The Geographic Concentration of Enterprise in Developing Countries
Name
Townsend_The Geographic.pdf
Size
7.78 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0f6117995b4642d3601c67130c951b17
Author(s)
Felkner, John S.
Townsend, Robert
Date Issued
2011
Journal
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Citation
Felkner, J. S., and R. M. Townsend. “The Geographic Concentration of Enterprise in Developing Countries.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126.4 (2011): 2005-2061.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
A nation's economic geography can have an enormous impact on its development. In Thailand, we show that a high concentration of enterprise in an area predicts high subsequent growth in and around that area. We also find spatially contiguous convergence of enterprise with stagnant areas left behind. Exogenous physiographic conditions are correlated with enterprise location and growth. We fit a structural, micro-founded model of occupation transitions with fine-tuned geographic capabilities to village data and replicate these salient facts. Key elements of the model include costs, credit constraints on occupation choice, and spatially varying expansion of financial service providers.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjr046
