Résumé
Even if the impact of the local socio-economic context on firm birth rates is not to be demonstrated, empirical studies for the ICT sector in France are almost completely lacking. The present article studies the entire population of new firms created between 1993 and 2001 in the 348 French labour market areas (84, 535 firms). This exhaustive data set has not been exploited by former research studies. The results identify four major determinants of ICT firm birth: R&D infrastructure, the presence of similar firms in the local network, the presence of large firms in general and finally a significant population growth (increasing market demand).