Testing for Spatial Location Patterns of Bogotá’s Small and Medium Size Manufacturing Firms (2006-2008)

The purpose of this paper is to test the spatial patterns in small and medium size manufacturing firms (11 to 50 employees for small size firms and 51 to 200 for medium size firms) in Bogotá, Colombia, from 2006 to 2008. For this, the Ripley’s K(r) function distance based method is used in order to measure the firms´ spatial concentration, using level of employment and firm size as identification variables, for a sample of four ISIC digits industries located inside the urban perimeter. In this case, the K(r) function allows the reader to establish clustering agglomeration tendencies in each industry and additionally evaluate if dynamic spatial concentration, dispersion, or randomness between firms through time exists. Evaluating location by firm size would indicate us trends of employment and predominant industry activity in the city, and its relation with other urban features