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Who drives regional economic development in entrepreneurial ecosystems of different types? Using longitudinal data on 267 NUTS-3 European regions during the period 2008–16, we apply the entrepreneurial ecosystem theoretical framework to study how entrepreneurial ecosystem type moderates the relationship between a variety of entrepreneurship and regional economic development. It is found that regional economic development proxied by gross value added per resident responds differently to solo self-employment, job creators and new-firm birth rates as well as changes in a share of productive high-growth entrepreneurship across different entrepreneurial ecosystems. The findings have implications for regional and national policy-makers and scholars who study the geography of entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the specialisation of European Union (EU) regions in key enabling technologies (KETs) and assesses whether or not being specialised in these technological areas has an effect on regional growth. The evidence presented shows that regions specialised in KETs are concentrated in central Europe; however, over the period taken into account (1996–2011), less innovative and peripheral EU regions have been increasing their specialisation in these technological areas at the expense of the most advanced regions. There is also evidence that (spatial) diffusion of KETs often occurs across regions contiguous to each other. The results of the econometric estimations show that being specialised in KETs affects regional economic growth (per capita gross domestic product) and that this effect is stronger in the case of less innovative EU regions. Overall, these results hint at the pervasive nature and enabling role of KETs and demonstrate the importance for EU regions to target these technologies as part of their smart specialisation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed rail (HSR) can potentially transform the geography of a country, bringing regions and cities closer to each other by improving accessibility. Such benefits in turn can be the basis for creating (regional) economic development, and this is often a major factor in promoting the higher costs of HSR investment. The key factors here concern the role and position of HSR in the local, regional and national transport systems, and this may be more important than the speed of the service. Two factors are central to the planning of HSR lines. The first relates to the numbers and locations of stations on the HSR network, and the second to how these stations are integrated into the rest of the transport network. This paper reviews current financing and trends in European rail travel, concentrating on the recent developments in HSR. It then addresses these two issues of station location and integration across connecting transport services. Rail has an increasingly important role to play in providing mobility between the major cities in Europe, and it is likely to provide much of the necessary capacity for the expected growth in long distance travel. A dedicated HSR network might be a good option to achieve this role, but such a network needs to be planned as the strategic backbone of the transport system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard economic growth models generally consider different factors of production such as land, capital, labour, technology and human capital. These are common in theoretical models and empirical applications but more evidence is still needed for their long-term regional evolution. Therefore, this paper traces the evolution of specific aspects of these factors in the European regions and cities by means of different proxies. The data have been collected and calculated from a wide range of diverse historical and spatial data bases. A particular feature is the definition of the European regions according to the NUTS classification by the European Union. Thus, the paper gives a rough outline of some of the most important long-term regional tendencies that should be taken into account in research directed to past and recent time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was a profound exogenous shock which has had profound impacts the performance of national economies and the regions within them. The differential outcomes are vast. In many parts of the world there is evidence of what is being referred to as the 'two-speed' economy - or even a 'multi-speed' - economy. This has implications for regional economic development theory in which, over the last two to three decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on endogenous growth with much of the emphasis in regional policy focusing on the roles of leadership and institutional factors to harness improved capability for regions to better utilize their resource endowments. However, shocks such as the GFC change the relative influences of exogenous and endogenous processes in regional development and performance, and the 'two-speed'/'multi-speed' economy phenomenon is posing a challenge for how we conceptualize and practice regional development. The contrasting empirical contexts for discussing the impacts of the GFC are the US, Europe and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge-intensive services (KIS) are assuming an increasing importance in innovation, to such an extent that they have even classified as "key agents" within innovation systems (Fischer, 2001). As one of the major features of KIS is coproduction, location is expected to play a significant role on the effects of KIS on regional innovation systems. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between the location of KIS and the innovation performance of the European regions. Starting from the results reached by previous studies: Makun and McPherson (1997) for three New York regions, Muller and Zenker (1998) for five German and French regions, Drejer and Vinding (2003) for Danish urban areas or Simmie and Strambach (2006) for large cities of England and Germany, our aim is to widen the traditional scope of the analysis and evaluate the relationship between location of KIS and innovation performance on an European basis. More concretely we try to show that the spatial concentration of KIS in some regions (and particular in capital cities) contributes to foster innovation. To do so we carry out an exploratory spatial analysis for more than 100 European regions. We take as a proxy for the location of KIS the share of employment in KIS in every region. The results obtained support the hypothesis that KIS exert a positive impact on regional innovation performance, an impact that could spill over into the neighbouring regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the work of the European Cluster Observatory (ECO) in light of current debates around the notion of clusters. Examining the definitions employed by the ECO, questions are posed about how effective policy can be when using highly restrictive means of analysis. Further, the work contends that, far from this being purely an analytical problem, there also exists a fundamental semantic issue regarding the term ‘economic cluster’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic geographers and regional economists have long been concerned with the problems provoked by uneven regional development and the ways by which policy intervention may be able to reduce such inequalities. However, in recent years the traditional argument for seeking to secure a reduction in the spatial concentration of economic activity in particular regions has been questioned and in some cases it has been suggested that policies that try to reduce regional economic inequalities may even reduce national efficiency. This article examines the evidence for a link between growth in productivity and the degree of spatial agglomeration across the nations of Europe. In doing so it considers how spatial agglomeration should be measured and how the relationship between agglomeration and the growth of productivity can be modelled. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rising focus of politicians as well as scientists in the EU on the large urban agglomerations as centres of economic growth is accompanied by political efforts to identify and to demarcate such agglomerations under the label ‘metropolitan regions’. This study develops a theoretical framework broaching the issue of cooperation between municipalities from the perspective of regional economics as well as political science. The framework is applied to the empirical case of the polycentric metropolitan region of the ‘Saxony triangle’ in east Germany. The results show that various intervening factors prevent intense co-operation between the actors in the region. Policy implications and conclusions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does culture have a causal effect on economic development? The data on European regions suggest that it does. Culture is measured by indicators of individual values and beliefs, such as trust and respect for others, and confidence in individual self determination. To isolate the exogenous variation in culture, we rely on two historical variables used as instruments: the literacy rate at the end of the 19th century, and the political institutions in place over the past several centuries. The political and social history of Europe provides a rich source of variation in these two variables at a regional level. The exogenous component of culture due to history is strongly correlated with current regional economic development, after controlling for contemporaneous education, urbanization rates around 1850, and national effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does inequality matter for regional growth? This paper addresses this question, using regionally aggregated microeconomic data for more than 100,000 individuals over a period of 6 years. The aim is to examine the relationship between income and educational distribution and regional economic growth in western Europe. Our results indicate that, given existing levels of inequality, an increase in a region’s income and educational inequality has a significant positive association with subsequent economic growth. Educational achievement is positively correlated with economic growth, but the impact of initial income levels is unclear. Finally, the results suggest that inequalities in educational attainment levels matter more for economic performance than average educational attainment. The above findings are not only robust to the definition of income distribution, but also across inequality measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Intellectual Economics is the property of Intellectual Economics / Mykolas Romeris University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the controversial issue of regional development incentives. Although extensive research has been conducted, a review of the literature gives an inconclusive answer to whether economic incentives are effective. Why do researchers arrive at different conclusions, even after analysing the same programmes? Among the problems that we find, for example, is the fact that for some researchers ‘effective’ means the significant location of new firms in targeted areas, while for others the creation of jobs regardless of whether new firms are arriving in a significant fashion. Furthermore, as we elaborate, the selection of an econometric model will have a significant impact on expected results. Different models, with different limitations, will lead researchers to evaluate the same incentive programme but arrive at different conclusions regarding its effectiveness. The contribution of the paper is to inform policymakers about the potential opportunities and pitfalls when designing incentive strategies. This is particularly relevant, given that both the US and Europe have been promoting incentives as a tool for regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with contrasting the impact of globalization pressures on industrial development in particular localities, with specific reference to the relative performance of regional clusters. A multiple case study approach is adopted in order to examine the decline of volume yacht manufacturing in a long-established English cluster and to compare its responses to globalization with those of major competitors located in other parts of Europe. The case study opens with an analysis of three sector-specific drivers of globalization that have exercised a decisive impact on the sector over the last three decades. In the main analytical section, two alternative approaches to the analysis of clusters (Porter 1990, 2000, Best 2001) are applied to the empirical material. The application of Porter's ‘diamond’ framework suggests some distinctive performance-related characteristics, while Best's ‘cluster dynamics’ model provides a more sophisticated explanation of the differential responses and outcomes identified in the English case. The implications for policy are that cluster-level outcomes may be predicated on the internal dynamics of their respective ‘entrepreneurial firms’, and that regional development initiatives would benefit from conceptual and empirical studies that can better address the historical and spatial complexity of the underlying processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We study a cross section of 54 European regions. The central question is whether regional differences in economic growth are related to social capital, in the form of generalized trust and associational activity. Substantiated by extensive robustness tests, we present evidence that growth differentials in European regions are positively related to social capital measured as associational activity. Hence, our results suggest that the thesis of Putnam et al. (1993) thesis on social capital in Italian regions can be generalized. Our analysis also suggests that it is not the mere existence of network relationships that stimulates regional economic growth, but active involvement in these relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The objective of this article is to assess whether the recent economic evolution of EU accession countries and their expected developments for the coming years put them in a better or a worse position to join the euro. Using structural vector autoregression models, the results show that shocks are more asymmetric in candidate countries than in current euro-zone members and that the situation has worsened in the most recent years. However it seems that monetary policies in accession countries are closely influenced by monetary conditions in the euro zone. If this is the case, then the costs of losing monetary independence when joining the euro would be reduced. In any case, and considering that, on average, correlations are still far from the values of the euro-zone countries, the flexibility of real sector and labor markets will be essential for the sustainability of joining the euro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature factors like entrepreneurial ability, regional innovative potential, and entrepreneurial human capital are emphasized in explaining the economic success of regions. Using the European Values Studies (EVS) dataset on norms and values in 54 European regions, we distinguish values that characterise self-employed, which enables us to construct a regional aggregate that reflects the average score on entrepreneurial attitude. We show that regions differ in entrepreneurial attitude, and that a high score on entrepreneurial characteristics is correlated with a high rate of regional economic growth. In this way we empirically establish the link between culture and economy at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models externalities of production across regional economies. Under the assumption that knowledge diffuses without political or administrative barriers, we derive externalities that affect the steady state and the process of growth of each economy. The empirical counterpart of the reduced form equation summarizing the process of growth allows us to test for the presence of regional spillovers and to measure their magnitude. Our results for a sample of European regions show that spillovers are far from negligible, are robust to the consideration of variables within each region, and may cause nondecreasing returns at the spatial aggregate level. The paper also relates previous empirical evidence on spatial dependence in growth studies to the externalities modeled here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on author A.J. Scott's analysis of the rise of new industrial spaces in North America and western Europe. His account, bringing together a number of ideas and empirical claims which are rapidly gaining influence in urban and regional research and beyond is a particularly helpful contribution to the debate concerning flexibility. First, he summarizes the argument that the current restructuring entails a transition from a fordist mode of economic organization towards a postfordist mode characterized by flexible accumulation. Secondly, he provides an original and lucid construction of the logic whereby economic restructuring might lead to spatial restructuring. His essay adds a new dimension to the argument for the renaissance of regional economies around new marshallian industrial districts. Scott integrates these ideas in a unified framework for thinking about these changes. This offers a unique opportunity to examine the theoretical and empirical issues involved.

The article focuses on various economic aspects of the problem of European economic regionalism. In the first phase economists assume that the general economic objective recognized at present as desirable for the postwar economy is the policy of an expanding economy and world trade, aiming at an increase in the level of living. Secondly, economists assume attempts to achieve full employment in the industrial countries and economic development involving industrialization of the backward countries of Europe, to be also desirable. Generally, the purpose of regional economic agreements is to develop the trade between the member countries on a larger scale than it is believed would be possible under the most-favored-nation clause. The demand for such agreements grew chiefly during periods of economic depression in Europe and was intensified by a strong economic nationalism. These agreements take various forms, ranging from full custom unions to open or concealed preferential regimes. In discussing the relation of the idea of economic regionalism to the European Continent the difficult problem of balance of payments of the European Continent with relation to the rest of the world, should not be ignored.