【摘要】This study investigates the magnitude of localization economies by analysing therelocation pattern of Korean establishments in the manufacturing sector. Relocation of estab-lishments is identified by their move across the border of wards, counties, or cities and distin-guished between beyond and within their workers’ commuting distance. It seems that relocationbeyond commuting distance costs more than that within commuting distance since the formerincludes additional costs related with searching for, hiring, and training new workers. Keyfindings of this paper show that external benefits from agglomeration are large enough to berecognized by manufacturers through relocation beyond the border of their workers’ commutingarea. When the own industry’s share of employment in all manufacturing industries becomesdoubled through relocation, the probability for establishments to relocate over a long distanceacross the boundary of their workers’ commuting area rises by 17 per cent. The results forsub-samples divided by the age of establishments show that older establishments are more likelyto relocate over a long distance to an area with disproportionate presence of establishments inthe same industry. These results seem to fit product life cycle theory by Duranton and Puga. Asthe production process of the product becomes standardized, the firms producing that producttend to relocate to the specialized area where they can reduce the production costs by increasing dependence on the existing intermediate input suppliers, who are more likely to appear in a morespecialized area.

【关键词】Relocation; agglomeration economies; commuting distance

【文献来源】Sung Hyo Hong.Papers in Regional Studies.2014（4）