c Paper no. 2012/10 How Local are Spatial Density Externalities? evidence from square grid data Martin Andersson (
[email protected]) CIRCLE, Lund University Johan Klaesson(
[email protected]) Jönköping International Business School Johan P Larsson (
[email protected]) Jönköping International Business School This is a preprint version of a paper submitted to a journal for publication This version: December 2012 Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE) Lund University P.O. Box 117, Sölvegatan 16, S-221 00 Lund, SWEDEN http://www.circle.lu.se/publications WP 2012/10 How Local are Spatial Density Externalities? - evidence from square grid data Martin Andersson, Johan Klaesson, Johan P Larsson ABSTRACT We analyze the geographic scale at which density externalities operate and their attenuation with distance. Using square grid data at a fine spatial resolution, we find that a doubling of neighborhood density, measured as the density of 1 km2 squares, yields an increase in the overall wage-level of a square in the order of 3 percent. The density of the wider region to which the neighborhood belongs shows a significantly smaller effect. Highly educated workers gain more from proximity to others, and when we decrease the sizes of the squares the effect is still stronger for such workers. Density effects operate simultaneously at different spatial levels, and we argue that the neighborhood effects are more prone to capture localized non-market effects, such as knowledge spillovers driven by face-to-face interaction. JEL: C21, R11, R12 Keywords: spatial scale, density, productivity, spatial dependence, geo-coded data, external scale economies, agglomeration externalities, Sweden, Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the individual author or authors and do not necessarily represent the views of other CIRCLE researchers.