Keisuke Takano (p)

Olga Demidova

Does the temporary lockout of offices from the central business district alter the location of the business agglomeration permanently? This paper investigates the impact of the land requisition by the US Army during the post-WW2 period in Yokohama City, Japan. Using the location information of firms collected from city business directories published before and after WW2, this study asks if the within-city relocation of commercial agglomeration happened. My main finding is that the land requisition reduced the size of the incumbent agglomeration and this negative effect lasted even after the occupied land was retroceded. This result suggests the path-dependence in the location of economic activities within a city.

Mehmet Ronael (p)

Keisuke Takano

Between the 19th and 20th centuries, European and American towns developed their economic policies from agriculturally based to industrial-based; however, in the 21st century, they changed their direction from industrial-based to creativity-based. Similarly, creative activities have developed in Turkey since the 1990s, after its acceptance as a European Union candidate. In this process, Istanbul has become a creative metropolis because of high-skilled workers' concentration and supply-demand capacity. Therefore, creative businesses from different sub-sectors started to disperse in Istanbul's districts through their spatial needs and expectations. In this context, this study aims to examine and evaluate Istanbul's creative economy pattern in depth, considering the spatial distribution of 14 creative sub-sectors. The addresses of creative workplaces were obtained from the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, and they were also digitalized by using the geocoding method.

Additionally, the Quadrat Count Method was used to analyze firms' spatial distribution to determine Istanbul's significant clustering areas. The spatial pattern was also explained in terms of firms' establishing years through Hot-spot Analysis. At the end of the study, results show that creative sectors tend to focus on Şişli, Beşiktaş, Beyoğlu, Fatih, Kadıköy, Üsküdar, and Ataşehir; however, sub-centers such as Beylikdüzü, Avcılar, Pendik, and Kartal have occured. Undoubtedly, understanding this pattern could be a beneficial source for future urban development policies and guide policy-makers responsible for increasing the competitiveness of Istanbul.

Olga Demidova (p), Alexander Zyuzin

Jarosław Nazarczuk

This paper discovers agglomeration externalities’ sustainability and robustness issues for Russian private real sector companies during the period from 2011 to 2018. Agglomeration effects are measured via Ellison-Glaeser index (industry is supposed to be clustered in certain region(s) if the EG value is high). Firms’ sales margin was chosen as the main performance characteristic. The sample was divided into 6 aggregated groups (agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transport, IT, services) and for each of them sustainability and robustness of the concentration effect was checked using OLS estimates with heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors obtained for each year. Companies, located in and out of the cluster were studied separately. Strong, sustainable, and positive concentration effects were found for Agricultural, Mining and Transport industries. Sustainable negative agglomeration effects appear for Manufacturing and Service industries. For IT companies the agglomeration effect depends on the company location (in or out of the industry cluster). For IT companies located inside the industry cluster the agglomeration effect appeared to be negative and for those outside the industry cluster it was positive. The information about the sustainability of the localization effects can be useful for policymakers, while stimulating the development of certain industries or territories. The results can also be helpful for further research with the goal to identify an optimal agglomeration structure and optimal distribution of companies across regions.