Agglomeration, Technology and Business Groups

Agglomeration, Technology and Business Groups critically reviews the reasons for the creation of business groups and examines their main characteristics.

The authors demonstrate that any useful investigation of the organization and strategies of firms needs to take the business group as the basic unit of analysis. This premise underpins their analysis of the impact of two structural variables - spatial agglomeration and technology - on firm strategy and organization. Via a new dataset on Italian business groups, specific insights into the formulation of diversification strategies, location choices made and variances in vertical integration are provided.

Shedding new light on the influence of spatial agglomeration and technology on the organization of firms, this innovative book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students focussing on industrial economics, the theory of the firm and/or spatial agglomeration.

Giulio Cainelli, Professor of Economics, University of Padova, Italy and Donato Iacobucci, Professor of Applied Economics, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy