Behind the emergence of clusters: spinoffs and social ties. The case of an Italian industrial district

The traditional economic literature explains the process of geographic agglomeration of firms with regard to the existence of external economies or agglomeration economies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate an alternative view, following some more recent influential studies about spinoffs and the emergence of clusters (Boschma, 2015). We discuss how the joint processes of spinoffs, knowledge inheritance and social ties may shape the emergence of firms in a cluster without referring to the existence of external economies. This paper presents the case of the industrial swimwear district in Oleggio, Italy and provides evidence that the formation of spinoffs and social ties contributed to the emergence of the district.