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Big Plant Closures and Agglomeration Economies

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  • Jordi Jofri-Monseny
  • Maria Sánchez-Vidal
  • Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal

Abstract

This paper analyses the effects of large manufacturing plant closures on local employment. Specifically, we estimate the net employment effects of the closure of 45 large manufacturing plants in Spain, which relocated abroad between 2001 and 2006. We run differences-in-differences specifications in which locations that experience a closure are matched to locations with similar pre-treatment employment levels and trends. The results show that when a plant closes, for each job directly lost in the plant closure, between 0.3 and 0.6 jobs are actually lost in the local economy. The adjustment is concentrated in incumbent firms in the industry that suffered the closure, providing indirect evidence of labor market pooling effects. We find no employment effects in the rest of manufacturing industries or in the services sectors. These findings suggest that traditional input-output analyses tend to overstate the net employment losses of large plant closures.

Suggested Citation

  • Jordi Jofri-Monseny & Maria Sánchez-Vidal & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2015. "Big Plant Closures and Agglomeration Economies," SERC Discussion Papers 0179, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  • Handle: RePEc:cep:sercdp:0179
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    Cited by:

    1. Bernstein, Shai & Colonnelli, Emanuele & Giroud, Xavier & Iverson, Benjamin, 2019. "Bankruptcy spillovers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(3), pages 608-633.
    2. Marta Bisztray, 2016. "The effect of foreign-owned large plant closures on nearby firms," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1623, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    3. Federico Pablo-Martí & Josep-Maria Arauzo-Carod, 2020. "Spatial distribution of economic activities: a network approach," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 15(2), pages 441-470, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Local employment; plant closures; input-output; agglomeration economies;
    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)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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