IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/03-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Geographic Concentration of New Firm Formation and Human Capital: Evidence from the Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Zoltan J Acs
  • Catherine Armington

Abstract

The role of education and human capital externalities is a key variable in theories of economic growth. However, the mechanism by which these externalities are realized has not been fully investigated. We examine the relationship between area differences in the levels of human capital and subsequent differences in new firm start-up rates. Firm start-ups are usually based on an innovation (in product, process, or market) that derives from utilization of new knowledge. We find that the new firm start-up rates in areas that function as integrated labor and consumer markets (city plus surrounding commuter area) are (1) positively related to the share of adults with college degrees, and also (2) positively related to higher levels of existing establishments in the same industry and area sector. The finding that higher concentrations of existing establishments in the same industry segment were strongly associated with higher startup rates suggests that spillover of relevant knowledge from other local business owners/managers and researchers within each industry contributes to greater innovation and growth in the area.

Suggested Citation

  • Zoltan J Acs & Catherine Armington, 2003. "The Geographic Concentration of New Firm Formation and Human Capital: Evidence from the Cities," Working Papers 03-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:03-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2003/CES-WP-03-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Glaeser, Edward L. & Scheinkman, JoseA. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1995. "Economic growth in a cross-section of cities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 117-143, August.
    4. Audretsch, David B., 1995. "Innovation, growth and survival," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 441-457, December.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 2005. "Entrepreneurship," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 649-680, October.
    6. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-827, August.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    8. Rauch James E., 1993. "Productivity Gains from Geographic Concentration of Human Capital: Evidence from the Cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 380-400, November.
    9. Boyan Jovanovic & Rafael Rob, 1989. "The Growth and Diffusion of Knowledge," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(4), pages 569-582.
    10. Alan B. Krueger & Jorn-Steffen Pischke, 1997. "Observations and Conjectures on the U.S. Employment Miracle," NBER Working Papers 6146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Robert J. Barro & Paul Romer, 1993. "Economic Growth (1992)," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number barr93-1, June.
    12. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-95-4 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Geroski, P. A., 1995. "What do we know about entry?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 421-440, December.
    14. Zoltan J Acs & Catherine Armington, 1998. "Longitudinal Establishment And Enterprise Microdata (LEEM) Documentation," Working Papers 98-9, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    15. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    16. Catherine Armington & Zoltan J. Acs, 2008. "The Determinants of Regional Variation in New Firm Formation," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 18, pages 224-243, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Ian Smith & Zoltan J. Acs & Felix R. FitzRoy, 2002. "High-technology employment and R&D in cities: Heterogeneity vs specialization," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 36(3), pages 373-386.
    18. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    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. David B. Audretsch & Max Keilbach, 2007. "The localisation of entrepreneurship capital: Evidence from Germany," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(3), pages 351-365, August.
    2. Mendoza, Jorge Eduardo, 2003. "Efectos de la aglomeración y los encadenamientos industriales en el patrón de crecimiento manufacturero en México [Manufacturing specialization and urban aglommeration in the largest cities of Mexi," MPRA Paper 2854, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2003.
    3. Bruder, Jana & Räthke-Döppner, Solvig, 2008. "Ethnic minority self-employment in Germany: Geographical distribution and determinants of regional variation," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 100, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    4. Josep‐Maria Arauzo‐Carod & Mercedes Teruel‐Carrizosa, 2005. "An Urban Approach to Firm Entry: The Effect of Urban Size," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 508-528, September.
    5. BOONE, Christophe & BROUWER, Aleid & JACOBS, Jan & VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN, Arjen, 2009. "Religious pluralism and organizational diversity: An empirical test for the city of Zwolle, the Netherlands, 1851-1914," ACED Working Papers 2009002, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    6. R. Jason Faberman, 2003. "Job Flows and Establishment Characteristics: Variations Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-609, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    7. Braunerhjelm, Pontus & Borgman, Benny, 2006. "Agglomeration, Diversity and Regional Growth," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 71, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    8. Arauzo Carod, Josep Maria & Teruel Carrizosa, Mercedes, 2004. "A territorial approach to firm entry: The effect of city size," Working Papers 2072/1777, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 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. Zoltan J Acs & Catherine Armington, 2003. "Endogenous Growth and Entrepreneurial Activity in Cities," Working Papers 03-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Zoltan J. Acs & Catherine Armington, 2008. "The Impact of Geographic Differences in Human Capital on Service Firm Formation Rates," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 19, pages 244-278, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Zoltan J. Acs & Catherine Armington, 2004. "New Firm Survival and Human Capital," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2004-14, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    4. Zoltan J. Acs & Catherine Armington, 2008. "Employment Growth and Entrepreneurial Activity in Cities," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 25, pages 353-369, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    6. Aurélie LALANNE & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    7. Berliant, Marcus & Reed III, Robert R. & Wang, Ping, 2006. "Knowledge exchange, matching, and agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 69-95, July.
    8. Calá, Carla Daniela, 2014. "Regional issues on firm entry and exit in Argentina: core and peripheral regions," Nülan. Deposited Documents 2023, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    9. Gebremeskel Gebremariam & Tesfa Gebremedhin & Peter Schaeffer & Tim Phipps & Randall Jackson, 2007. "A Spatial Panel Simultaneous-Equations Model of Business Growth, Migration Behavior, Local Public Services and Household Income in Appalachia," Working Papers Working Paper 2007-11, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    10. Viktor A. Venhorst, 2017. "Human capital spillovers in Dutch cities: consumption or productivity?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 59(3), pages 793-817, November.
    11. Moretti, Enrico, 2011. "Local Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 14, pages 1237-1313, Elsevier.
    12. Fu, Shihe, 2007. "Smart Cafe Cities: Testing human capital externalities in the Boston metropolitan area," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 86-111, January.
    13. Mario Polèse, 2005. "Cities and National Economic Growth: A Reappraisal," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(8), pages 1429-1451, July.
    14. Enrico Santarelli & Marco Vivarelli, 2007. "Entrepreneurship and the process of firms’ entry, survival and growth," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 16(3), pages 455-488, June.
    15. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    16. Pantelis Kazakis, 2019. "On the nexus between innovation, productivity and migration of US university graduates," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 465-485, October.
    17. Vernon Henderson, J., 2007. "Understanding knowledge spillovers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 497-508, July.
    18. Rebecca Bradley & Joshua S. Gans, 1998. "Growth in Australian Cities," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(226), pages 266-278, September.
    19. Antonio Ciccone, 1997. "Technology diffusion and the spatial distribution of wages in the US," Economics Working Papers 500, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 1999.
    20. Mori, Tomoya & Turrini, Alessandro, 2005. "Skills, agglomeration and segmentation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 201-225, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CES; economic; research; micro; data; microdata; chief; economist;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cen:wpaper:03-05. 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: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.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.