Agglomeration Externalities and Sectoral Employment Growth in Cities

Firms benefit some external effects resulting from the concentration of economic activities in certain regions. These effects called “agglomeration economies” or “agglomeration externalities” are mainly divided into three categories – MAR, Jacobs and Porter externalities –, and regarded as the determinant factors of regional economic development and growth. This study analyzes the impact of agglomeration externalities on employment growth using Turkish data of 43 sectors operating in 81 Turkish cities between years 2001 and 2007. OLS regression analyses are repeated for each sector. As far as the MAR externalities are concerned, their impact on employment growth is found negative in 23 sectors while Jacobs externalities have significant and positive effects only on 4 sectors, most of which are from service sectors. As for Porter externalities, they prove to have positive effect on the regional employment growth for 16 sectors. Moreover, urbanization externalities are found to affect the regional growth positively in 4 sectors and negatively in 1 sector. While the impact of the initial level of regional labor supply is found positive, the initial level of regional employment level has negative effect on employment growth. Finally, the share of high education level in cities is found to have almost no effect on regional growth.