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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, which is positioned in the interface of economic geography and institu- tional economics, studies the spatial aspect of institutions and its relevance for regional eco- nomic development in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD). The GPRD consists of Hong Kong (HK) on the one hand, providing an advanced institutional system, and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in China on the other hand, with its evolving institutional setting. Despite or even because of the 'one country, two systems' situation, firms in the GPRD have become established suppliers in the electronics value chain. The paper takes up the challenge of operationalizing and empirically studying the relations of HK firms and PRD producers adapted to regionally specific institutional pattern and demand for flexibility in production using a quantitative approach based in a survey of HK electronic firms and a logit model explaining the relations between HK firms and PRD producers. The analysis reveals that in the course of time, HK firms have used different entry modes as a response to the maturity the institutional setting.

What is the effect of an increase in the stock of human capital due to skilled immigration on the innovative performance of recipient economies? Combining firm-level micro-data with area-level labour force information, this paper investigates the impact of skilled international migration inflows on firms' product and process innovation in British local labour market areas. The paper supports the evidence in favour of a causal link between immigration and innovation. Results also show that the nature of the innovative process and the typology of innovative activities performed by local firms play a key role in the relation between immigration and innovation.

This paper analyses the impact of industry specific regional specialization on employment growth in German planning regions between 1998 and 2007. The paper investigates Germany as a whole as well as Western and Eastern Germany separately. By using a shift-share regression approach the paper provides new findings about the existence of industry-specific localization advantages. The results show that inverse localization advantages play a major role in explaining regional disparities in Germany. This involves a process of deconcentration of economic activity. In addition, differences between Eastern and Western Germany can also be identified. Resumen Este articulo analiza el impacto de la especializacion regional especifica por industrias sobre el crecimiento del empleo en las regiones de planificacion alemanas entre 1998 y 2007. El articulo estudia Alemania en su totalidad, asi como Alemania Occidental y Oriental por separado. Mediante la utilizacion de un enfoque de regresion shift-share, el articulo aporta nuevos resultados acerca de la existencia de ventajas de localizacion especificas por industria Los resultados muestran que las ventajas de localizacion inversa tienen un papel clave a la hora de explicar las disparidades regionales en Alemania. Esto implica un proceso de desconcentracion de la actividad economica. Ademas, tambien se pueden identificar diferencias entra Alemania Occidental y Alemania Oriental.

Australia's large regional cities and towns display wide variation in how they are adjusting to the socio-economic transitions that have occurred over the past decade. One area of research interest has been in developing typologies of non-metropolitan performance. The current paper represents an analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Census data aimed at analysing non-metropolitan regions based on their performance across a range of selected socio-economic variables. Using model-based clustering methods, this paper places non-metropolitan regions into clusters depending on the degree to which they share similar socio-economic and demographic outcomes. These clusters form the basis of a typology representing the range of socio-economic and demographic outcomes at the regional level. Differences between the clusters are analysed using graphs of 95% confidence intervals on the individual means for each cluster. The typology provides a useful framework with which to develop a broad understanding of socio-economic processes and performance across different spatial scales.

Fortunately for the environment, economists long ago understood the imperfections of markets in dealing with technical externalities like air pollution, 1 and they specified appropriate tax and subsidy procedures to correct these market failings. Thus endowed with a theoretical framework, it remained only for popular concern to catch up, to measure the costs and benefits associated with clean-up, and to assess the appropriate sticks and carrots. A funny thing happened on the way to the cleanup. Questions of distribution arose--both with respect to unemployment in polluting industries and the beneficiaries of the improved environment. Systems of effluent charges were attacked in the punic relations arena as "licenses to pollute" and in intellectual circles because of comparative administrative costs? Finally, the cost-benefit analysis on which appropriate policy should be based received greater scrutiny as the complex interrelationships between various environmental components and human activity began to be understood. Time horizons were expanded; secondand third-order consequences were explored. This paper continues in the latter vein with some hints at distributional implications. It focuses on urban areas because the concentration of both airborne pollutants and numbers of those affected are greatest there. Unfortunately, the potential for complex interactions is also large in urban regions. This paper will focus on one such complex--the relationships between industrial, stationary source emissions, emissions generated by urban transportation, and air pollution arising from residential heating sources.

In the period following World War II, the less-developed countries have experienced significant progress toward modernization, development, and explosive rates of population growth. In the medium to long run these trends are bound to have a major impact over the worldwide distribution of political and military power (Fucks [12], Organski [25, p. 484 ff.], Rostow [32, p. 409 ft.]). In particular, as the large, densely populated, less-developed countries modernize they will acquire a political and military power incomparably larger than they possess at present. The technology for the production and delivery of atomic weapons is a segment of the stock of scientific and technological knowledge that societies learn to assimilate and use in the process of development. The proliferation of the ability to produce atomic weapons is just one of the many processes of diffusion of technology. As such, it can perhaps be slowed down but not arrested, and it would not be reasonable to expect that the large contemporary less-developed countries will not acquire full atomic capability as their political and military power increases. The twin impact of economic development and population growth will produce tremendous population pressures on the resources of the large, densely populated, less-developed countries. At the same time huge regions, both in the developed and in the less-developed parts of the world, are and will remain by comparison almost empty. Which brings us to the focal point of this paper. Can we really expect that in the not-too-distant future overcrowded countries with superpower status and atomic arsenals would find it acceptable to be denied access to the resources and territories of thinly populated areas? Consider the contrast between the population densities in Africa, the Americas, the Soviet Union, and Australia, and those of India and China. When India and China will have political and military power as well as population densities far larger than at present and full atomic capabilities, will they be content to accept the real and perceived hardships associated with inordinately high population pressure on resources while looking across their boundaries at huge territories, almost empty by comparison? This paper will explore the possible role of three developments with a potential for alleviating the tensions and conflicts that can arise from economic development and population growth in large densely populated countries of the contemporary world. These developments are (a) accelerated modernization, (b) effective population control policies, and (c) migrations.

This paper proposes an explanation of unbalanced regional growth and regional inequalities based on the view that human behaviour is motivated either to reduce the physiological state of arousal or to increase it. While arousal reduction is the basis of conventional economic analysis arousal augmentation is seldom considered. This paper argues that arousal augmentation motivates society to seek technological and socioeconomic innovations that trigger economic progress. The mechanism for this progress is seen as a synthesis of spatial growth poles and temporal long waves.

Several major changes in educational policies have occurred in Spain over the last four decades. One of these is the re-organization of the educational system beginning in 1970. A policy to encourage the regional spread of universities was pursued over the seventies and eighties. There has also been devolution of power to some regions with respect to the management of the educational system. These policy changes are hypothesized to have resulted in an impact on inter-regional and intra-re gional inequality with respect to educational facilities. We investigate the change in inequality that occurred between the 60s and the70s, and also between the 80s and early 90s.

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.

The aim of this paper is to track the location decisions of knowledge-intense firms in a redeveloped urban district in the city of Barcelona in which government policy has promoted the formation of a cluster of knowledge-based activities. After decades of economic and industrial stagnation in a district called Poblenou, in the year 2000 the City Council of Barcelona implemented a plan to renew the area�s urban and economic structure. Under the development plan, knowledge-based firms were encouraged to set up in the area creating a cluster of advanced activities. This paper examines the success of this local policy and aims to determine whether cluster amenities have played a part in attracting knowledge-based activities. First, we evaluate the cluster implementation via a differences-in-differences analysis comparing the increase in the number of knowledge-based firms in this specific area with the increase of this kind of firm elsewhere in the city and the metropolitan area. Second, to test whether cluster amenities are determinant factors for the location of knowledge-based firms, we perform a multivariate regression analysis explaining intra-city firm location at the ZIP code level. Data about new firms come from a business-census that contains detailed information about location determinants of these firms as well as their characteristics.

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.

This paper examines the impact of land tenure security perceptions on rural-urban migration decisions of rural households, using data collected in Minle County in Northwest China. We find that tenure security perceptions play a significant role in household migration decisions in villages without well-functioning land rental markets but not in villages where the land rental markets are more developed. In villages with underdeveloped land rental markets, households that expect that no land reallocations will occur within their village in the near future are less involved in migration, while households that attach a greater importance to land certificates in protecting land use rights are more involved in migration.

Railway provision is often characterized by the intervention of either the public or private sector as network and/or infrastructure operator. In this paper we aim to develop a model of passenger railway provision where we assume that the public operator suffers a relative inefficiency. In relation to the public, private and the participation of both in the railway provision, we identify in the model different efficiency-based decision rules. The decision rules establish in which configuration welfare is maximized and bring to light the relative inefficiency of the public sector. The results give insight into how a reliable threat of private intervention can be used to maximize social welfare. Resumen La provision de lineas de ferrocarril se caracteriza a menudo por la intervencion del sector publico o el privado como operadores de la red y/o la infraestructura. El objetivo de este articulo es desarrollar un modelo de provision de ferrocarril para pasajeros en el que asumimos que el operador publico sufre una ineficiencia relativa. En funcion de la participacion publica, privada, o ambas en la provision de ferrocarril, identificamos en el modelo pautas diferentes para la decision, basadas en la eficiencia. Las pautas para la decision establecen la configuracion en la que se maximiza el bienestar social y ponen de manifiesto la ineficiencia relativa del sector publico. Los resultados dejan entrever como una amenaza real de intervencion privada puede utilizarse para maximizar el bienestar social.

This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS 3 level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 19782007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek prefectures, but also the spillover effects related to the existence of externalities from neighbouring regions. The results point to a positive long-run impact of public investment per capita on regional economic growth but not on convergence which also generates considerable spillover effects. However, the returns vary according to different types of public investment, with education and infrastructure spillovers having the highest impact. In general, public investment externalities seem to be more relevant for regional growth than direct public investment in each region. Finally, the impact of different types of public investment in Greece is mediated by politics and political factors, but the effect of politics disappears once we control for political-period-specific spatial-invariant variables.

This paper aims at explaining whether R&D subsidies, the engagement in collaboration networks and the location influence the patent activities of biotech firms in Germany! We demonstrate that R&D subsidies focusing on single firms do not increase patent intensity, while subsidies which are granted to joint R&D projects do so to a certain extent. The number of knowledge links firms have is not influencing performance, but the type of network partners has an effect. We found strong evidence that some but not too much cognitive distance between collaboration partners and being located in a cluster have a positive effect. Resumen El objetivo de este articulo es explicar si los subsidios a la I+D, la participacion en redes de colaboracion y la localizacion influyen en las patentes de empresas biotecnologicas en Alemania. Demostramos que los subsidios a I+D dirigidos a una unica empresa no aumentan la intensidad de patentes, mientras que, hasta cierto punto, los subsidios otorgados a proyectos conjuntos de I+D si la aumentan. El numero de conexiones de conocimiento que poseen las empresas no influye en su rendimiento, pero les afecta el tipo de socios que haya en la red. Encontramos pruebas importantes de que, mientras no sea demasiada, cierta distancia cognitiva entre los socios colaboradores y estar ubicados en un conglomerado (cluster) tienen un efecto positivo.

Our existing knowledge of the links between urban growth and commuting patterns are dominated by cases from developed countries. This paper examines the impact of urban growth on workers' commutes using the case of Beijing, which is undergoing rapid economic and spatial restructuring. The results of an analysis of household survey data show that clustered and compact urban development in planned sub-centres is likely to reduce suburban workers' need for a long-distance commute to the city centre when the workers' socio-economic characteristics, the level of transport accessibility and household preferences for residential location are taken into account. Workers employed in the manufacturing sector tend to have shorter commutes and travel within the planned suburban sub-centres. This reveals that the decentralization of employment in the manufacturing sector provides more opportunities to enhance the spatial matches between household residential and job location choices. Household preferences for residential location have an effect on commuting patterns, and high-income workers are likely to accept longer commutes in order to fulfil their residential preferences. Dramatic urban restructuring, in conjunction with changes in lifestyle, is creating new commuting patterns in the rapidly growing cities of China.

This paper examines the relationship between the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector and economic growth for a panel of 508 Brazilian micro-regions for the period 1980–2004. It investigates the importance of the SME sector size measured by the share of the SME employment in total employment, and the level of human capital in the SME sector measured by the average years of schooling in SMEs. Furthermore, it examines how these aspects of SMEs influence growth in regions with dissimilar level of development. The empirical findings show that the presence of SMEs is not positively correlated with growth and SMEs' human capital is more important for growth in more developed regions. Resumen Este articulo examina la relacion entre el sector de pequenas y medianas empresas (PyMEs) y el crecimiento economico para un panel de 508 microrregiones brasilenas durante el periodo 1980–2004. Investiga la importancia del tamano del sector PyMEs medido como la proporcion de empleo en PyMEs respecto del empleo total, y la cualificacion del capital humano en el sector PyMEs medido por el numero de anos de escolaridad en PyMEs. Ademas, examina como influyen estos aspectos de las PyMEs en el crecimiento en regiones con niveles de desarrollo diferentes. Los resultados empiricos muestran que la presencia de PyMEs no esta correlacionada positivamente con el crecimiento y que el capital humano de las PyMEs es mas importante para el crecimiento en las regiones mas desarrolladas.

By revisiting Lotka's law to account for the concentration of authors in a given field, this paper examines the determinants of scientific productivity in Belgium, measured as publications' impact scores. We then estimate arrondissement impact scores in a model that incorporates spatial interaction, and takes account of regional spillovers. Lotka's law reveals knowledge about the indivisibilities favouring scientific concentration. Global determinants of scientific productivity, controlling for knowledge specialization, are represented mainly by past scientific activity and national language. Spatial investigation based on scientific field reveals that proximity is a smaller facilitator of knowledge diffusion than use of English. Abstract Este articulo examina los determinantes de la productividad cientifica en Belgica, medida a traves de la puntuacion del impacto de la publicaciones, y utilizando una adaptacion de la ley de Lotka para tener en cuenta la concentracion de autores de una disciplina en particular. A continuacion estimamos la puntuacion del impacto por arrondissement (NUTS 3 Belgica) dentro de un modelo que incorpora interaccion espacial y toma en cuenta spillovers regionales. La ley de Lotka muestra evidencia de indivisibilidades que favorecen la concentracion cientifica. Los determinantes globales de la productividad cientifica, los cuales controlan la especializacion en el conocimiento, estan representados mayormente por la actividad cientifica del pasado y la lengua nacional. La investigacion espacial basada en la disciplina cientifica revela que la proximidad facilita la difusion de conocimiento en menor medida que el uso del ingles.

The spatial scope of knowledge flows is a topic of fierce debate. While several studies have focused on single modes, the aim of this paper is to look at different knowledge flows originating from individual scientists, namely, scientific and industrial collaboration, entrepreneurial activities and human capital formation. The analysis is based on qualitative data acquired from interviews with distinguished German scientists from the disciplines of science and technology. It was found that the excellence of star scientists manifests itself in several ways. However, the results do not confirm the expectation that knowledge flows are predominantly locally embedded. The impact on the local economy was especially low for industrial collaborations. Resumen El alcance espacial de flujos de conocimiento es un apasionado tema de debate. Mientras que varios estudios se han centrado en modalidades unicas, el objetivo de este articulo es revisar flujos de conocimiento diferentes con origen en cientificos individuales, concretamente colaboracion cientifica e industrial, actividades emprendedoras y formacion de capital humano. El analisis esta basado en datos cualitativos obtenidos de entrevistas a cientificos alemanes prestigiosos de las disciplinas de la ciencia y la tecnologia. Se encontro que la excelencia de estos cientificos punteros se manifiesta de manera diferente. Sin embargo, los resultados no confirman la expectativa de que los flujos de conocimiento estan mayoritariamente integrados localmente. El impacto en la economia local fue especialmente bajo para colaboraciones industriales.

This paper explores the viability of using proportional hazard models to study spatial point patterns generated by urbanisation. The analysis demonstrates that the ‘spatial hazard’ framework is not only viable for studying urban form, but is extremely promising: the models do an excellent job of characterizing very different patterns of development, and they lend themselves directly to the kind of probative analysis needed to guide urban and regional policy. Compared to more traditional approaches to characterizing urban form – namely, density gradients – hazard models rest on a probabilistic worldview, and, so, they portray the built environment as a froth of stochastic transitions through which urban form unfolds in an irregular fashion until it at last comes undone. Several general conclusions and directions for future research follow from these findings. Resumen Este articulo explora la viabilidad del uso de modelos de riesgo proporcional para estudiar patrones de puntos espaciales generados por la urbanizacion. El analisis demuestra que el marco de “riesgo espacial” no es solo viable para el estudio de la forma urbana, sino que es extremadamente prometedor: los modelos hacen un trabajo excelente en caracterizar patrones de desarrollo muy diferentes, y se prestan directamente al tipo de analisis probatorio requerido para orientar las politicas urbanas y regionales. En comparacion con los enfoques mas tradicionales para caracterizar la forma urbana – es decir, gradientes de densidad – los modelos de riesgo se basan en una vision probabilistica del mundo y, por tanto, representan el medio construido como una efervescencia de transiciones estocasticas a traves de las cuales se despliega la forma urbana de manera irregular hasta que al final se despliega. A estos resultados le siguen varias conclusiones generales y orientacion para futuras investigaciones.

In recent years, the role of human capital in economic development has been integrated with the concept of ‘creative class’. To investigate the impact of creative occupations, the paper focuses on the jobs and career opportunities of individuals with high human capital in the creative disciplines (bohemian graduates). Using micro-individual student data by the Higher Education Statistical Agency, we highlight the mismatch between bohemian graduates and creative occupations and their low economic reward. The data question the role of bohemian graduates as agents of knowledge spillovers and highlight the need to differentiate between different type of human capital and job markets to better understand their influence on local growth. Abstract El rol del capital humano en el desarrollo economico ha incorporado en los ultimos anos el concepto de la ‘clase creativa’. Para investigar el impacto de los puestos de trabajo creativos, este articulo se centra en los puestos y oportunidades laborales de individuos con un capital humano elevado dentro de las disciplinas creativas (graduados bohemios). Utilizando datos micro-individuales de estudiantes de la Agencia Estadistica de Educacion Superior (HESA, U.K.) ponemos de manifiesto la falta de concordancia entre graduados bohemios, ocupaciones creativas, y baja remuneracion economica. Los datos cuestionan el papel de los graduados bohemios como agentes de spillovers de conocimiento y resaltan la necesidad de distinguir entre tipos diferentes de capital humano y mercados laborales para entender mejor su influencia en el crecimiento local.

This paper explores the use of geodemographic classifications to investigate the social, economic and spatial dimensions of participation in Higher Education (HE). Education is a public service that confers very significant and tangible benefits upon receiving individuals: as such, we argue that understanding the geodemography of educational opportunity requires an application-specific classification that exploits under-used educational data sources. We develop a classification for the UK higher education sector, and apply it to the Gospel Oak area of London. We discuss the wider merits of sector specific applications of geodemographics and enumerate the advantages of bespoke classifications for applications in public service provision. Resumen Este articulo explora el uso de clasificaciones geodemograficas para investigar las dimensiones sociales, economicas y espaciales de la participacion en educacion superior. La educacion es un servicio publico que confiere beneficios tangibles y muy significativos a los individuos que la reciben: como tal, argumentamos que entender la geodemografia de las oportunidades educativas requiere una clasificacion especifica para cada aplicacion que explote fuentes de datos de educacion infra utilizados. Desarrollamos una clasificacion para el sector de educacion superior del Reino Unido, y la aplicamos al area de Gospel Oak de Londres. Discutimos en general los meritos de aplicaciones sectoriales especificas de geodemografia y citamos las ventajas de clasificaciones a medida para aplicaciones en la provision de servicios publicos.

Although the association between industrial agglomeration and productivity has been widely examined and documented, little work has explored the possibility that these `external' productivity shifts are the product of more advanced technologies. This paper offers a look at this hypothesis using data on individual-level computer usage across a sample of U.S. metropolitan areas over the years 1984, 1989, 1993, and 1997. The results indicate that, for a wide array of industries at the two-, three-, and four-digit SIC level, an industry's scale within a metropolitan area is positively associated with the frequency of computer use by its workers. However, in spite of these observable differences in workplace technology, I also find that estimated localization effects on wages are largely not explained by computer usage. Even after controlling for computer use, there remain significant own-industry scale effects in labor earnings.

The paper Marls with the assumption that regional problems arise by a change in the retirement of production, and that there are differences in a region's ability to adjust to these changes. These differences are caused by regional variations in their productive capacities. The product cycle hypothesis is used as an interpretive framework for these distinguishing characteristics which lead to different types of regions. Empirical attempts to enhance the assumption of types of regions for Austria arc reported. Some of the shortcomings of a regionalized version of the product cycle hypothesis are outlined and then modifications are suggested which might lead to a reinterpreclation of regional development in terms of evolutionary theories of economic change.

This paper presents a general overview of strategies relevant to strengthen the network potential of Swedish medium-sized cities. In several respects, these cities have reached dominant positions in their regional framework. In the emerging network economy, industrial firms and service institutions become increasingly exposed to competition, not only within the national framework but also in the international context. Several medium-sized cities in Sweden are in a vulnerable position. They are in need of the development of new types of strategies. The most vital aspects are to develop an entrepreneurial urban governance, to strengthen import links which promote new specialization efforts, to establish strategic alliances with other cities, and to finance the renewal of infrastructure.