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The effectiveness of Science and Technology Parks (STPs) as instruments of innovation policy has generated thriving debate among academics, practitioners and policy makers. A gap in the existing literature on STPs is that research mostly does not consider STPs' heterogeneity. The present paper aims at filling this gap, analysing the influence of different STP characteristics on their tenants' performance. Using data on 849 firms and 25 STPs from the 2009 Community Innovation Survey for Spain and a survey of STP managers respectively and after controlling for a wide set of firms characteristics, we find that: (i) firms located in very new or longer established STPs show better innovative performance; (ii) the size of the STP and its management company positively affects the innovative performance of tenants while services provision has no effect on firms' achieving better results; and (iii) firms in less technologically developed regions benefit more from location in an STP. Theoretical, policy and managerial contributions of our research are discussed in the paper.

This paper aims at assessing the contribution of ethnic minorities to the (total and sectoral) productivity of Italian provinces. We consider the first ten nationalities by numbers of legal immigrants at the provincial level (NUTS 3) 2003–2011. We estimate a spatial panel model to capture both direct and indirect effects of foreign communities on local productivity at the province level, accounting for spatial spillovers. Our findings show that two communities out of the ten considered have a direct positive impact on aggregate labour productivity. Other foreign groups have significant indirect effects: these groups do not affect productivity of provinces where they live, but mainly of the neighbouring provinces, likely because of commuting.

This paper aims to identify the determinants of foreclosures in Spain, a country that not only has the highest foreclosure rate in Europe, but in which foreclosures have also become a major social and political issue. Using a unique dataset, we obtained the determinants of both the foreclosure-to-population ratio and the probability that a home would end in foreclosure. Evidence that deteriorating loan quality and short-term liquidity constraints are the main drivers of foreclosures was obtained. Through urban inequality, foreclosures have exacerbated segregation and divergence among neighbourhoods.

While R&D activities are known for being unevenly distributed across space, how EU policy contributed to their regional dynamics is less explored. Since the 1980s, the EU Framework Programmes (FP) have promoted and supported transnational R&D projects through open and highly competitive calls for funding driven by ‘scientific excellence’ regardless of location. This paper aims to show the drivers of this spatial distribution and evolution of FP participations, arguing that this depends on cumulative effects of regional economic development and growth, while scientific specialization rarely is the best strategy to improve regional competitiveness in terms of FP participations. Si bien las actividades de investigacion y desarrollo son conocidas por no estar distribuidas de manera uniforme en el espacio, la forma en que las politicas de la UE ha contribuido a su dinamica regional apenas se ha explorado. Desde la decada de 1980, los Programas Marco (PM) de la UE han promovido y apoyado proyectos transnacionales de investigacion y desarrollo mediante convocatorias de financiamiento abiertas y altamente competitivas, impulsadas por la ‘excelencia cientifica’ en lugar de la ubicacion. Este documento tiene por objeto mostrar los impulsores de esta distribucion y evolucion espacial de la participacion en los PM, bajo el argumento de que depende de los efectos acumulativos del desarrollo y crecimiento economico regional, mientras que la especializacion cientifica rara vez es la mejor estrategia para mejorar la competitividad regional en terminos de participacion en los PM. 研究開発活動は空間的に不均衡に分散していることが分かっているが、EUの政策がどのように地域のダイナミクスに貢献しているのかは、あまり研究されていない。1980年代以来、EUフレームワークプログラム(FP)は、立地に関係なく、「科学的な卓越性(scientific excellence)」に後押しされた、投資の要請を開放的に、かつ高い競争力で行うことによって、多国間における研究開発プロジェクトを促進し支援してきた。本稿は、このFPへの参加の空間的分布と進展の促進因子を解明することを目的とし、FPは地域の経済発展と経済成長の累積効果に依存するが、その一方で、FPへの参加に関しては、科学分野に特化することが地域の競争力を強化する最適な方策となることはほとんどないことを論じる。

This paper presents an analysis of urban spatial structure and its trends in the OECD between 2001 and 2011. It does so by using a standardised definition of urban areas in 29 OECD countries as composed of high density cores and their respective commuting zones. While urban population is growing everywhere, the way in which populations locate throughout the urban space differs across OECD cities and countries. The prevalent trend is an increasing dispersion of the population, with growth taking place outside existing centres. However, in specific countries, there are cities experiencing a higher growth in their central cores, while others are strengthening their polycentric structures. Overall, the population has grown more in relatively low-density locations close to the main centre, but outside it. Closeness to sub-centres also proves to be a strong advantage for growth and suggests the emergence of new centralities shaping urban spatial structures.

In recent years many countries all over the world adopted a variety of preservation tools and market-oriented solutions to contain land consumption. Among these countries Italy slowly began to incorporate the principles of the free market into the urban planning programmes. The United States Transfer of development rights programmes (TDR) represent a reference point for a market-based approach in the field of environmental preservation policies. In this paper we compared the criteria successfully adopted by the US TDR programmes to the specifications adopted by the municipal plans of three important Italian cities (Milan, Rome and Florence) and we discussed their efficacy to control the urban growth.

This paper seeks to understand how distance to urban centres influences necessity and opportunity-based firm start-ups. The results show that closeness to urban centres is not necessarily beneficial for firm start-ups. On the contrary, regions further away from urban centres of any size experience more firm start-ups. One explanation of this result is that regions experience spatial protection from urban competition. However, regions located further away from larger-sized urban centres experience less firm start-ups due to such remoteness. One explanation of this finding is that remote regions cannot access the agglomeration benefits that larger cities offer. This supports the view that rural regions draw on urban resources but only on those from larger agglomerations.

In this paper, we examine determinants of internal migration flows between the 21 provinces of Ecuador from 1982 to 2010. Using specifications based on the gravity model, we identified push and pull factors. We considered multilateral resistance to migration by using various monadic and dyadic fixed effects structures. The study confirmed the concentration of the population in the two provinces that contain the country's main cities. However, in recent years, this trend has weakened, to the extent that the provinces with the greatest influx of migrants are not necessarily the most populated. This indicates that growth has become more balanced throughout the territory, and that small and medium-sized cities are increasingly important.

College graduates are important for regional economies but also quite geographically mobile. This paper examines the relationship between college graduation rates among persons from a state (relative production) and the later share of college graduates for persons residing in the state (relative stock) using decennial census and American Community Survey microdata. The descriptive relationship has increased over time and is nearly proportional in recent years. Instrumental variables (IV) methods are used to estimate causal effects. The preferred IV results yield an average point estimate for the production-stock relationship of 0.52, but the effect likely decreases with age.

This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of individual-level characteristics on urban location choice by examining whether young people aged 25–34 with a bachelor's degree or higher are more likely to live in central cities in 2011 than in 1990. When I control for individual-level characteristics I find that the effect of education on the probability of living in a central city remains similar across generations. This is evidence that to the extent education plays a role in the larger population of high human capital 25–34 year olds in cities in 2011 it is due to a composition effect rather than cities becoming more attractive to educated people at the margin.

This paper studies the relationship between urbanization and life satisfaction in European NUTS 2 regions in the period 2004–2011 based on individual level data. Results suggest that life satisfaction is greater in regions characterized by intermediate levels of urbanization. Urbanization benefits also filter down along the regional urban hierarchy and are especially positive for those individuals living in rural areas of urbanized regions. Eastern European countries depart from this average trend, and, generally, experience negative direct and indirect urbanization effects, especially in the most urbanized regions.

Using a spatial hedonic growth model, this paper empirically examines the relative roles of natural amenities and urban agglomeration economies as determinants of U.S. regional growth patterns from 2000 to 2010. Natural amenities and urban agglomeration are measured using the USDA Economic Research Service county classification codes. The general finding is that natural amenities and urban agglomeration both influenced regional growth. However, the natural amenity ranking is estimated to be positively related to increased productivity over the period rather than increased attractiveness to households. Urban agglomeration is positively related to increased amenity attractiveness to households. Within Census regional analysis revealed a stronger role for household natural amenity demand in nonmetropolitan areas.

The current study investigated labour market integration of Arabs in Israel using Schnell et al.'s (2015) global segregation/integration index (GSI) that assesses minorities’ socio-spatial integration in multi-ethnic contexts. The merit of this approach lies in being multifaceted and systematically incorporating socio-spatial spheres. The study also conducted structured interviews with the respondents (n = 142), and employed GPS loggers to track their weekly movements. GSI socio-spatial indicators emerged significantly associated with integration in the labour market, with movement in space being the prominent. The study signifies the socio-spatial approach's application to the study of minorities’ labour market integration in metropolitan areas.

Does regional autonomy lead to better local public services? We investigate this issue using measures of public service performance and autonomy at the region level in 171 European regions. We introduce a novel dose-response approach which identifies the pattern of the effect of regional autonomy on the performance of public services. The relationship between the level of regional autonomy and the provision of local public services exhibits a u-shape: both low and high autonomy lead to better local public services. This speaks against the presence of one optimal level of autonomy and policy recommendations based on the view that more decentralisation is always desirable. It shows that different institutional settings can be economically viable and efficient.

This study presents novel evidence regarding the role of regional internet infrastructure in reducing regional per capita income disparities. We base our study on the assumptions that (1) the diffusion of information homogenizes regional economies through reducing the dissimilarities in institutions and culture, and (2) the telecommunication capacity, represented by the internet infrastructure of a region, facilitates this flow of information. Using the data from the 26 statistical NUTS-2 regions of Turkey for the period 1999–2011, we find evidence that internet infrastructure increases the speed of regional convergence.

While there is considerable empirical evidence on the productivity-enhancing effects of manufacturing agglomeration, the impacts of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) agglomeration have rarely been examined. We propose a mechanism-based framework to study the precise channels through which KIBS agglomeration contributes to urban productivity. By estimating a model of urban productivity that incorporates agglomeration of manufacturing, KIBS and non-KIBS using city-level data from China, we find that KIBS agglomeration is an important source of aggregate urban productivity. The importance of KIBS agglomeration in city productivity growth is systematically related to a city's level of economic development.

Regional policy-makers have long sought to attract highly-educated workers with a view to stimulating economic growth and vibrancy. Previous studies over the decades leading up to the new millennium show human capital divergence across cities, where the share of college graduates grew faster in cities that had larger initial shares of college-educated workers. However, labour markets have changed significantly post-2000, likely affecting migration decisions of highly-skilled workers. Additionally, past studies have not controlled for important changes in industry education levels and overall industry composition that may influence city-level college graduate growth. We use detailed 4-digit NAICS industry employment data combined with public micro-data to construct measures of industry skill upgrading and changes in industry composition to control for their effects on human capital growth. We find agglomeration forces, rather than initial graduate share, explains college-graduate share growth post-2000. We also decompose graduates into bachelors and postgraduate degree holders to determine whether different forces are at play on growth of graduates at different education levels.

There is a large consensus that higher education institutions exert notable effects on their regional environment. So far, however, much of the related evidence is based on case studies. Few findings are available on a more generalizable level. To bridge this gap, our study uses spatial panel-data models to identify the impacts of higher education institution (HEI) activities on GDP per capita and unemployment in Germany. Beyond demand-side effects, we seek to identify the, arguably more important, indirect long-term effects of knowledge generation. Accounting for regional spillovers, we find that on average HEI contributed €8,300 to regional GDP per capita in the period 2000 to 2011. Furthermore, we find that they help to significantly reduce unemployment rates in the long run. (Less)

The employment and population growth equilibrium model is extended to allow for differentiated linkages between rural and urban regions and among rural regions. The model is applied to examine the regional disparities within the rural economy of Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2007. To represent the theoretical idea of commuter shed, commuting data are used to construct the spatial weighting matrix. The results reveal positive rural–urban but negative rural-rural linkages, suggesting that rural regions benefit from economic growth in urban regions but compete with each other. The direct and indirect spillover effects are shown using simulation examples.