The evolution of the U.S. industrial landscape, 1969–1995

The industrial landscape of the U.S. has undergone major changes in the last three decades, which have affected the location of the work-force as much as sector location. This paper adopts a dynamic approach in order to analyse the principal characteristics of this process in the time-period 1969–1995 among the twenty two-digit SIC industries. Two main conclusions have emerged. First, we find that, in general, industries are tending to reduce their degree of concentration. Secondly, the classification of industries according to different economic criteria allows us to test the degree of compliance with various theoretical propositions and to detect relevant empirical regularities.