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Labour market integration is an important subject. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between tourism-specialization and labour market integration and the influence from regional differences. This paper is the first to especially focus on the factor tourism-specializations relationship with labour market integration. The study is primarily based on theories regarding unemployment and tourism and the method that will be used is cross-sectional ordinary least squares. The findings show there are regional differences and that tourism-specialization has a positive relationship with labour market integration in urban division and not in the rural and semi-rural divisions. These findings can be used by policymakers in their decisions regarding future investments in labour market integration.

Income growth and income inequality is an important theme in Economic research. It has been debated for decades whether income inequality hinders or enhances income growth. One of the classic models of this relationship was the Kuzenets curve which shows inequality against income per capita can be defined by an inverted U-shaped curve, over a period of time. The purpose of the paper is to see to see the relationship between income growth and inequality on a municipality level. To do this, four econometric panel data models were constructed with data gathered from Statbank Denmark. Log of income was used as the dependent variable and different measures of inequality were used as independent variables among other variables (public expenditure, education, population density, demographic composition, taxation). Results from these models show how income growth is positively related to income inequality, with vastly higher growth at the top end of the income distribution in Denmark. The implications of these findings can show that a trade-off between income inequality and income growth is not true, and it is possible that both variables work in tandem. Other factors such as education and demographic composition were also positively correlated with income growth, while other factors, such as taxation, were statistically insignificant. Comprehensive research on inequality and income growth at a municipality level is sparse, especially in the case of Denmark. Thus, this study contributes to research in regional economics.

Income inequality has been widely debated since the beginning of economic development. This topic is especially present in today’s economic world as the gap between the poor and rich only seem to widen, even in developed nations. Surprisingly, this is especially true for the United States where the top 1 percent own almost 50 percent of the nation’s income shares. Several studies have spoken on the impact inequality has on a nation, but few have commented on the effect it may have on a nation’s economic growth. Therefore, this paper aims to examine what relationship exists between regional inequality and local economic growth in 357 metropolitan cities in America. With the data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau and several other databases, between the years 2010 and 2015, a series of OLS regressions are run. It is important to note research on the impact of income inequality on economic growth is few and far between, primarily on the city level due to data limitations. Thus, this disposition further contributes within the field of regional economics. The results in this paper, when regressing Gini to GDP Per Capita Growth and GDP Per Capita level, show Gini has a positive and significant relationship with GDP Per Capita Growth versus a negative and insignificant relationship with GDP Per Capita level.

The purpose of this chapter is to overview the advances in the field of measuring and modeling the influence of geographic market potential and accessibility. In general the models are designed to assess the influence on location choices and growth performance. The initial question concerns the relationship between the two concepts ‘market potential’ and ‘accessibility’. Accessibility can be defined as the ability to reach goods, services, activities or destinations. Market potential can be described as the possibility of reaching customers, demand or some other resource. Both concepts have a long tradition in research. The concepts are often used to describe similar or even the same sort of phenomena. Evidently, we have two related concepts that essentially mean the same thing. Examples of this are illustrated by the following statements. ‘The concept of accessibility is not a new one, and has been introduced into regional economics and trade under the form of market potential’ (Behrens and Thisse, 2007, p. 462). The measure is ‘often called a potential accessibility index (sometimes simply called market potential), that measures accessibility’ (Yoshida and Diechmann, 2009, p. 3). In Combes et al. (2008, p. 304), the authors refer to Harris’s concept of market potential as ‘an indicator for the degree of accessibility to market’.

This paper studies the effects of family governance and ownership on firm employment growth, extending existing knowledge by including in the analysis the regional context in which firms are located. We create a regional taxonomy to capture the urban–rural dimension and combine this with the corporate governance structure of the firm. Our results show that, being a family firm per se does not influence employment growth. However, when corporate governance structure and regional context are combined, the urban–rural context influences family firm and nonfamily firm employment growth differently, with family firms exhibiting greater employment growth, compared with nonfamily firms, in rural areas.

This chapter deals with social capital from a certain perspective, that is, local social capital. However, before we start the analysis of what it is that characterizes local social capital and how it is being studied, it is necessary to relate to some of the contentious issues of social capital in general – as these are sometimes also reflected in local social capital.

In recent decades we have been able to witness a veritable revolution in the world economy, with dramatic changes in the competitiveness of nations, regions and companies. The most commonly used term to describe this revolution has been ‘globalization’, even if there is no common definition of this term in the literature. In fact, all definitions of globalization are elusive and elicit criticism (Thurik et al., 2013). Generally, the term is connected with the rapid increase in the free movement of goods, capital, people, ideas, information and knowledge around the globe. The shift of economic activities between regions in different national spheres ranks among the most vigorous changes shaping the economic landscape of today (Dreher et al., 2008). Much of the discussion about globalization has been held at a rather superficial macroeconomic level. Discussions at the meso- and microeconomic level, that is, the level of regions and companies, have been much less common, and many have also been biased in the sense that they have only given a partial picture. One obvious example is that discussions on the role of innovation and entrepreneurship have tended to use a narrow definition of entrepreneurship as the start-up of new companies; as a result they have ignored the high degree of innovation and entrepreneurship within many incumbent companies. This is problematic, since innovation and entrepreneurship, generating new technologies, new products and new production processes, are at the core of economic development and growth (Hall, 1999).

The rapid growth in international trade flows implies that domestic market shares are shrinking as foreign firms increasingly penetrate domestic markets. Consequently, the globalization process stimulates more and more firms to enter foreign markets to explore business opportunities abroad and to compensate for reduced domestic sales. Despite many push and pull factors, many firms still do not participate in international markets, and of the majority of firms that do, only a few export products to a limited number of foreign markets (Andersson et al., 2008; Bernard et al., 2003). The fact that not all firms explore business opportunities abroad can be explained by a fixed investment required to establish an export link. A growing vein of theoretical and empirical literature focuses on the effects of fixed export market entry costs on firms’ export behavior (Bernard and Jensen, 1995; 1999; 2004; Girma et al., 2004; Greenaway and Kneller, 2005; Helpman et al., 2004; Melitz, 2003; Roberts and Tybout, 1997; Sjoholm, 1999; among others). Theoretical and empirical work in this field suggests that only the most productive firms can overcome the fixed cost of export market entry. Consequently, the most productive firms self-select into export market participation. Studies on firm-level export behavior find that firm characteristics such as size, productivity, human capital, R & D investments, and age are important determinants of firms’ export status (Baldwin and Gu, 2003; Bernard and Jensen, 1995, 1999, 2004; Clerides et al., 1998; Roberts and Tybout, 1997).

This title was first published in 2003. This book focuses on the role of tangible and intangible networks that affect spatial interdependencies in economic and social life. It addresses the question - is the effect of distance disappearing? In examining this question the book considers the types of interaction that bring about globalisation of markets as well as social life in general and the distortion of distance patterns and changes in spatial interdependencies. The contributions elaborate theory and methods by examining hierarchical fields of internal and external influence on regional change sources of productivity growth in a network of industries, endogenous growth and development policies. The book concludes with an assessment of plan evaluation methodologies for a changing and globalizing world characterized by new economic networks and networking arrangements.