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| Spatial Patterns of Headquarters Author: Leon Shilton and Craig Stanley Start Page: 341 Abstract: This study of the
spatial concentration of the headquarters of exchange-listed companies suggests that the
relevancy of the "efficiency parameter" of agglomeration theory still holds in
explaining the location of headquarters, especially when the production function is
reinterpreted as a productivity function. The sample of 5189 headquarters exceeds previous
studies of Fortune 500 firms. Across industries, a high degree of clustering is found: 40%
of the nation's headquarters were found in twenty counties. Cluster analysis suggests
grouping patterns for headquarters; discriminant analysis confirms the uniqueness of these
spatial clustering patterns across 229 urban counties. For certain industries, the
clustering occurs within small areas. The headquarters of these spatially-correlated
groups of firms—money and media, gas and electric, business services, and machining
technology—were mapped at the county and zipcode level for counties within major
metropolitan areas. The spatial density patterns take on traditional urban forms: core,
ring and wedge. |
