# 24.16 Colocation of skill related suppliers – Revisiting coagglomeration using firm-to-firm network data

Sandor Juhasz, Zoltan Elekes, Virag Ilyes & Frank Neffke

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Abstract:

Strong local clusters help firms compete on global markets. One explanation for this is that firms benefit from locating close to their suppliers and customers. However, the emergence of global supply chains shows that physical proximity is not necessarily a prerequisite to successfully manage customer-supplier relations anymore. This raises the question when firms need to colocate in value chains and when they can coordinate over longer distances. We hypothesize that one important aspect is the extent to which supply chain partners exchange not just goods but also know-how. To test this, we build on an expanding literature that studies the drivers of industrial coagglomeration to analyze when supply chain connections lead firms to colocation. We exploit detailed micro-data for the Hungarian economy between 2015 and 2017, linking firm registries, employer-employee matched data and firm-to-firm transaction data from value-added tax records. This allows us to observe colocation, labor flows and value chain connec- tions at the level of firms, as well as construct aggregated coagglomeration patterns, skill relatedness and input-output connections between pairs of industries. We show that supply chains are more likely to support coagglomeration when the industries in- volved are also skill related. That is, input-output and labor market channels reinforce each other, but supplier connections only matter for colocation when industries have similar labor requirements, suggesting that they employ similar types of know-how. We corroborate this finding by analyzing the interactions between firms, showing that supplier relations are more geographically constrained between companies that operate in skill related industries.

# 18.14 Why do industries coagglomerate? How Marshallian externalities differ by industry and have evolved over time

Dario Diodato and Frank Neffke and Neave O’Clery

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Abstract: The fact that firms benefit from close proximity to other firms with which they can exchange inputs, skilled labor or know-how helps explain why many industrial clusters are so successful. Studying the evolution of coagglomeration patterns, we show that which type of agglomeration benefits firms has drastically changed over the course of a century and divers markedly across industries. Whereas, at the beginning of the twentieth century, industries tended to colocate with their value chain partners, in more recent decades the importance of this channels has declined and colocation seems to be driven more by similarities industries’ skill requirements. By calculating industry-specific Marshallian agglomeration forces, we are able to show that, nowadays, skill-sharing is the most salient motive in location choices of services, whereas value chain linkages still explain much of the colocation patterns in manufacturing. Moreover, the estimated degrees to which labor and input-output linkages are reflected in an industry’s coagglomeration patterns help improve predictions of city-industry employment growth.

# 16.26 Agglomeration economies: the heterogeneous contribution of human capital and value chains

Dario Diodato, Frank Neffke, Neave O’Clery

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We document the heterogeneity across sectors in the impact labor and input-output links have on industry agglomeration. Exploiting the available degrees of freedom in coagglomeration patterns, we estimate the industry-specific benefits of sharing labor needs and supply links with local firms. On aggregate, coagglomeration patterns of services are at least as strongly driven by input-output linkages as those of manufacturing, whereas labor linkages are much more potent drivers of coagglomeration in services than in manufacturing. Moreover, the degree to which labor and input-output linkages are reflected in an industry’s coagglomeration patterns is relevant for predicting patterns of city-industry employment growth.