Spatial Organization of Firms and Location Choices Through the Value Chain

We explore the impact of geographically bounded, intrafirm linkages (internal agglomerations) and geographically bounded, interfirm linkages (external agglomerations) on firms’ location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Database, we analyze the locations of new establishments of biopharmaceutical firms in the United States from 1993 to 2005. We consider all activities in the value chain and allow location choices to vary by research and development, manufacturing, and sales. Our findings suggest that internal agglomerations have a positive impact on location. The effects of internal agglomerations vary by activity, and they arise both within an activity (e.g., among plants) and across activities (e.g., between sales and manufacturing). Our results also suggest that previous estimates of the effect of external agglomerations may be overestimated because the existing literature abstracted from internal agglomerations.

This paper was accepted by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy.