Är kluster lönsamma? : En undersökning av platsens betydelse för företags produktivitet

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to empirically test to what extent there are any causal relationships between certain location properties and the performance of business. The purpose was defined in the light of a large number of reports arguing that geographical proximity to customers, suppliers, competitors, specialized workforce and other resource markets are of crucial importance to the performance of enterprises.However, several empirical studies show that customers and suppliers to a company very rarely can be found in the local environment. This brought me to the conclusion that the advantages drawn by business through localising their enterprise close to similar or complementary companies mainly depend on something else. Among other advantages that co-localised companies might have, the establishment of a common labour market for specialized workforce could play an important role. I finally defined the purpose of my work as empirically testing to what extent there is a positive relationship between on the one hand concentration of similar companies, concentration of specialized workforce, the mobility of specialized workforce, and on the other hand the productivity of labour of companies. The analyses are primarily based on data from Statistics Sweden concerning ICT, machinery and rubber industries. To a limited extent I also use an earlier data collection on the machinery industry supplementing it with some additional data.The results of the statistical analyses did not give any support for there being a significant relationship between concentration of similar companies and productivity of labour. Nor did the results imply that this should be case for concentration of specialized workforce. However, the results give strong support for the conclusion that the mobility of specialized workforce sometimes could be of crucial importance. Given the theoretical points of departure I have had, it was pertinent to bring the size of the local labour market or the local outlet market into the model as well. It is then shown that there is a distinct pattern, regarding the ICT industry, where the variations in productivity of labour increases with the size of the local labour market. Thus within the largest local labour markets, the most as well as the least productive workplaces are found.