Marco Capasso

ON APPROXIMATING THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF GOODNESS-OF-FIT TEST STATISTICS BASED ON THE EMPIRICAL DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION: THE CASE OF UNKNOWN PARAMETERS

This paper discusses some problems possibly arising when approximating via Monte-Carlo simulations the distributions of goodness-of-fit test statistics based on the empirical distribution function. We argue that failing to re-estimate unknown parameters on each simulated Monte-Carlo sample — and thus avoiding to employ this information to build the test statistic — may lead to wrong, overly-conservative. Furthermore, we present some simple examples suggesting that the impact of this possible mistake may turn out to be dramatic and does not vanish as the sample size increases.

Industrial Dynamics and Economic Geography

Capasso M., Stam E. and Cefis E. Industrial dynamics and economic geography, Regional Studies. How do industries emerge and evolve over space? In this special issue the fields of industrial dynamics and economic geography are brought together in order to achieve a richer and more fundamental understanding of the organization of industries over time and space than each of these fields could do separately. Firm heterogeneity at the micro-level and industry composition of a region at the macro-level provide important elements in the explanation of industry emergence and evolution over space. History and space matter in the evolution of industries: this special issue shows how and why.

Sectoral co-movements of employment growth at regional level

ABSTRACT This paper presents a comprehensive study of sectoral co-movements of employment growth in the entire Dutch economy. We construct different macro typologies according to manufacturing versus services, innovativeness, labour skills and position in the value chain, thus expanding the list of potential logics of sectoral interrelations. Using a vector autoregression model, we assess whether and how growth in a macro-sector, and in a given region, can predict growth in the same or other macro-sectors, in the same or in other regions. Our findings bring to light the inter-regional nature of intersectoral linkages, as well as the existence of complementarities between sectors. Supporting the growth of innovative firms could have positive externality effects, especially in the Knowledge-Intensive Business Services sector which is associated with the growth of the entire economy.