Shoulders and shadows of giants: intra-regional distribution of the digital industry in Germany

Figures & data

Figure 1. Digital firm birth in regions.

Note: Pooled for all years available in the sample (1995–2017).

Source base map: GeoBasis-DE/BKG 2021.

Map of the share of firm birth in the regions, with representation of the relation of the firm birth in the city cores and the surrounding municipalities, showing that most of the firm birth is taking place in the urban cores.

Table 1. Absolute firm birth in centres and municipalities.

	Minimum	Mean	Maximum
Municipalities	0	0.7	61
Centre	0	53.1	1507

Note: Summary statistics on absolute firm birth in municipalities and the centres are shown.

Table 2. Share of firm birth in regions including centres.

	Minimum	Mean	Maximum
MUR	0.0	1.18	100.0
PUR	0.0	1.03	60.2

Note: Summary statistics on the share of firm births in mono- (MUR) and polycentric urban regions (PUR), including the centres, are shown.

Table 3. Estimation results of baseline regressions.

	(1)	(2)	(3)
Population: 10,000 inhabitants	0.380***	0.890***	0.210***
	(0.013)	(0.025)	(0.008)
University dummy	0.950***	0.860***	0.280***
	(0.110)	(0.180)	(0.068)
Population: 10,000 inhabitants next centre	0.008***	0.049***	0.0003
	(0.001)	(0.007)	(0.0003)
Universities next centre	0.040***	0.020	−0.002
	(0.005)	(0.011)	(0.003
Absolute firm birth region	−0.0002***	−0.001***	−0.0001
	(0.0001)	(0.0001)	(0.0001)
Share of firm birth next centre	−0.039***	−0.054***	0.007***
	(0.003)	(0.004)	(0.001)
Distance to next centre	−0.009***
	(0.001)
Distance quintile2		−0.950***	−0.060***
		(0.210)	(0.021)
Distance quintile3		−0.510	−0.080***
		(0.410)	(0.018)
Distance quintile4		−0.320	−0.050***
		(0.330)	(0.019)
Distance quintile5		−3.200***	−0.200***
		(0.790)	(0.024)
ShareFB nextCenter:Dist.Quintile2		0.012***	−0.007***
		(0.003)	(0.001)
ShareFB nextCenter:Dist.Quintile3		0.007	−0.007***
		(0.006)	(0.001)
ShareFB nextCenter:Dist.Quintile4		0.004	−0.007***
		(0.005)	(0.001)
ShareFB nextCenter:Dist.Quintile5		0.043***	−0.005***
		(0.013)	(0.001)
Time FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Region FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	46,534	31,722	14,812
Adjust R^2	0.170	0.190	0.380

Note: The dependent variable is the share of firm birth. Column (1) refers to the baseline with the full dataset, column (2) shows the results for the subset of monocentric regions and column (3) shows the subset of polycentric regions. Robust standard errors are given in parentheses clustered at the municipality level. Significance levels: ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1. FE, fixed effect.

Figure 2. Post-estimation interaction plot for monocentric urban regions (MURs).

Note: Quintiles 3 and 4 are insignificant in the estimation results.

A line graph with five lines each presenting one distance quintile from monocentric labour market regions. The Graph shows five descending lines in different slopes, with the share of firm birth in the municipalities on the y-axis and the share of firm birth in the next center on the x-axis.

Figure 3. Post-estimation interaction plot for polycentric urban regions (PURs).

Note: All coefficients are significant in the estimation.

A line graph with five lines each presenting one distance quintile from polycentric labour market regions. The Graph shows one outstanding first distance quintile with a strong positive slope, Quntiles 2-4 are slightly negative in slope, and the fifth one positive again. The share of firm birth in the municipalities is on the y-axis and the share of firm birth in the next center on the x-axis.