Where the Headquarters Are: Location Patterns of Large Public Companies, 1990-2000

This article examines the location of headquarters 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 medium-sized centers. This article identifies six different categories of gross flows underlying the net change of headquarters observed during the 1990s. There is strong variation among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in terms of the composition of these gross flows. On average, entry and exit represent more than two thirds of all gross flow activity. Pure relocation of headquarters is found to lead to urbanization. Mergers tend to have no impact on the distribution of headquarters across Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). A binomial probability model of the decision to move uses company-level and MSA-level data and finds that MSA-level amenities affect a company’s choice about where to locate its headquarters.