In this paper, the relocation decisions of manufacturing plants across the NUTS-3 regions of the German economy are investigated. A relocation decision concerns whether a plant (an incumbent) moves its location from one region to another over a given time period or whether it remains in the same region. This decision is distinct from a location decision (of a start-up). To analyze the relocations of plants, the rich information of the official German regional statistics as well as the official German firm statistics that are maintained by the German Federal Statistical Office and the Statistical Offices of the Federal States is exploited for the first time. Both pull and push factors that influence relocation decisions are investigated. The results reveal that, in particular, regional road infrastructure and accessibility of regions as well as the quality of the available labor force positively affect the decision to relocate a plant in the German economy. A reduction of 10% in travel time by road to reach the three nearest agglomeration centers leads to an increase in relocation probability of about 9.5% on average. Policy implications involve the need for improvement of accessibility and infrastructure as well as incentives to support human capital in order to attract businesses to move to a region.

本文研究了德国经济 NUTS-3 地区制造工厂的搬迁决策。搬迁决策涉及工厂（现有工厂）在给定时间段内是否将其位置从一个地区移至另一个地区，或者是否保留在同一地区。该决策与（初创企业的）选址决策不同。为了分析工厂搬迁情况，首次利用德国联邦统计局和联邦各州统计局维护的德国官方地区统计数据以及德国官方公司统计数据的丰富信息。研究了影响搬迁决策的拉动因素和推动因素。结果表明，特别是，地区道路基础设施和地区可达性以及现有劳动力的质量对德国经济中工厂搬迁的决定产生积极影响。到达最近的三个集聚中心的公路旅行时间减少10%，搬迁概率平均增加约9.5%。政策影响包括需要改善交通和基础设施以及支持人力资本的激励措施，以吸引企业迁往某个地区。