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Location Decisions (location + decision)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting50%
Humanities and Social Sciences43%

Selected Abstracts

Corporate Governance and International Location Decisions of Multinational Enterprises

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 6 2007
Lammertjan Dam
This paper analyses international location decisions of corporations based on corporate governance considerations. Using firm level data on 540 Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) with 44,149 subsidiaries in 188 countries, we test whether firms with relatively good governance standards are more often located in countries with a weak governance system. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, especially for those corporations present in low-income countries. [source]

Environmental Regulations and New Plant Location Decisions: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2002
Tim Jeppesen
Stricter environmental regulations are often opposed on the grounds that they will alter equilibrium capital flows. Empirical evidence in this area remains largely unresolved, mainly due to the quite disparate results found in the literature. This paper takes a positive look at the relationship between new manufacturing plant location decisions and environmental regulations by examining data from 11 studies that provide more than 365 observations. One major result from our meta-analysis is that methodological considerations play a critical role in shaping the body of received estimates. Our empirical estimates also lend insights into future research that is necessary before any robust conclusions can be made regarding the effects of environmental regulations on capital flows. [source]

Corporate Governance and International Location Decisions of Multinational Enterprises

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 6 2007
Lammertjan Dam
This paper analyses international location decisions of corporations based on corporate governance considerations. Using firm level data on 540 Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) with 44,149 subsidiaries in 188 countries, we test whether firms with relatively good governance standards are more often located in countries with a weak governance system. We find empirical support for this hypothesis, especially for those corporations present in low-income countries. [source]

Plant Location and the Advent of Slab Casting by U.S. Steel Minimills: An Observation-Based Analysis

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2006
Frank Giarratani
Abstract: The advent of slab casting for steel that is produced in electric furnaces resulted in a wave of new investments in the construction of steel minimills. From 1989 to 2001, 10 new plants were constructed in the United States on the basis of new technologies. Some were built in established steel industry agglomerations, while others were built in greenfield locations,regions that had little or no prior steelmaking activity. This research brings new evidence to bear on location decisions concerning modern steelmaking. The findings are based on direct observation and visits to the plants of all the new mills that were created by these investments. While the analysis reinforces the importance of transfer costs in decision making, it also argues that critical locational elements cannot be fully understood unless analyses take account of the characteristics of specific products, plants, and firms. [source]

Influence of Race on Household Residential Utility

GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2000
M William Sermons
Residential location choice models are an important tool employed by urban geographers, planners, and transportation engineers for understanding household residential location behavior and for predicting future residential location activity. Racial segregation and residential racial preferences have been studied extensively using a variety of analysis techniques in social science research, but racial preferences have generally not been adequately incorporated into residential location choice models. This research develops residential location choice model specifications with a variety of alternative methods of addressing racial preferences in residential location decisions. The research tests whether social class, family structure, and in-group racial preferences are sufficient to explain household sensitivity to neighborhood racial composition. The importance of the interaction between the proportion of in-group race neighbors and other-race neighbors is also evaluated. Models for the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area are estimated and evidence of significant avoidance behavior by households of all races is found. The results suggest that social class differences, family structure differences, and in-group racial preferences alone are not sufficient to explain household residential racial preference and that households of all races practice racial avoidance behavior. Particularly pronounced avoidance of black neighbors by Asian households, Hispanic neighbors by black households, and Asian neighbors by white households are found. Evidence of a decrease in household racial avoidance intensity in neighborhoods with large numbers of own-race neighbors is also found. [source]

Foreign direct investment and exchange rate uncertainty in South-East Asia

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008
Sylvia Gottschalk
Abstract We investigate the relationship between exchange rate volatility, exchange rate risk diversification and the location of foreign direct investment in the manufacturing industries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. We found a strong role for the yen/dollar exchange rate in location decisions of the US and Japanese investors. There is evidence in the literature that Japanese firms invest in Asia to circumvent the appreciation of the yen. Our results show that the volatility of the yen and the correlation between local exchange rates and the yen are significant determinants of the US and Japanese investments in the region. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Credit scores, race, and residential sorting

JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2010
Ashlyn Aiko Nelson
Credit scores have a profound impact on home purchasing power and mortgage pricing, yet little is known about how credit scores influence households' residential location decisions. This study estimates the effects of credit scores on residential sorting behavior using a novel mortgage industry data set combining household demographic, credit, and financial data with property location information and detailed community attribute data. I employ the data set to estimate a discrete-choice residential sorting model. I find that credit scores significantly predict residential sorting behavior and models that do not account for credit score provide biased estimates of housing utilities for black households in particular. Simulation results show that increases in credit score are associated with increases in the consumption of higher-priced homes in more expensive school districts, higher-quality public schools, and proximity to urban/metropolitan areas. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source]

Environmental Risk and Uncertainty: Insights from Yucca Mountain

JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2003
Mary Riddel
Using data from a survey of southern Nevada households, we develop a model,based subjective risk estimate for each household. We then explore different factors that may influence the household's location decisions if the proposed transportation route is ultimately chosen for nuclear waste transport. We extend the conventional expected utility model to allow for uncertainty surrounding the actual risks borne by the household. Finally, we examine the impact of federal government compensation on households' location decisions. The findings indicate that residents currently living near the proposed transportation route express subjective risk estimates much larger than those reported by the Department of Energy. In general, households that are uncertain about the future risks are more likely to relocate than those expressing certainty. When everything is considered, the model predicts that between one and three percent of households living near the transportation route are likely to relocate. Compensation can influence some households to remain at their present location and bear the transport risk. [source]

Environmental Regulations and New Plant Location Decisions: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2002
Tim Jeppesen
Stricter environmental regulations are often opposed on the grounds that they will alter equilibrium capital flows. Empirical evidence in this area remains largely unresolved, mainly due to the quite disparate results found in the literature. This paper takes a positive look at the relationship between new manufacturing plant location decisions and environmental regulations by examining data from 11 studies that provide more than 365 observations. One major result from our meta-analysis is that methodological considerations play a critical role in shaping the body of received estimates. Our empirical estimates also lend insights into future research that is necessary before any robust conclusions can be made regarding the effects of environmental regulations on capital flows. [source]

SME Competitive Strategy and Location Behavior: An Exploratory Study of High-Technology Manufacturing

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008
Craig S. Galbraith
Forty-four Scottish small and medium-sized high-technology manufacturing firms were surveyed regarding their technology strategies and the impact of regional- and site-specific infrastructure requirements on their location behavior. An empirically derived typology of technology content for high-technology firms was developed via cluster analysis and utilized, together with selected technology and manufacturing strategy variables, to investigate whether significant linkages existed between these variables and firms' related location decisions. Results suggest that location decisions are directly correlated to a firm's competitive strategy and that they should actually be considered a dynamic dimension of strategy rather than a static one-time choice. [source]

Heterogeneous transport costs and spatial sorting in a model of New Economic Geography,

PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2010
Corey Lang
Economic geography; transport costs; sorting; agglomeration Abstract Transportation costs are of central importance in the New Economic Geography literature, though assumptions about transportation costs continue to be simplistic. This paper begins to address these simplifications by assuming that transportation costs for manufactured goods are heterogeneous. Basic results are consistent with standard models showing dispersion of economic activity for high transport costs and eventual agglomeration as transport costs decline. However, several novel features arise too. Many unstable, dispersed equilibria exist for high average transport costs, but converge to a stable equilibrium path as transport costs decrease. Equilibrium paths smoothly transition from dispersion to agglomeration and do so at an increasing rate. Additionally, transport costs directly influence firms' location decisions and firms spatially sort by transport cost. Resumen Los costos de transporte tienen una importancia capital en la literatura sobre la Nueva Geografía Económica, aunque se siguen asumiendo los costos de transporte de manera simplista. Este artículo empieza a tratar estas simplificaciones, asumiendo que los costos de transporte de bienes manufacturados son heterogéneos. Los resultados básicos son consecuentes con los modelos estándar que muestran la dispersión de la actividad económica para costos de transporte elevados y una eventual aglomeración a medida que los costos de transporte disminuyen. Sin embargo, también aparecen varias características novedosas. Existen muchos equilibrios dispersos, inestables, para costos de transporte promedio elevados, pero convergen en una línea de equilibrio a medida que los costos disminuyen. Las líneas de equilibrio tienen una transición fluida de la dispersión a la aglomeración y lo hacen a una tasa en aumento. Además, los costos de transporte influyen directamente las decisiones de localización de las empresas y estas se ordenan espacialmente de acuerdo a los costos de transporte. [source]

There Goes the Neighborhood

POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 2 2002
Environmental Equity, the Location of New Hazardous Waste Management Facilities
Many research studies have examined if hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal facilities (TSDFs) tend to be located where people are disproportionately minority, low-income, and politically inactive. This article focuses on whether variables representing potential neighborhood activism were related to where new TSDFs located during the 1990s. My analyses demonstrated that there is no consistent, substantial evidence that the demographic characteristics of neighborhoods around new TSDFs affected their location decisions. The overall composition of these neighborhoods indicates that there are disproportionately high concentrations of minority and low-income people around these TSDFs and disproportionately fewer people who were more likely to be politically active and concerned about new TSDFs. The shew towards more minorities was overwhelmingly due, however, to a relatively small number of TSDFs in heavily populated neighborhoods with high minority proportions. [source]

Fiscal Federalism in Australia

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2004
Iain McLean
Australia displays high vertical fiscal imbalance (VFI) for historical and constitutional reasons. It also attempts to achieve the highest degree of horizontal fiscal equalization (HFE) to be found in any democratic federation. The Commonwealth Grants Commission (CGC), a non-partisan body at arm's length from politicians, oversees the regime. A recent report claims that equity, efficiency and transparency would all improve if the regime were abolished. Such a change is politically unachievable, but it raises interesting issues in public finance and public administration, which carry over to other federations and union states. An economically efficient system would: minimize perverse incentives, especially incentives to seek rent; encourage states to grow; discourage suboptimal location decisions; minimize transaction costs. An equitable system would maximize equity between relevantly similar individuals. Aspects of the Australian system that should be copied include the non-partisan agency and the target of HFE between component parts of the country. Aspects that should be discussed and perhaps copied include the very extensive equalization, including the feature of equalizing away the effects of grants for special purposes. Aspects that should probably not be copied include the cumbersome formulae and some of the perverse methods of calculating for ,needs'. All abbreviations and acronyms are spelt out in the Appendix on page 37. [source]

Optimal Asset Location and Allocation with Taxable and Tax-Deferred Investing

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 3 2004
Robert M. Dammon
We investigate optimal intertemporal asset allocation and location decisions for investors making taxable and tax-deferred investments. We show a strong preference for holding taxable bonds in the tax-deferred account and equity in the taxable account, reflecting the higher tax burden on taxable bonds relative to equity. For most investors, the optimal asset location policy is robust to the introduction of tax-exempt bonds and liquidity shocks. Numerical results illustrate optimal portfolio decisions as a function of age and tax-deferred wealth. Interestingly, the proportion of total wealth allocated to equity is inversely related to the fraction of total wealth in tax-deferred accounts. [source]

Recruiting and Retaining Physicians in Very Rural Areas

THE JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2010
Carolyn M. Pepper PhD
Abstract Context: Recruiting and retaining physicians is a challenge in rural areas. Growing up in a rural area and completing medical training in a rural area have been shown to predict decisions to practice in rural areas. Little is known, though, about factors that contribute to physicians' decisions to locate in very sparsely populated areas. Purpose: In this study, we investigated whether variables associated with rural background and training predicted physicians' decisions to practice in very rural areas. We also examined reasons given for plans to leave the study state. Methods: Physicians in the State of Wyoming (N = 693) completed a questionnaire assessing their background, current practice, and future practice plans. Findings: Being raised in a rural area and training in nearby states predicted practicing in very rural areas. High malpractice insurance rates predicted planning to move one's practice out of state rather than within state. Conclusions: Rural backgrounds and training independently predict practice location decisions, but high malpractice rates are the most crucial factor in future plans to leave the state. [source]