Shibo & Wang, Daoping, 2024. "Does manufacturing agglomeration promote green productivity growth in China? Fresh evidence from partially linear functional-coefficient models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Elsie L. Echeverri-Carroll & Sofia G. Ayala, 2011. "Urban Wages: Does City Size Matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 253-271, February.
    12. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Pietrostefani, Elisabetta, 2019. "The economic effects of density: A synthesis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 93-107.
    13. Ryohei Nakamura, 2005. "Agglomeration Economies and Linkage Externalities in Urban Manufacturing Industries - A Case of Japanese Cities," ERSA conference papers ersa05p768, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Gashawbeza Bekele & Randall Jackson, 2006. "Theoretical Perspectives on Industry Clusters," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-05, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    15. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    16. Lichao Wu & Yanpeng Jiang & Lili Wang & Xinhao Qiao, 2022. "The two faces of urbanisation and productivity: Enhance or inhibit? New evidence from Chinese firm‐level data," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 36(1), pages 126-142, May.
    17. Baldwin, John R. Beckstead, Desmond Brown, W. Mark Rigby, David, 2007. "Urban Economies and Productivity," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2007045e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    18. Shihe Fu & Junjie Hong, 2011. "Testing Urbanization Economies In Manufacturing Industries: Urban Diversity Or Urban Size?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 585-603, August.
    19. Boris Begović, 1992. "Industrial Diversification and City Size: The Case of Yugoslavia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 29(1), pages 77-88, February.
    20. repec:rri:wpaper:200605 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Xiao-Ping Zheng, 1998. "Measuring Optimal Population Distribution by Agglomeration Economies and Diseconomies: A Case Study of Tokyo," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(1), pages 95-112, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:31:y:1994:i:6:p:895-911. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.