Growth Dynamics in a Municipal Market-Accessibility Hierarchy - Do the ICT service sectors follow the overall pattern?

This paper analyzes the overall growth pattern of Swedish municipalities in the 1990s. Using an accessibility-based hierarchy of municipalities, we relate growth to intra municipal, intra regional and inter regional accessibility. We explore the growth in (i) population, (ii) employment and (iii) commuting flows. These variables are modeled as dependent on a municipality’s position in the hierarchy. The purpose of the paper is to reveal systematic regularities in growth performance. Having established the overall pattern of change, we examine if the ICT service sectors follow or deviate from this pattern. The study is based on data describing the growth in Swedish municipalities between 1993 and 1999. This time period is chosen in order to capture the general growth that took place in Sweden during this time period. The objective is to find out how the Swedish aggregate growth was distributed across sectors and municipalities.