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Knowledge spillovers have been recognized as an important source of innovation and economic growth in both industry and firm-level data. A firm may reap benefits by locating near other firms in the same geographical region. In this paper, we examine how physical proximity influences a firm's future productivity and its survival possibility. Our results indicate that a firm located in a region with a higher median total factor productivity (TFP) gains higher productivity from other firms in the same region. One possible explanation is that such a firm has more opportunity to access superior external knowledge and to produce more new ideas. Our results also indicate these productivity-enhancing characteristics do not seem to be industry-specific. Finally, we find that high productivity firms are the only significant sources of knowledge spillovers, suggesting that firms benefit most from combining their internal knowledge with the external knowledge of neighboring firms with high TFP on average.

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Economic assessment of manufacturing processes evaluates the effects of engineering-economics factors on the current and expected future cost performances in manufacturing. The relationships between those factors are usually specified in production economics models. In this study, a production economics model has been developed to predictively assess the cost effectiveness of liquid forging process. The model consists of the economic relations and influences of engineering parameters, production properties, and economic conditions on manufacturing cost of liquid forged parts. Five critical cost drivers are identified from the liquid forging economics model. The effects of these cost drivers are analyzed through case studies. The proposed model provides a new way to gain insights into the cost behaviors for identifying cost reduction potentials of manufacturing processes.Keywords -Manufacturing process, predictive cost assessment, production economics model $4.99 @ Order Volume = 5k using 4 cavities $6.26 @ Order Volume = 5k using 1 cavity Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE IEEM