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ABSTRACT This paper investigates regional development dynamics in a sample of 254 NUTS 2 European Union regions over the period 2000-2010. To that end, we propose a new version of the regional Lisbon index containing changes with respect the index developed by Dijkstra. The regional Lisbon index includes employment, education and R&D indicators. Targets for these indicators are related to an action and economic development plan for the EU regions and have been incorporated into European Regional Policy programming. The analysis of regional development is based on the estimation of the spatial Durbin model, containing endogenous and exogenous interaction effects. We compare the performance of different specifications of the spatial weights matrix describing the spatial arrangement of the sample regions finding evidence in favour of an exponential-decay distance matrix. Using this matrix, we determine the extent to which a change in a covariate in a particular region affects development in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State and local economic development efforts have grown during the last three decades in the United States. Some public incentives for companies may be effective, including those for high unemployment areas; others may be wasteful, especially if they retain corporations that merely threaten to leave. As companies increasingly expect incentives, however, governments find themselves in a ‘race to the bottom’– the only way to remain competitive is to offer more. Having identified arguments for and against incentives, this paper considers the prospects for addressing wasteful competition, including, in the absence of Congressional action, the US Supreme Court's application of the Commerce Clause to strike down incentives that discriminate against interstate commerce. A review of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of incentives for the DaimlerChrysler Toledo Jeep plant finds that the Commerce Clause is not a solution for wasteful competition. Another model to consider is the European Union's regulation of incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural industries are becoming in general more important in advanced economies as sources of employment and economic growth. In this paper, a quantitative exploration is given of recent trends in cultural industries in the Netherlands. The data show a rapid rise of employment in the cultural industries in the last decade. Moreover, the four largest cities, although losing some terrain, are important sites for cultural production. Furthermore, in terms of employment Amsterdam still turns out to be the undisputed cultural capital of the Netherlands. The Dutch capital clearly has the edge in all but one of the selected cultural industries. The one notable exception is architectural services. Rotterdam, home base of many famous international architectural firms, is asserting its status as the most important place for this kind of cultural industry in the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]