Are clusters resilient? Evidence from Canadian textile industries

Abstract

We investigate whether plants inside and outside geographic clusters differ in their resilience to adverse economic shocks. To this end, we develop a bottom-up procedure to delimit clusters using Canadian geo-coded plant-level data. Focussing on the textile and clothing industries and exploiting the series of dramatic changes faced by that sector between 2001 and 2013, we find no evidence that plants in clusters are more resilient than plants outside clusters: they are neither less likely to die nor more likely to adapt by switching their main line of business. However, conditional on switching, plants in urbanized clusters are more likely to transition to services.

Investigating space‐time patterns of regional industrial resilience through a micro‐level approach: An application to the Italian wine industry

“…In light of this discussion, a number of recent contributions have introduced the concept of sectoral resilience (Behrens et al, 2019;Fromhold-Eisebith, 2015;Urban et al, 2019), looking at industry-specific patterns of adjustment to sectoral shocks. The main claim of this emerging strand of the literature is that sectoral shocks are often not region-specific, and the adjustment process of firms may not necessarily prioritize the recovery of any specific region.…”

“…Finally, the same empirical methodology can be used to study resilience to adverse economic shocks in other sectors characterized by strong territorial patterns. In this respect, the end of the Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA) in 2005 represents an interesting example of a large and well-identified shock that has affected a specific sector (the textile-clothing industry) in several developed countries (Behrens et al, 2019). Using firm-level data from one of the affected countries and following the GWR-panel SFA approach, it would be possible to detect the heterogeneous responses of local actors to this shock in a quasiexperimental setting.…”

“…The recent literature on economic resilience has provided evidence of the existence of asymmetric territorial dynamics after economic crises or other unexpected changes (Diodato & Weterings, 2014;Fingleton, Garretsen, & Martin, 2012Martin, 2012), highlighting how local factors are crucial to explain the heterogeneous behavior of economic agents in such circumstances. Most of the empirical investigations on resilience focus on the macrobehavior of regions, countries or cities, while micro-level analyses on firms operating in the same industry are less diffused (Behrens, Boualam, & Martin, 2019;Duschl, 2016;Modica & Reggiani, 2015). This lack of contributions is surprising, given the essential role of firms in driving local development (Frenken & Boschma, 2007;Martin, 2012).…”

Adjusting to China competition: Evidence from Japanese plant‐product‐level data

“…Finally, although it is weak, we find some evidence that specialized plants belonging to multi-unit firms tend to exit from products related to the specialization of the locality. This is a puzzling result that echoes the complex relationship between agglomeration economies and resilience to competitive shocks found in Behrens et al (2019) In Table 6, we study plant responses in terms of product sales by distinguishing them according to the structure and spatial organization of the parent firm. Our results reveal that, conditional on survival, specialized plants belonging to dispersed multi-unit firms are more sensitive to China competition than other specialized plants 21 Specifically, following the same reasoning as above, the magnitude of the impact of IM P on product sales for specialized plants owned by Multi-unit firms is a 2% decrease in product sales in a three-year horizon.…”

The clusters and the cluster initiatives of the Russian biopharmaceutical industry: Identifi cation, structure, and geography

“…19 Например, в Финляндии доля малых и средних компаний в кластерных инициативах составляет в среднем 80%, во Франции -49% [Lämmer-Gamp, zu Köcker, Christensen, 2011 [Delgado, Zeuli, 2016;Behrens, Boualam, Martin, 2017]. Специализация определяется географической концентрацией предприятий в рассматриваемой отрасли на заданном расстоянии, критерий размера -минимальное количество предприятий той же отрасли, расположенных в пределах заданного радиуса.…”