Industrial Mobility in the Turin Metropolitan Area, 1961-77

A survey of 410 plant relocations and branch plant creations in the Turin Metropolitan Area is used to formulate a model of the timing and spatial incidence of manufacturing change. Entrepreneurs' expectations about growth or decline are seen as determining the rate of anticipated movement but land use policies and the state of industrial relations may act as constraints on the process. The actual rates of movement over the period 1961-77 are regressed against a measure of entrepreneurial optimism or pessimism, the rate of change of national consumption and the rate of investment.