Agglomeration, urbanization and competitive performance: the natural experiment of English football

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Date
2019-08-08
Authors
Jones, Calvin
Jordan, Declan
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
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Abstract
There are sound theoretical and empirical bases for expecting productivity and innovative benefits for businesses located in large urban areas, and for those located closer to others in the same or related industries. However, the size and precise origin of these effects remain uncertain and complicated by potential endogeneity from businesses’ location choice. English football is proposed as a natural experiment with immobile businesses and evidence is presented from the English Premier League (EPL) that suggests urban scale affects clubs’ relative performance. It is found that teams in larger conurbations perform relatively better, and it is suggested these benefits probably originate from the sport’s novel labour market.
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Keywords
Urbanization , Agglomeration , Business performance , Sport
Citation
Jones, C. and Jordan, D. (2019) 'Agglomeration, urbanization and competitive performance: the natural experiment of English football', Regional Studies, Regional Science, 6(1), pp. 420-438. DOI: 10.1080/21681376.2019.1647794