Clustering Dynamics and the Location of High-Tech-Firms

This book aims to study the location process of high-technology firms and to analyse the emergence of spatial clustering in such innovative sectors.

From a theoretical viewpoint, when observing the spatial distribution of a phenomenon (say the location of firms) in a given territory (say a nation or a region), three main structures can emerge: clustering (i.e. most firms tend to concentrate in a single or in a few locations), avoidance (i.e. all firms tend to be uniformly scattered, in order to maximise inter-firm distances) and independence (i.e. no clear spatial pattern is visible, locations are as if determined by a random process). A specific branch of statistics is devoted to the identification of specific patterns of distributions of events over a plane which can be tested against the null hypothesis of “complete spatial randomness”. Such an hypothesis implies (i) that the intensity of events (in our case firms’ locations) does not vary over the plane and (ii) that there are no interactions among events. It is easy to see that the location of firms does violate both hypotheses since (i) there are considerable variations in the spatial distribution of firms and (ii) the previous location of firms at a given site is likely to influence (in various ways, both positively and negatively) the location of other firms in the same and in neighbouring areas.

The two contrasting quotations which open this chapter seem to suggest that the analysis of industrial location (and, more generally, the economic analysis of spatial issues) has been for years a fundamental but, surprisingly, almost neglected topic in mainstream economic theory.

The second chapter of this thesis has shown the empirical relevance of high-tech clusters in four advanced countries, the third has presented a survey of different streams of literature which have directly dealt with, or that can be profitably used to analyse, the agglomeration dynamic and the emergence of spatial concentration of industries. This chapter is devoted to the elaboration of a new theoretical mod-elling framework able to explain, on the one hand, the location process of firms and, on the other, the development process of industrial clusters.

In general, firms aim at maximising profits, therefore firms will choose a location which maximises locational net benefits. These in turn are composed ofgeographical benefits —i.e. benefits deriving from the quality of the site in terms of inputs endowment, costs and consumers location (i.e. the spatial distribution of demand)— andagglomeration benefits(i.e. benefits deriving from the location of other firms in the same site).

The aim of this chapter is to present a collection of empirical analyses which have been performed in order to verify a number of theoretical hypotheses, stylised facts and logical conjectures on the location process of high-tech firms and the development path of high-tech industrial clusters. Because of the multifaceted nature of the issue at study, different empirical exercises have been performed and are summarised in the concluding section of the chapter.

In recent times, almost allindustrialised countries are experiencing,in varying de-grees,twocontemporaryphenomena:thecrisisoftraditionalindustriesandthe evelopmentof newinnovativesectors.Thesephenomena,whicharecaused by nationalandinternational determinants andspurred bythe dynamics of globalisa-tion andeconomicinterdependence,haveimportantconsequencesatthelocal level,the mostrelevant beingtheemergenceanddeepeningof regionaldifferen-tiation (Doz 1987).

The thesis has looked at the location process of high-tech firms and at the emer-gence of spatial industrial clusters. The main contributions achieved by the work are the following.