THE IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRY STRUCTURE IN THE ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL ENTRY AND EXIT: THE CASE OF SWEDEN

Previous empirical research has suggested that a large amount of the regional variation of new firm formation can be explained by differences in industrial structure. This paper studies the regional patterns of entry and exit in Sweden 1997-2001 considering these findings. It is shown that for the country as a whole, on average during these five years between 0.5 and 2.7 per cent of the regional variation in entry and exit rates remain to be explained when regional industrial entry and exit rates are compared to the national average. However, there are substantial regional variations, which should be acknowledged by policy-makers.