Local and Regional ICT Service Sector Markets in Sweden

摘要

The focus of this chapter is on ten service branches in the ICT sector in Sweden. This sector has been growing very fast in Sweden during the 1990s. The service branches we have chosen to study are assumed to be dependent on the demand from the local market. Moreover, we recognize them as important characteristics of the supply side in the local economic milieu. From a theoretical perspective, it is reasonable to assume that the presence of the service industries can be explained by the size of the local and regional markets, conclusion that may be compared with findings in Chap. 7.rnIn the empirical analysis, we study the relationship between accessibility to municipal market, regional market, and external markets and the probability ofrnpresence of the respective service industries in municipalities. The market potential at a location is defined as accessibility to purchasing power (aggregated income). In this study, we use a binary logit-model. According to the results from the statistical estimations, all selected service industries are dependent on access to the local market. The regional market (functional region) is also important. The estimations yield significant parameters at five percent level, in half of the cases at regional level and in all cases at local level. Access to external regions appears to be of less importance, and does not result in significant estimates except for one case.rnFrom this study, one can dwell on a policy aspect: The access to the local market in the municipal is of high importance. This means that regional and local development can be assumed to be self reinforced in a cumulative way. An increase in the market potential attracts new firms and thereby the variety of the supply side will grow. A more diversified supply of services will then attract new households and firms, etc. In a dynamic perspective, growth can be promoted by investments in infrastructure, which reduce time distances.rnIf one would like to promote entrance of this particular type of service industries it is important to acknowledge locations with good access to the local (municipal) market. Furthermore, some of the branches require access to a larger market size than other branches. For a number of branches (in this case more than half of the industries) access to a regional market of substantial size is also important. For the branches that showed significant signs of dependency on the regional market, the size of the market had to be around 10 million euros (100 Million SEK) per year in aggregated income (for the probability of presence to approach one).rnThe study only concerns the recovery part of the business cycle. This constitutes a limitation of the analysis. We cannot make statements regarding the situation might be in a recession phase. However, by the way the study is carried out we are able to understand some of the spatial dynamics in times of recovery. Since the focus is on ICT service sectors we have been able to catch the development of a strong growing sector that sprawled in the economy when the new information technology were adopted widely in the economy.