Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 938:
Localized Knowledge Spillovers and Regional Employment Growth: Evidence from Germany
Eckhardt Bode
Abstract: The present paper aims at explaining the regional
deconcentration of economic activities in (West) Germany during the past
two decades. Using an idea-based endogenous growth model that encloses
several innovative sectors, and in which economic activity is subject to
externalities of agglomeration, we test the hypothesis that human-capital
intensive activities in (technical) manufacturing R&D, manufacturing
management, and producer services continue to concentrate on agglomerations
because of localized knowledge spillovers, while manufacturing production
which does not benefit directly from knowledge spillovers deconcentrates
because of agglomeration diseconomies. The empirical results from
cross-section regressions for 75 West-German regions are in line with the
hypothesis on spatial deconcentration of manufacturing production due to
agglomeration diseconomies, but clearly reject the hypothesis on ongoing
spatial concentration of high-skilled workers driven by knowledge
spillovers.
JEL-Codes: C21; R11; (follow links to similar papers)
July 1999
Download Statistics
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Helena Lundin ().
Programing by
Design Joakim Ekebom