Methodological Approaches to the Analysis of a Regional Manufacturing Base: A Handbook

摘要

The manual offers a series of techniques for the construction and analysis of regional manufacturing data bases. These techniques are intended to inform the design of effective economic development policies. The techniques are demonstrated through a case study of Rhode Island manufacturing plants in the 1978-83 period. Two types of methodologies are discussed. The first type concerns the examination of trends in aggregate government statistics regarding employment and unemployment, wages and income, poverty, and human resources. The second type focuses on building and utilizing plant-specific data bases. Using a plant-specific data base for the Rhode Island manufacturing sector, trends are examined in gross job gain and loss, the relationships between plant organizational characteristics and the probability of plant closure, and the relationships between plant organizational characteristics and percentage change in employment. Data sources for the second type of methodology include state unemployment and corporate registration records, a telephone survey, and field interviews. The gross flows analysis indicates the simultaneous presence of a significant amount of job gain and loss in the manufacturing sector. The plant closure analysis reveals that a large number of organizational characteristics are significantly related to the probability of a plant's closure. The percentage employment change analysis shows that organizational characteristics are not important factors in explaining the dependent variable.