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This paper investigates how spinoffs in peripheral regions can profit from the work experience of their founders. More specifically, it discusses which firm routines and business contacts entrepreneurs gather through their prior work experience, and how this experience influences the organizational structure and orientation of the newly founded firm. The transfer of capabilities from parent firm to spinoff has been identified as important aspect of industrial clustering, but empirical evidence from peripheral areas is still sparse. It compares 22 semi-structured interviews with founders of manufacturing firms from different peripheral regions in Switzerland to investigate whether routine and network transfer differs in varying peripheral contexts. The results show that not only inherited routines are important, but also inherited business contacts. Further, instead of simply reproducing acquired routines and networks, founders employ a mixture of continuity and change to find a good trade-off between relying on well-proven practices and introducing novelty. Finally, the geographical proximity of inherited business contacts seems to have an influence on the implementation strategy founders choose. Entrepreneurs with strong inherited local business contacts do not have to invest as much in building up new business contacts as those entrepreneurs in more isolated locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the notion of territorial patterns of innovation as a new conceptualization to understand the relationship among knowledge, innovation, and economic growth at the regional level. The territorial patterns of innovation approach reject the simplistic view of an invention-innovation equivalence and advance alternative patterns, alternative ways in which knowledge and innovation can take place and mix in space. Each of them represents a different way of innovating, one not necessarily more efficient than the other. On the empirical ground, the paper demonstrates this statement for all NUTS2 regions of the 27 European Union states by showing that the efficiency in taking advantage of innovation does not only link to the strength of the local knowledge base; rather, territorial patterns of innovation characterized by relatively low knowledge intensity can be relatively more efficient in grasping and exploiting innovation returns for growing. Interesting policy implications can be drawn from the empirical analysis presented. If the results do not deny the importance of research and development ( R&D) activities for regional growth, and therefore the right focus put forward by the Europe 2020 on a 'smart growth' based on knowledge and innovation, they call for particular attention when the Europe 2020 goal is translated into a regional setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the endogenous development ( ED) approach has gained influence within the rhetoric of European rural development policies ( RP). This paper provides a fundamental critique of the approach and shows that neither the economic elements of RP in general nor ED in particular are targeted towards the specific economic needs and capabilities of rural areas. The second part of this paper consists of the search for possible alternative concepts for a more targeted and effective RP. Based on a synopsis of existing theories, an integrated approach is proposed that builds upon the different coordination mechanisms for economic activity suggested by different theories. The new, integrated perspective enables an economic characterisation of rural areas and indicates that the successful support of local coordination of economic activity is determined by specific local conditions. It also makes evident that localised approaches usually cannot compensate rural areas for the lack of agglomeration advantages. Therefore, programmes for the economic development of rural areas which support the local coordination of economic activity remain a second-best policy. As such, they do not free the state from policies of spatial redistribution if the political aim is the creation of comparable living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building upon the companion paper in this issue, this essay analyses five case studies that can be taken as prototypes of the system-wide cultural district culture-led developmental model. The research targets five cities in Europe and the U.S.: Valencia, Austin, Newcastle/ Gateshead, Linz, and Denver. Each presents specific characteristics but also some deep, structural common traits. The case studies are compared and their future viability is evaluated in terms of the factors presented in the companion piece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the literature on fiscal decentralization has tended to stress that the greater capacity of decentralized governments to tailor policies to local preferences and to be innovative in the provision of policies and public services, the greater the potential for economic efficiency and growth. There is, however, little empirical evidence to substantiate this claim. In this paper we examine, using a panel data approach with dynamic effects, the relationship between the level of fiscal decentralization and economic growth rates across 16 Central and Eastern European countries over the 1990–2004 period. Our findings suggest that, contrary to the majority view, there is a significant negative relationship between two out of three fiscal decentralization indicators included in the analysis and economic growth. However, the use of different time lags allows us to nuance this negative view and show that long-term effects vary depending on the type of decentralization undertaken in each of the countries considered. While expenditure at and transfers to sub-national tiers of government are negatively correlated with economic growth, taxes assigned at the sub-national level evolve from having a significantly negative to a significantly positive correlation with the national growth rate. This supports the view that sub-national governments with their own revenue source respond better to local demands and promote greater economic efficiency [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has highlighted that in the last few years, the evolution of regional disparities in many European states has become pro-cyclical. This represents a change with respect to the predominantly anti-cyclical pattern of the 1960s and 1970s. This paper addresses the question of whether and when this change has taken place in the southern periphery of Europe, before analysing the factors that may have played a role in such a change. The analysis relies on a regional database that includes the evolution of the GDP per capita of NUTS II regions in five European countries (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) between 1980 and 2000. The results of the analysis support the hypothesis of a change towards a pro-cyclical evolution of regional disparities in the cases of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but not in those of Greece and France. A relationship between these pro-cyclical patterns and the emergence of less dynamic sheltered economies is also detected in peripheral regions. This lack of dynamism is related to the fact that numerous peripheral areas in southern Europe have become increasingly dependent on factors such as transfers or public investment and employment, and therefore are less exposed to changes in market conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]