IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tou/journl/v24y2006p45-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Not So Footloose After All: Locational Behavior Of Information Technology Establishments In The United States, 1989-1998

Author

Listed:
  • Simon CONDLIFFE

    (College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware)

  • William R. LATHAM

    (Department of Economics School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, University of)

Abstract

Among the benefits that technology can provide is greater connectivity among economic agents. Commerce now occurs across great geographic distances at nominal transaction costs. Technology, therefore, seems to have the potential to unshackle economic agents from their suppliers and customers, enabling them to seek out alternative locations without being at a comparative disadvantage to other businesses. In this paper we address the following question, "Is there convincing evidence to support the thesis that, for firms in the information technology industry, distance is dead and they truly are footloose in choosing their locations?" Using a data set that only recently became available and which contains establishment births by county, this paper presents evidence that firms in the information technology industry respond positively to the economies found in metropolitan areas. This implies that the characteristics of such areas relative to those of non-metropolitan areas (population size, educational attainment of the labor force, and various kinds of agglomeration economies) make them attractive locations for information technology establishments. Therefore we find that, at least for the information technology industry, distance is not dead.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon CONDLIFFE & William R. LATHAM, 2006. "Not So Footloose After All: Locational Behavior Of Information Technology Establishments In The United States, 1989-1998," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 24, pages 45-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:tou:journl:v:24:y:2006:p:45-60
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://regionetdeveloppement.univ-tln.fr/wp-content/uploads/R24_Coundliffe-Latham.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bartik, Timothy J, 1985. "Business Location Decisions in the United States: Estimates of the Effects of Unionization, Taxes, and Other Characteristics of States," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(1), pages 14-22, January.
    2. Cletus C. Coughlin & Eran Segev, 2000. "Location Determinants of New Foreign‐Owned Manufacturing Plants," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 323-351, May.
    3. Papke, Leslie E., 1991. "Interstate business tax differentials and new firm location : Evidence from panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 47-68, June.
    4. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2003. "Geography, Industrial Organization, and Agglomeration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 377-393, May.
    5. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 339-376.
    6. Christian Le Bas & Frédéric Miribel, 2005. "The agglomeration economies associated with information technology activities: an empirical study of the US economy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(2), pages 343-363, April.
    7. Cole, Ismail M., 2000. "Spatial Differences in Manufacturing Firm Births and Deaths and Local Economic Conditions: Evidence from Pennsylvania," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 30(2), pages 215-236, Fall.
    8. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2001. "The Determinants of Agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 191-229, September.
    9. Guimaraes, Paulo & Figueiredo, Octavio & Woodward, Douglas, 2000. "Agglomeration and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in Portugal," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 115-135, January.
    10. Carlton, Dennis W, 1983. "The Location and Employment Choices of New Firms: An Econometric Model with Discrete and Continuous Endogenous Variables," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 440-449, August.
    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. Simon Condliffe & William Latham & Christian Le Bas & Frédéric Miribel, 2008. "Agglomeration Economies within IT-Producing and IT-Consuming Industries in U.S. Regions," Working Papers 08-24, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.

    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. Josep‐Maria Arauzo‐Carod & Daniel Liviano‐Solis & Miguel Manjón‐Antolín, 2010. "Empirical Studies In Industrial Location: An Assessment Of Their Methods And Results," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 685-711, August.
    2. Josep‐Maria Arauzo‐Carod, 2008. "Industrial Location At A Local Level: Comments On The Territorial Level Of The Analysis," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 99(2), pages 193-208, April.
    3. Kim, Hyungtai & Ahn, Sanghoon & Ulfarsson, Gudmundur F., 2018. "Transportation infrastructure investment and the location of new manufacturing around South Korea's West Coast Expressway," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 146-154.
    4. Rohlin, Shawn & Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Amanda, 2014. "Tax avoidance and business location in a state border model," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 34-49.
    5. Elisabet Viladecans Marsal & Josep Maria Arauzo Carod, "undated". "Industrial Location at the Intra-metropolitan Level: A Negative Binomial Approach," Studies on the Spanish Economy 224, FEDEA.
    6. Junjie Hong, 2009. "Firm Heterogeneity and Location Choices: Evidence from Foreign Manufacturing Investments in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(10), pages 2143-2157, September.
    7. Fabienne Boudier‐Bensebaa, 2005. "Agglomeration economies and location choice: Foreign direct investment in Hungary," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(4), pages 605-628, October.
    8. Jofre-Monseny, Jordi & Marín-López, Raquel & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2011. "The mechanisms of agglomeration: Evidence from the effect of inter-industry relations on the location of new firms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 61-74.
    9. Button, Patrick, 2019. "Do tax incentives affect business location and economic development? Evidence from state film incentives," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 315-339.
    10. Schmidheiny, Kurt & Brülhart, Marius, 2011. "On the equivalence of location choice models: Conditional logit, nested logit and Poisson," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 214-222, March.
    11. Jordi Jofre‐Monseny, 2009. "The scope of agglomeration economies: Evidence from Catalonia," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(3), pages 575-590, August.
    12. repec:rri:wpaper:200709 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Christian Hilber & Ioan Voicu, 2010. "Agglomeration Economies and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment: Empirical Evidence from Romania," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 355-371.
    14. Marius Brülhart & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2015. "Estimating The Rivalness Of State-Level Inward Fdi," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 139-148, January.
    15. Figueiredo, Octavio & Guimaraes, Paulo & Woodward, Douglas, 2002. "Home-field advantage: location decisions of Portuguese entrepreneurs," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 341-361, September.
    16. Salvador Barrios & Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2006. "Multinationals' Location Choice, Agglomeration Economies, and Public Incentives," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 81-107, January.
    17. Stephan F. Gohmann & Bradley K. Hobbs & Myra McCrickard, 2008. "Economic Freedom and Service Industry Growth in the United States," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 32(5), pages 855-874, September.
    18. Adriana Ruiz & Anna Matas & Josep Lluís Raymond, 2016. "How do road infrastructure investments affect the regional economy? Evidence from Spain," Working Papers XREAP2016-09, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Dec 2016.
    19. Marius Brülhart & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2015. "Estimating The Rivalness Of State-Level Inward Fdi," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 139-148, January.
    20. Angel Alanón & Josep Maria Arauzo Carod, "undated". "Accessibility and Industrial Location. Some Evidence from Spain," Studies on the Spanish Economy 214, FEDEA.
    21. Jordi Jofre Monseny & Alberto Sole Olle, 2007. "Tax Differentials and Agglomeration Economies in Intraregional Firm Location," Working Papers in Economics 180, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    INDUSTRIAL LOCATION; ESTABLISHMENTS BIRTHS; INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES; DISTANCE; FOOTLOOSE;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    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:tou:journl:v:24:y:2006:p:45-60. 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: Christophe Van Huffel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/letlnfr.html .

    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.