Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol Cluster perpetuation: Maintenance of competitive advantages over time. The case of Chile's large north ☆ Claudia Pezoa-Fuentes a, ⁎ , Antoni Vidal-Suñé b a Administration Department, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Universidad Católica del Norte, Av. Angamos 0610, Antofagasta, Chile b Business Management Department, Faculty of Business and Economics; Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. de la Universitat, 1, Campus Bellissens, 43204 Reus, Spain ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Strategy Cluster Agglomeration of economies Collective efficiency Proximity ABSTRACT Industrial clusters last if they can maintain over time the competitive advantages arisen from external economies and joint actions developed in the cluster itself. The trend towards relocation of activities outside the cluster, in other geographical areas, may be restrained by a number of inhibiting factors or barriers relating to the exit or abandonment of the cluster, such as the sense of belonging to the cluster, the density of the network of re- lationships established, the existence of shared norms and values, and the institutional framework of the cluster. Thus, the greater the presence of these factors is, the lower companies’ trend to leave the cluster will be. This paper analyses the cluster perpetuation model, based on the calculation of the probability of activity relocation, applied to the Antofagasta (Chile) mining cluster, using a multiple binary logistic regression. 1. Introduction In recent times the authorities of several mining regions have pro- moted growth strategies based on the promotion of mining clusters, in order to increase the capacity of the region to appropriate part of the income generated by the mining activity, through the generation of an industrial atmosphere that allows the local companies, generally sup- pliers of the multinationals, to increase their competitiveness and thus to generate wealth in the region, although the foreign multinationals remain as the main actors of these clusters (Altenburg, 2001). This is the case of the mining cluster of the region of Antofagasta (Chile). According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile (online) (National Statistics Institute), the population of the region of Antofa- gasta in 2017 is 640,950 inhabitants, which represents 3.5% of the Chilean population. Traditionally, the main economic activity of the region has been, and will remain being, the mining business. As noted by the Consejo Minero de Chile (online) (Mining Council of Chile), in 2015 the copper mining contributed 48% of the GDP, and around 95% of the exports in this region, generating 25% of regional employment. Besides, according to the Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (2014, online) (National Service of Geology and Mining), the region of Antofagasta leads the copper production at the national level, with 3,048,303 out of a total of 5,851,120 metric tons of fine copper pro- duced in 2013; concentrating a 52% of the national production. The copper production in Chile in 2016 was 5.55 million tons, becoming the main world producer of this mineral, accounting for 28% of the world copper production, and having 29% of world reserves according to the Consejo Minero de Chile (online) (Mining Council of Chile). Therefore, it is not surprising that in the region of Antofagasta the large mining multinationals have been settled: Freeport-McMoran, Antofagasta Mi- nerals, Marubeni Corp., BHP Billiton, Antofagasta PLC; Glencore, Bar- rick, Rio Tinto, KGHM International, Anglo American, Xstrata, Sumi- tomo Metal Mining, Codelco, among others (Consejo Minero de Chile, 2017). Although traditionally, since 1880, the presence of mining MNCs in the region responds to the enclave (settlement) concept, with a highly dependent economy on such multinational corporations (Arias et al., 2013); as exposed by Arroyo and Rivera (2004), the local com- munity, in the last years of the 1990s, responded with the strategy of forming a productive cluster around the big mining sector, in order to seek a productive model that would leverage in the mining activity and offer stability to the local economy, although a fundamental challenge that conditions its viability, is the capacity of local actors to consolidate a true synergetic relationship that allows to achieve scale economies and create innovation in the various products and processes of the copper mining. The Region has the largest deposits of copper, iodine and lithium in the world, as well as major reserves of silver and mo- lybdenum (US Geological Survey, 2016). It was at the beginning of the 1990's, as noted by Arroyo and Rivera (2004), when the transformation of the mining in the region of Anto- fagasta was developed, based on the investment made by companies https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.10.001 Received 14 April 2016; Received in revised form 2 October 2017; Accepted 2 October 2017 ☆ The authors appreciate the comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers, which have made it possible to substantially improve this work. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cpezoa02@ucn.cl (C. Pezoa-Fuentes), antoni.vidal@urv.cat (A. Vidal-Suñé). Resources Policy 54 (2017) 176–188 0301-4207/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK