Transportation-induced agglomeration effects and productivity of firms in megacity region of paris basin

F Le Néchet, PC Melo… - Transportation research …, 2012 - journals.sagepub.com
Transportation research record, 2012journals.sagepub.com
This paper undertakes empirical analysis of the relationship between productivity and
transportation-induced agglomeration effects in the megacity region of the Paris Basin. The
authors believe this to be the first study in the French context to produce elasticities of urban
agglomeration economies for different industry sectors. Furthermore, the measure of
agglomeration used by the authors explicitly took account of accessibility to economic mass
in terms of driving times. This study is the first attempt to investigate the presence of …
This paper undertakes empirical analysis of the relationship between productivity and transportation-induced agglomeration effects in the megacity region of the Paris Basin. The authors believe this to be the first study in the French context to produce elasticities of urban agglomeration economies for different industry sectors. Furthermore, the measure of agglomeration used by the authors explicitly took account of accessibility to economic mass in terms of driving times. This study is the first attempt to investigate the presence of nonlinearities in the relationship between productivity and agglomeration with French data. The findings indicate that transportation-induced agglomeration effects differ across industry groups and are greater for business services; these findings agree with existing evidence for other countries. The results also suggest considerable nonlinearity in the relationship between productivity and transportation-induced agglomeration effects and imply that the conventional estimation of country-level aggregate elasticities is likely to misrepresent the actual magnitude of any productivity gains from agglomeration.
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