Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-239) and index.
"Local industrial clusters, such as Silicon Valley in the United States, have become an important subject of scholarly inquiry in recent years. This book offers a unifying view by capturing the general characteristics and prerequisites of local industrial clusters both on a theoretical as well as an empirical level."
"The book establishes a mathematical model is to analyse the dynamics of clustering and the conditions that are to be satisfied if a local industrial cluster is to evolve. This model allows predictions about the spatial distribution of firms to be deducted, which are empirically tested in the book. This thorough methodology allows the author to study the existence of local industrial clusters in Germany, their stability and the industrial characteristics that are responsible for their existence." "Local Industrial Clusters will be a valuable read for policy-makers as well as academics."--Jacket.