Premium
THE PRICE OF PRATO, OR MEASURING THE INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT EFFECT
Author(s) -
Signorini L. Federico
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
papers in regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1435-5957
pISSN - 1056-8190
DOI - 10.1111/j.1435-5597.1994.tb00620.x
Subject(s) - industrial district , economies of agglomeration , productivity , profitability index , balance sheet , economics , business , regional science , economy , geography , economic growth , accounting , finance
Most of the recent literature on Marshallian industrial districts is nonquantitative, but some of the features of district firms are measurable. I use balance sheet data on about 500 small and medium sized firms to search for measurable differences between district and non district firms in the italian wool textile industry, which includes that standard bearer of districts. Prato, and Biella, another important agglomeration whose status as an industrial district in the Marshall‐Becattini sense is in doubt. The data corroborate a number of predications of district theory, e.g., on productivity, profitability vertical integration ad finance.