An Evaluation of Competitive Industrial Structure and Regional Manufacturing Employment Change

This paper examines the relationship between regional industrial structure and employment change in the manufacturing sector and nineteen subsectors in the United States from 1987 to 1997. The relative associations of economic diversity, industrial specialization and competitive structure with economic performance are assessed using a non-causal regression framework. Multiple facets of industrial structure at the regional scale, including competitive structure, are considered together by exploiting confidential microdata to construct and evaluate detailed metrics across broad geographic and industrial ranges. The findings suggest the importance of industrial competitive structure for understanding regional employment change, economic performance and industrial development.