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The purpose of this paper is to test geographic and economic distance of industrial agglomeration.

Based on a recent census database in China, we estimate the production function of Chinese firms, focusing on the impact of agglomeration economies.

The estimation results provide strong evidence that agglomeration effects decline with increasing geographic and economic distance.

Previous studies examine agglomeration effects at certain geographic and industrial level, but largely ignore that agglomeration benefit may be different at different levels of geography and industry. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the geographic and economic distance of agglomeration economies, and shows a clear pattern on geographic and industrial scope of agglomeration economies.

Enterprise software is a predominant sector in the European software industry. Four of the five largest European software companies are found in this sector. Interestingly, two of these — among them SAP as one of the two global market leaders — are located within the same industrial agglomeration in South-Western Germany. This agglomeration, the SAP cluster, further consists of enterprise software SMEs forming a ‘satellite system’ centred around the large players, which fosters the formation of ‘mutualistic symbiotic’ relationships between large and small firms. At first sight, cluster formation in the context of the enterprise software industry might seem perplexing considering that traditional rationales of agglomeration economies seem obsolete in an environment where advances in communications technology would permit companies to locate in any location within a modern developed economy instead of concentrating in proximity to each other or to major players in the industry. This chapter explores possible explanations of this agglomeration phenomenon based on patterns of competition, collaboration and the formation of social capital between smaller firms and large anchor firms.

The findings of a comparative analysis between the SAP cluster environment and two categories of controls (firms in other agglomerated environments and those unaffected by agglomeration effects within Germany) show that SAP cluster SMEs might simultaneously benefit from heightened intensity of competition and a more pronounced inclination towards collaboration. Moreover, the role of social capital derived from SAP as anchor firm clearly differentiates SAP cluster participants from firms located within other environments.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the attributes of shopping streets and shopping malls that influence the satisfaction and patronage intention of low-income consumers in order to understand the consumers’ preferences when it comes to shopping in these retail agglomerations.

The study is based on quantitative and qualitative research, including in-depth interviews and focus groups with low-income consumers. The research collected data from 396 consumers at 3 retail agglomerations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and used a structured questionnaire to identify 12 attributes as the factors of the agglomerations’ attractiveness.

The results show that the items “selection” and “value” affect satisfaction and patronage intention at the same intensity in both shopping streets and shopping malls. However, the item “access” proved to be important for shopping malls, and the item “security” proved to be important for shopping streets. The results indicate that shopping streets have a preference for patronage intentions, despite the greater satisfaction generated by shopping malls. In addition, the study looked at consumers’ opinions on these retail agglomerations.

The research findings help to build a conceptual framework on evolved retail agglomerations in comparison to created retail agglomeration, represented by shopping streets and shopping malls, respectively. The findings allow a broader view of low-income consumption, offering insights so entrepreneurs and companies can direct their efforts to better capture value and improve the supply of products and services. Likewise, these findings will help public policy decision-makers to build and provide infrastructure for the preservation of shopping streets, maintaining this option for the consumer.

This study aims to understand how the institutional and populational characteristics of a Brazilian city, that is, size, gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, education, violence and amount of workers benefiting from PAT (Workers’ Food Program) bias the agglomeration of fast-food companies.

The research involved 7,653 units distributed among 270 brands of fast-food chains (9 foreign and 261 Brazilian) operating in 542 Brazilian cities in 2015 and institutional and populational characteristics information about them. It calculated the Herfindahl index and implemented mixed inflated beta models.

The study found out that the agglomeration of establishments is mainly associated with the city’s income per capita, education, GDP and with some differences regarding the origin of the company, Brazilian or foreign.

The limitations of the study are the availability of Brazilian cities' data and information about the fast-food companies, such as governance-related information and general infrastructure. The study was cross-sectional, which does not analyze the business installation speed.

This work provides data collection and analyzes which factors may contribute to the knowledge of the Brazilian fast-food market. It stands out that foreign companies do not seem to contemplate city violence. The proposed models can serve as an investors’ foundation to start, expand business and predict the number of establishments in a city.

The study highlights the relation between the cities’ institutional and populational characteristics and the aggregation of fast-food chains in Brazilian cities, using index commonly applied in industrial agglomeration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between office rents and mixed-use development in the context of agglomeration economies.

Using a sample of 10,209 observations in 100 Grade A office buildings in Hong Kong from January 2001 to June 2011, the authors estimated office rent regression using unbalanced panel data analysis.

The results show that rents decreased with an increase in distance from retailers and hotels. Furthermore, the results revealed that, ceteris paribus, office tenants were willing to pay higher rents in a mixed-use than in a single-use office development.

There is an existence of agglomeration economies due to the clustering of various industries in mixed-use developments, which allow for their close proximity to potential clients.

The diversity of activities in a mixed-use development benefit its tenants and, thus, convince them to pay higher rents. Higher rents generated by a mixed-use facility will attract more investors to it. Investors should seek opportunities to capitalize on their equity in mixed-use developments.

This paper attempts to uncover a relationship between office rents and mixed-use developments by drawing on the concept of agglomeration economies.

At present, China’s industrial spatial layout faces the predicament of over-agglomeration of Eastern China industries and the near disintegration of industrial structure in the central and western regions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Based on the perspective of differentiated inter-regional labor mobility, this paper constructed a model framework of quadratic sub-utility quasi-linear preference utility function, and conducted model deduction and numerical simulation on causal factors of this spatial imbalance along the two dimensions of individual and regional welfare.

The study finds that in the long run, industrial spatial layout imposes a certain threshold limit on the portfolio proportion of differentiated labor. The dilemma of China’s industrial spatial layout is attributable to the deviation of the market’s optimal agglomeration from the social optimal agglomeration, and to the disfunction of Eastern China’s role as an intermediary between the global and the domestic value chain.

To resolve this predicament of industrial layout, the unitary welfare compensation based on fiscal transfer payment has to be switched to a more comprehensive approach giving consideration to industrial rebalancing.

No previous research has considered the changing agglomeration effect of foreign direct investment (FDI). The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature.

The paper uses China as the object of study and examines the centripetal and centrifugal forces associated with FDI clustering over time.

Through studying the FDI determinants for the 29 Chinese provinces from 1993 to 2008, the empirical analysis supports a weakening agglomeration effect of FDI over time in China and further suggests that the effect has nearly vanished in the past few years.

Data availability restricts the analysis to using provincial aggregate data and so further research is called for. It would provide more accurate and insightful information to study the FDI agglomeration effects at a finer level, using more disaggregated city‐level data by sector and by source country.

As the Chinese government has been making efforts to direct FDI to inland areas, this research provides immediate policy implications. Policy‐makers' investment incentives to direct FDI could go to waste when the agglomeration effect of FDI is too strong. The incentives should be able to achieve a much larger effect when the agglomeration effect becomes less strong.

The objective of the study is to understand the reasons for the resilience of rural periodic markets. Small retailers patronise these markets, and by identifying the reasons for their continued market participation, an attempt has been made to explain the continued existence of these traditional evolved retail agglomerations.

A qualitative research design was adopted for the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 small retailers, and responses were used to identify the reasons for their continued market participation. A mix of purposeful and snowball sampling was used to select the respondents.

In a novel endeavour, this study presents rural periodic markets as an evolved retail agglomeration. It identifies six factors responsible for the continued participation of small retailers in these markets. Seven attributes of the rural periodic market, an evolved retail agglomeration, were also identified which contribute to the resilience of these markets.

This study contributes to the literature on retail agglomerations and identifies the reasons for the continued market participation of small retailers, suggesting some trends about their future in emerging economies.

Rural periodic markets have affected the overall well-being of surrounding villages by providing opportunities to participate in many ways. This has been identified as a reason for the economic growth of the area.

To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore the resilience of periodic markets from the perspective of small retailers by identifying the reasons for their continued market participation.

Retailing organizations in Bangkok range in type from the traditional through to the most modern. Also, while there are agglomerations of small stores selling similar ranges of goods, there are also some of the most up‐to‐date large shopping malls in the world. Although such agglomerations of retailing activity are not unique to Bangkok, Bangkok’s development is arguably unusual in three ways: the number of agglomerations continues to grow; these new agglomerations are dealing in a wide range of goods and not just electronic gadgets; and one particular agglomeration dominates the Bangkok market for its range of goods. A survey was carried out in 1999 of a sample of the stores in Pantip Plaza, a mall that is in an agglomeration. The results show the need to improve our understanding of the factors leading to agglomeration.