The UK’s economy is one of the most regionally imbalanced in Europe. The government’s recent industrial strategy discusses various means of addressing this, one of which is the strengthening of existing clusters. Using plant-level indices of spatial proximity derived from postcode district data, this article investigates the extent of spatial concentration and its impact on total factor productivity in advanced manufacturing sectors in Great Britain. The results from estimation of production functions indicate that, in most advanced manufacturing sectors, spatial concentration has a negative impact on productivity in small plants and a positive effect in larger plants. Large plants likely benefit more from knowledge spillovers due to their higher levels of absorptive capacity.

中文翻译：

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空间邻近性会提高企业生产力吗？来自英国制造业的证据

英国的经济是欧洲区域失衡最严重的国家之一。政府最近的产业战略讨论了解决这个问题的各种方法，其中之一是加强现有集群。本文使用源自邮政编码区数据的工厂级空间邻近度指数，研究了英国先进制造业的空间集中程度及其对全要素生产率的影响。生产函数的估计结果表明，在大多数先进制造业中，空间集中度对小型工厂的生产力有负面影响，而对大型工厂则有正面影响。由于吸收能力水平较高，大型工厂可能会从知识溢出中受益更多。