Location of Headquarter Growth During the 90s
This paper examines the location of headquarter growth of large public companies during
the 1990s. Headquarters continue to be attracted by large metropolitan areas. Yet, among
that group they continue to disperse into the medium-sized centers. The model results
suggest that headquarter growth is elastic with respect to population growth. In addition,
average January temperature emerges as a predictor of headquarter growth. Furthermore,
the paper identifies 6 different categories of gross flows underlying the net change of
headquarters observed during the 90s. There is strong variation among the 50 largest
metro areas in terms of the composition of these gross flows. On average, entry and exit
represent over 2/3 of all gross flow activity. Including information on the composition of
gross flows noticeably improves the formal model.