Spatial agglomeration and business groups: new evidence from Italian industrial districts



provided by Research Papers in Economics

Spatial agglomeration and business groups:
new evidence from Italian industrial districts

Giulio Cainelli*, Donato Iacobucci*, Enrica Morganti

* Università di Bari and CERIS-CNR, Milan, Italy — [email protected]

* Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy — [email protected]

ISTAT, Rome, Italy — [email protected]

Abstract

This paper is a first attempt to analyse the relationship between spatial agglomeration and firms’
organizational structures. It takes advantage of a large data set on Italian business groups that
allowed us to analyse the differences in the presence and characteristics of business groups between
districts and non district areas. Overall the result confirms the hypothesis that spatial agglomeration
of business activities influences firms’ organization. Groups are more widespread in industrial
districts than in non-district areas; moreover groups in industrial districts are less diversified and
more spatially concentrated than groups outside industrial districts.

Key words: business groups, industrial districts, spatial agglomeration, firm’s organizational forms

JEL Classification: L22, R12

April 2004



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