| This study presents three essays on regional economics.; In the first work, the main purpose is to provide a link between the location decision and the internal organization of firms. In the model that focuses on the relationship among agents within the firms, the owner of the firm makes two decisions: who will have the formal authority (the owner or the controller) and where the manufacturing plant will be located (near or far from the owner). The results show that those two decisions are interdependent. More than that, for certain parameters, the corporation goes from the second best to the first best only if it changes the decision about both aspects; changing just either the delegation scheme or location may drive it to an inferior outcome. In these cases, a flexible managerial structure turns out to be a necessary condition for firms to benefit from locational advantages. The positive correlation between the decentralization of decision-making and geographic decentralization predicted by the model is supported by empirical research. Finally, at the end of the chapter, the recent headquarter location decision by the Boeing company is used to illustrate the results obtained.; Extending the model of the first paper, the next study proposes a framework to deal with many firms in the presence of agglomeration forces in order to address issues related to the fragmentation of production. The results of the simulation also show that lower communication costs lead the regional economy to what has been observed by the literature: the metropolitan area becomes more specialized in business services, whereas manufacturing production is spread out over medium cities. Moreover, the role of the managerial structures for fragmentation of production is also confirmed.; Finally, the third paper studies the investment in human capital in the development of clusters. The model aims to capture the tension between regional competition and scale economies presented in a region where many firms produce the same (or related) good(s). Opportunistic behavior can lead clustering firms to suboptimal investment in human capital and scale economies eventually (partially) neutralize those harmful effects of competition by attracting a third party that centralizes the bulk of investment. |
