AAG 2015  Chicago  April 21st – 25th, 2015
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY – NETWORKS, INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY
SCIENTIFIC LABOUR MARKETS AND INNOVATION SYSTEMS
GEOGRAPHIES OF DIVERSITY AND INEQUALITY
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen (SUNY, Buffalo), Jennifer Clark (Georgia Tech), Abigail Cooke (SUNY, Buffalo),
Jamie Michelle Goodwin-White (UCLA), Ulrich Hilpert (Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena),
Dieter F. Kogler (University College Dublin), Helen Lawton Smith (Birkbeck, University of London),
and David Rigby (UCLA)
in conjunction with the Regional Studies Association
DESCRIPTION:
Special Sessions co-organized with the Regional Studies Association (RegionalStudies.org).
The series of "Economic Geography" special sessions features theoretical and empirical research
papers under the heading ‘Evolutionary Economic Geography – Networks, Institutions and Policy.’
Specific sessions highlight ‘Scientific Labour Markets and Innovation Systems’, ‘Geographies of
Diversity and Inequality,’ and other key topics including innovation space, networks, policy,
economic development, knowledge creation, relatedness, specialization, institutions, trade,
resilience, and regional growth.
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SESSION OVERVIEW
Economic Geography I
–
Evolutionary Economic Geography: Selection, Networks,
Structure and Space
Economic Geography II
–
EEG, Knowledge (re)Combination, and Smart Specialization
Economic Geography III –
Institutions, Policy, and Economic Development
Economic Geography IV –
Global Scale of Innovation, Investment, Supply-Chains,
Commodity Flows, Knowledge and Inventor Networks
Economic Geography V –
Structure, Collaboration, Performance, and Know-How
Transmission
Economic Geography VI –
Scientific Labour Markets, Universities, Industry, and
Economic Development
Economic Geography VII –
Path Creation, Breakthroughs, and New Innovation Spaces
Economic Geography VIII –
Resilience: Regional Growth and Decline
Economic Geography IX –
Institutions, Capitalism, Trade, and the Role of Relatedness
Economic Geography X
Institutions, Skills, Decisions and Dealmakers
–
Economic Geography XI –
Geographies of Diversity and Inequality
Economic Geography XII –
Unemployment, Skills, Employment: Cycle or Evolution
Economic Geography XIII –
Ambidexterity, Adaptability, and Collaborator Networks
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TITLES AND ABSTRACTS
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY I – EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: SELECTION, NETWORKS,
STRUCTURE AND SPACE
Teresa Farinha Fernandes, Utrecht University [email protected] *
Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Utrecht University [email protected]
Andrea Morrison, Utrecht University [email protected]
Skills relatedness and employment structure renewal in US metropolitan areas
The collapse of major North American financial institutions in 2008 led to an era of credit crunch,
firm failures and unprecedented job losses in USA and Europe. Besides its severity, unemployment
growth varies tremendously even across regions of the same state, highlighting the unequal
resilience of regional economies. Why do some regions suffer less or recover more quickly from
crises than others?
Regional resilience is more than the ability of a region to accommodate shocks. It also encompasses
the long-term ability to develop new social, economic and institutional structures, leading to new
growth paths (Boschma, 2014). Recent evolutionary studies on regional resilience suggest that
diversified regions can better absorb sector specific shocks. Moreover, skill relatedness between
industries seems to prevent outflows of high-skilled workers, enabling the re-allocation of human
resources in the economy (Neffke and Henning, 2013). Yet, those studies focus mainly in industry
dynamics and no evolutionary empirical contribution has explicitly investigated regions'
employment structure - which is key to understand resilience under the current economic crisis.
This paper opens new possibilities to study resilience from an evolutionary perspective. Using a
network-based representation of the economy, we model the regional employment structure – the
job space – of United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and its evolution over time, from 1997
to 2013. We provide evidence on their job categories' position in the network and, using a threeway fixed-effects model, we test whether skill relatedness has been a driving force of employment
structure renewal in United States metropolitan areas.
Taner Osman, PhD, UCLA [email protected] *
Understanding the Geographical Evolution of the IT Industry within the San Francisco Bay Area,
1990-2010
The information technology (IT) industry within the San Francisco Bay Area has evolved greatly
since the early 1990s. We see this in the change in the relative importance of the industry's
different subsectors. This evolution can also be observed from a geographical perspective. Since
1990, the IT industry within the Bay Area has dispersed from its original home in Silicon Valley, a
crude proxy for which is Santa Clara County. In 1990, Santa Clara County was home to 71% of all IT
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jobs within the region. Today it is home to less than 55% of the region's IT jobs. Remarkably, since
1990, Santa Clara County has experienced a net loss of IT jobs.
This study draws from agglomeration theory, product life cycle theory and evolutionary economics
to understand the causes and consequences of the dispersion of the IT industry within the San
Francisco Bay Area. In this study, both qualitative and statistical research reveal that, all else being
equal, new IT establishments would like to locate in Santa Clara County, where the advantages
from co-location are the greatest, but are unable to do so due to land and cost constraints. The lack
of capacity to absorb growth within Silicon Valley has had two important consequences. First, it has
shifted new IT establishments to less productive parts of the regional economy. Second, over time,
new spaces are slowly emerging within the regional economy to replicate the role once exclusively
played by Silicon Valley. This study outlines these changes.
Raphael Suire, University of Rennes 1 [email protected] *
Nodes and links factory : How Fab-Labs interplay with knowledge networks ?
Hackerspace, Makerspace, co-working space, accelerator or FabLab (Fabrication Laboratory) are
some local formal/informal institutions devoted to collective knowledge production and innovation.
Since the seminal work of Oldenburg (1991), third places are now considered as new and, with no
doubt, important way to enhance knowledge and innovative territorial capabilities. The aim of this
paper is to suggest that EEG (Boschma, Frenken, 2006) and knowledge network approach (Crespo
and al, 2014) is a fruitful framework to better understand how and why third-places modify
collective innovation dynamics. We also suggest that under specific conditions, third places can
enhance resilience properties (Boschma, 2014 ; Suire, Vicente, 2014) of technological clusters
concerned. Put differently, third places are "nodes and links factories" that modify structural
properties of a knowledge network. Precisely, our purpose is threefold. Firstly, we propose a
typology of third-places based on the way pieces of knowledge are produced, assembled or
connected. Secondly, we suggest an empirical test of a theoretical framework presented in Crespo
et al (2014). Basically, the main idea is to say that third-places can play on two important structural
properties of a knowledge network. Degree distribution by reinforcing or not existing ties between
core actors and more peripheral ones and degree correlation by supporting new, small size projects
(entrepreneurs). Whole structure becomes more resilient iif third-places are connected to the
existing knowledge networks if it exists. Finally, we present the first empirical results derived from
an original international database of more than 100 Fablab.
Josephine V. Rekers, Lund University [email protected] *
Markus Grillitsch, Lund University
Revisiting the role of selection in evolutionary economic geography
This paper aims to contribute to evolutionary economic geography with a theoretical discussion
about selection. This theoretical discussion is inspired by empirical observations of the medical
technology industry in Scania, Sweden, a case we use for inductive theorising. From our case we
develop a theory of selection in which we argue that the characteristics of the selection
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environment and the type of selection mechanism employed have important implications for
industrial dynamics at the regional level. We elaborate on what the selected entities are, how
entities are selected, what properties are retained, how properties are replicated and what the
implications for variety creation are. Selection, we argue, is more than the taken for granted market
selection. In innovation processes, selection comes in different forms before a product even
reaches its target markets. While firms operate in different selection environments, we distinguish
between two basic types of selection: formal and social selection. We discuss why certain selection
environments favour certain types of selection and why this is linked to other evolutionary
mechanisms such as variety creation, retention and replication. We also reflect on the importance
of geographical proximity in different types of selection environments, the generalizability of our
arguments and future research questions.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY II – EEG, KNOWLEDGE (RE)COMBINATION, AND SMART SPECIALIZATION
Bjorn T. Asheim, Lund University, Sweden [email protected] *
Knowledge base combination and path development in a globalising economy Knowledge bases,
path development, clusters
Regional clusters in high cost countries, dominated by engineering based industry, face increasing
challenges to stay competitive in global markets. Only securing path extension will not be sufficient
to achieve this in the long run. Such clusters will need to engage in new path development,
especially path renewal based on regional branching by exploiting the generic part of the cluster's
competence, to remain innovative. This paper will analyse the potential of combining different
knowledge bases (analytical, synthetic and symbolic) in promoting path renewal as well as the
degree of innovativeness and novelty of related vs unrelated knowledge in different knowledge
base combinations. A regional maritime cluster in the North Western part of Norway, which is one
of two regional clusters having the status of 'Global Centres of Excellence' in Innovation Norway's
cluster program, will be used as an empirical illustration.
David L. Rigby, UCLA [email protected] *
Dieter Franz Kogler, University College Dublin [email protected]
Knowledge Production as Recombination: Evidence from European Regions
The vision of technological change as a process of recombination has deep roots in the history of
economic growth. This paper explores the geography, history and value of novel combinations and
recombinations of technology sub-classes across the European Union using patent data from the
EPO. Patents embodying novel (re)combinations of knowledge are shown to be significantly more
valuable than other forms of patents, at least in terms of forward citations. The geography of novel
(re)combination is linked to existing spatial structures of knowledge within EU regions. The regional
distinctiveness of technological trajectories, or histories, is linked to the inimitability of different
knowledge subsets, itself a function of the complexity of ideas. When the fidelity of knowledge is
compromised by travel, knowledge sourcing becomes more critical to the diffusion of ideas.
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Dieter Franz Kogler, University College Dublin [email protected]*
Jürgen Essletzbichler, University College London [email protected]
David L. Rigby, UCLA [email protected]
The Evolution of the Knowledge Space: Relatedness and Technology Specialization in European
Regions, 1981-2005
Significant attention has been directed to the processes of knowledge production in a spatial
context, but little consideration has been given to the type of technological knowledge produced
within specific places. The objectives of the present research project are to map the EU15
technology/knowledge space, to examine the evolution of that space over the time period 19812005, and to investigate the character of knowledge cores within European regions. The
knowledge space is based on the proximity of technology classes, utilizing measures derived from
co-classification information contained in patent documents.
First, a measure of technological cohesion within cities and regions is developed. Next, the
temporal changes in that measure are decomposed into the effects of technological entry, exit and
selection. In sum these indicators aid the identification of the principal drivers of technological
change in different geographic contexts. Finally, technological entry and exit within regions are
modeled as a function of social, spatial and cognitive proximity.
The theoretical framework is based on the idea that new technologies emerge from the
recombination of existing competences and knowledge, and that the entry and exit of regional
technological knowledge is conditioned by technological, spatial, and social proximity to existing
knowledge cores. The results confirm that over time cities and regions tend to specialize in
technology classes that are located close to one another in the technology space, but they also
reveal considerable heterogeneity in measures of technological specialization across European
regions.
Koen Frenken, Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University & CIRCLE, Lund University [email protected] *
Dominique Foray, EPFL
On the Smart Specialisation concept: its empirical support and policy elaborations
The concept of Smart Specialisation has attracted a lot of attention among academic scholars and
regional policy makers alike. In a nutshell, this concept advocates that regions aim to create new
specialisations based on related knowledge and capabilities that they have built in the past. At the
time of its conceptualization in 2009, the empirical basis of the Smart Specialisation concept was
still weak. Reviewing the recent empirical literature on i. clusters, ii. variety vs. specialization, iii.
related variety, and iv. regional branching, we conclude that most of the empirical evidence tends
to support the Smart Specialisation thesis. We then elaborate three policy logics that can be
followed in a Smart Specialisation Strategy, depending on the institutional, geographic and
economic characteristics of a region in question: Challenge-driven (triggering new activities by
formulating a grand societal challenge), relatedness-driven (exploiting the spillovers between a new
activity and related activities) and entrepreneurship-driven (building on radically new combinations
that render unrelated knowledge domains related).
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ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY III – INSTITUTIONS, POLICY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Daniel Hardy, London School of Economics and Political Science *
TALES OF TWO CITIES: Community, society and the economic adaptation of city-regions.
Drawing on three pairs of comparative case studies comprised of six cities across three countries,
this research analyses how the institutional forms of community and society, in interaction, shape
patterns of economic growth and adaptation. From Madrid and Barcelona (Spain) and Montréal
and Toronto (Canada), to Sheffield and Leeds (UK), the storyline uncovered in each pair of cities are
broadly similar; One city growing robustly and adjusting effectively to changing economic
circumstances against another experiencing decline or relative stagnation. We show that although
(traditional) factors such as geography, human capital, and (especially) specialisation are, at least,
proximate causes, it is the different structures and configurations of community and society that
have contributed to the different patterns of participation, conflict resolution, and innovation seen
in the examined cities. Indeed, we suggest that factors like specialisation and human capital, if not
geography, are reflexive with the institutions of community and society.
Effective institutions can facilitate higher investments in human capital and can promote sectoral
diversity; higher levels of human capital, in turn, enable selection into high value added sectors and
promote better functioning of institutions; sectoral diversity promotes greater opportunities for
human capital development and helps ensure institutions remain efficient and balanced in the way
they serve communities. This is the virtuous circle, broadly speaking, that has taken hold in and
Madrid, Toronto and Leeds. In Barcelona, Montréal and Sheffield meanwhile, the reverse has been
true for significant parts of the last 40 years, helping to explain their relative divergence.
Marc Doussard, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urban and Regional Planning
[email protected]
Greg Schrock, Portland State University, Urban Studies & Planning [email protected] *
Distribution as Development: Reconceptualizing "Progressive" Economic Development
The current wave of equity-focused employment policy victories across U.S. cities raises the
question of subsequent steps, plans and goals. We propose that the body of distributive policies
(wage, workforce, contracting) tactically labeled as mechanisms of "progressive" economic
development in fact are not arranged within a theory of how urban and regional economies
develop. We propose that the current policy goal of immediate distributional changes should
instead be conceptualized as the first step towards an altered path of regional development - not
distribution vs. development, but rather distribution as development. We review extant policy
approaches to equity goals, and identify the contours, means and aims of a theory of development,
focusing on the enhancement of capabilities as a driver of long-run development. To illustrate the
political, discursive and practical benefits of the developmental frame, we identify three
mechanisms through which minimum wage increases can contribute to the long-run development
of regional economies. The multiple pathways and many place-dependent contingencies
constraining the minimum wage's developmental potential highlight the evolutionary character of
the policy's immediate and long-term distributional impacts on urban and regional economies.
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Nichola Lowe, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill [email protected] *
Maryann Feldman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill [email protected]
Breaking the Waves: Innovations at the Intersections of Economic Development Policy
Economic development is often presented as a choice between discrete policy alternatives in
competition for scarce resources. This is especially true for entrepreneurship and industrial
recruitment, which are frequently presented at odds and with vastly different economic targets and
political sensibilities. This paper raises the possibility of enhanced forms of practice that result
when industrial recruitment and entrepreneurial development are intentionally and institutionally
conjoined. Central here is an evolved strategy that connects innovation and equity goals through a
shared pathway that links research and development activities with later stage manufacturing.
Using David Starks concept of 'productive friction', we present an illustrative case study from North
Carolina's bioscience industry. Since its genesis in 1981, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center
has concurrently promoted 'endogenous' support for 'home-grown' technologies and
entrepreneurial firms and 'exogenous' activities oriented towards attracting prominent
biopharmaceutical manufacturers to the region. Over the past decade however, the Center has
taken steps to more tightly couple these activities, motivated by a state mandate to combine
innovation and employment-creation goals. Yet, this case illustrates more than a simple economic
development balancing act. It provides an example of mutual reinforcement whereby practitioners
draw lessons, insights and resources from one defined area of economic development policy and
apply them to another—and it therefore challenges the standard view that regional economic
development involves a linear sequence of independent policy approaches or 'waves.' As such it
provides a potential road map for other places wishing to bring seemingly distinct development
tools and targets into closer alignment.
Jennifer Clark, Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected] *
Policy through Practice: The Role of Regional Intermediaries and Distributed Networks in
Institutional Innovation at the City Scale
The role of institutional intermediaries in shaping regional competiveness is not a new subject of
inquiry in economic geography. Most recent theoretical turns in the discipline, including
evolutionary economic geography, have emphasized the role of institutions. However, the
theoretical literature has not yet led to a body of empirical work illustrating the policy implications
to a broader audience with tangible examples. What becomes clear is that these intermediaries
defy easy policy categorization and are explicitly tied to governance in city-regions.
This paper identifies three models of these emerging distributed institutional networks promoting
innovative urban governance both within and outside the public sector. The first model uses
philanthropic funding to seed new capacity through technical assistance and staff in city
governments. The second model uses bottom-up self-organizing facilitated through loose networks
of best practice exchange (civic innovation) outside the public sector. The third model uses a
franchise approach to capacity development through multi-scalar coalitions.
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Common among these models is the use of networked institutions to facilitate city-scale adoption
of innovative practices. Common too is that these new approaches privilege cities and skip over
states. These approaches also bypass the metropolitan regionalism debates of the past and focus
directly on the city as the priority space for political and economic engagement. In other words,
these networked models, and particularly the emergence of new forms civic innovation, indicate
more that a renewed interest in urban policy. They signal a new model of governance through
institutional innovation at the city scale.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY IV –GLOBAL SCALE OF INNOVATION, INVESTMENT, SUPPLY-CHAINS,
COMMODITY FLOWS, KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTOR NETWORKS
Yu Yang, Chinese academy of sciences [email protected] *
The spatial evolution of global crude oil flows
Global competition for energy has increased in the past decade with the entry of industrializing
nations such as China, India and Brazil. Yet we know very little about the geographical structure of
energy commodity trade and the latter's change over time. In this paper, we apply Complex
Network Analysis to examine the geography of global crude oil flows based on the United Nations
commodity trade database from 1988 to 2013. We identify the rise and fall of hubs, and shifting
patterns in core-periphery structures. We show that such structures are organized around regional
trading communities, and discuss the implications of global oil trade network evolution.
Callum Wilkie, London School of Economics and Political Science [email protected] *
Andrés Rodriguez-Pose, London School of Economics and Political Science [email protected]
Context and the role of policies to attract foreign R&D in Europe
This paper explores the effectiveness of policies as they relate to attracting the foreign R&D of
MNEs to specific countries in Europe. We develop a macroeconomic investigation covering 29
European countries during the period between 1990 and 2012 in order to address a) whether the
provision of direct financial support for business R&D is effective for the attraction of foreign R&D;
b) whether direct support is more effective than indirect support for this purpose; and c) whether
the link between direct financial support for business R&D and the foreign R&D of MNEs is
conditioned by the context within which the support is provided. The results of the analysis show
that, first, the provision of direct financial support is generally effective for the attraction of foreign
R&D by MNEs. Second, direct support for business R&D is more effective for this purpose than
indirect support. Third, the provision of direct financial support for business R&D yields greater
returns in contexts that are more socio-economically suitable for knowledge intensive, innovative
activity.
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Riccardo Crescenzi, London School of Economics [email protected] *
Alex Jaxx, London School of Economics [email protected]
Global Investment Networks and the territorial dynamics of innovation in Colombia, Chile and
Mexico
A growing body of empirical evidence has suggested that access to global knowledge networks
plays a crucial role for innovation dynamics in Latin America. However, the existing literature has
often taken a sectoral perspective and has focused on one single country with limited attention to
territorial regional-level dynamics. This paper aims to fill this gap by looking at the territorial
dynamics of innovation of three Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia and Mexico. The papers
explores the link between 'global' foreign investments networks and territorial drivers of innovation
(R&D, localised spillovers, social filter conditions). The empirical analysis is based on an 'augmented'
knowledge production function approach taking both patents and regional growth as dependent
variables. The results suggest that the innovation impact of global investments networks is highly
dependent upon the typology of investments and their matching with local conditions.
Nick D Henry, Dr, Coventry University [email protected]*
Tim Angus, Dr, Independent Consultant
Mark Jenkins, Professor, Cranfield University [email protected]
'Electric Motorsport Valley': An Evolutionary Tale
In the early 2000s, a series of articles in economic geography and strategic management journals
detailed the global position of the UK motorsport cluster and set out its key characteristics and
agglomeration dynamics. Motorsport Valley became the 'pin-up' cluster in disciplinary textbooks.
The noughties saw the cluster continue to grow and evolve alongside the global spread of the
motorsport industry (Henry, Angus, Jenkins and Aylett, 2007) and become the subject of numerous
economic development strategies in the UK regions and Devolved Administrations, as well as across
the world. At the point of the global financial crisis and recession, Motorsport Valley had expanded
its performance engineering capabilities including as part of a slowly resurgent UK Midlands
automotive sector. Recent research has shown that the UK motorsport sector has experienced
sustained growth over the period 2009-2012, especially centred around new 'low carbon'
technological trajectories (from Formula E to energy recovery systems fitted to the red buses of
London).
Drawing on recent research for UK government on the supply chains of UK motorsport, this paper
provides an evolutionary update on the Motorsport Valley cluster.
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Stefano Breschi, Universita' L. Bocconi [email protected] *
Francesco Lissoni, Université de Bordeaux [email protected]
Foreign inventors in the US: Testing for Diaspora and Brain Gain Effects
We assess the role of ethnic ties in the diffusion of technical knowledge by means of a large
database of patents filed by US-resident inventors of foreign origin ("ethnic" inventors), 1980-2010.
Ethnic inventors are identified by means of linguistic analysis of their names and surnames, with
reference to ten important countries of origin of highly skilled migration to the US (China, India,
Iran; Japan, S.Korea for Asia; France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Russia for Europe). We test
whether ethnic inventors' patents are disproportionately cited by: other migrants in the same
destination country (the US) and from the same country of origin ("diaspora" effect); and nonmigrant inventors residing in their country of origin ("brain gain" effect). We find strong evidence of
both the diaspora and the brain gain effect for China and India, and some weaker evidence for
almost all other countries in the sample. Cross-country differences, however, may be in part
explained by data quality issues, which affect especially inventors of European origin. For foreign
inventors in the US, physical and social proximity appear to be more important determinants of
citation flows than co-ethnicity. The same applies, when considering international knowledge flows,
to organizational proximity (affiliation to the same multinational company) and, again, to social
proximity. It remains to investigate the role of ethnic ties in the formation of inventors' networks.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY V –STRUCTURE, COLLABORATION, PERFORMANCE,
TRANSMISSION
AND
KNOW-HOW
Susanne Andrea Frick, London School of Economics - London [email protected] *
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, London School of Economics
Urban Structure and Economic Growth
Does a country's urban structure impact national economic growth? According to the prevailing
view in the literature in recent years, the answer is yes. Academics and policy makers alike have
increasingly stressed the importance of (large) cities and urban concentration for economic
development. Moreover, they point towards an equity-efficiency trade-off, in which promoting
development outside of the primary urban centres actually harms overall economic growth.
Empirical evidence provides some support to the claim, but relies on simplified measures for urban
concentration or focusses on European countries.
We therefore investigate empirically the question if the degree of urban concentration affects
national economic growth. For this purpose, we built a new urban population dataset for 78
countries which covers the period between 1980 and 2010. This allows us to construct a set of
Herfindahl-Hirschman-Indices (HHIs) which capture urban concentration in a more nuanced and
more comprehensive way than the indicators used in studies thus far.
We show that Primacy, the indicator traditionally used, while displaying a strong correlation with
our HHIs at low levels of urban concentration, conceals important differences between countries.
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Similarly, important differences exist between different HHIs depending on the base used for their
calculation. Furthermore, we find that results for the relationship between urban concentration
and economic growth strongly vary with the indicator employed for urban concentration and the
group of countries analysed. To establish a uniform relationship between urban concentration and
economic growth might thus be misleading.
Magnus Nilsson, Lund University [email protected] *
Markus Grillitsch, CIRCLE, Lund University [email protected]
Collaboration vs. Spillovers - Growth Patterns of Collaborating Firms in Periphery and Center
It is widely accepted that firms in peripheral regions benefit to a lesser extent from local knowledge
spillovers than firms located in agglomerations or industrial clusters. This paper investigates the
extent to which innovative firms in peripheral regions compensate for the lack of access to local
knowledge spillovers by collaborating at other geographical scales. So far the literature
predominantly suggests that collaborations complement rather than compensate for local
knowledge spillovers. Using data on the collaboration patterns of innovative firms in Sweden, we
have previously found evidence that firms with low access to local knowledge spillovers tend to
collaborate more. This effect, however, depends on firm size and in-house capabilities. This means
that firms with strong in-house capabilities do indeed compensate for a lack of local knowledge
spillovers with collaborations while firms with weaker in-house capabilities depend more on the
regional knowledge infrastructure.
In this paper we investigate this further by analyzing not only the propensity to collaborate but also
how effective collaboration is as a way to compensate for lacking local spillovers. This is done by
analyzing the performance of collaborating and non-collaborating innovative firms in the
knowledge periphery and comparing these with firms in knowledge centers.
The paper combines data about collaborations of 2105 innovative firms in Sweden from the 2008
Community Innovation Survey with micro data for firms and individuals provided by Statistic
Sweden. This micro data allows to measure opportunities for knowledge spillovers, firm
performance indicators, and firm-internal innovation relevant knowledge.
Richard Shearmur, McGill University [email protected] *
David Doloreux, Telfer School of Management, Ottawa University [email protected]
The use of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) by innovative knowledge intensive
services (KIS): some preliminary findings
KIBS are increasingly been recognized as innovators in their own right, and as key facilitators in
knowledge and know-how transmission within innovation systems. However, this facilitating role
has usually been studied with respect to technological innovation in manufacturing (i.e. how do
KIBS contribute to innovation in manufacturing firms?). In this study we examine the degree to
which KIBS contribute to innovation in KIS establishments. The paper will present some preliminary
findings based upon an original survey completed in fall 2014. It will establish the degree to which
KIS recognize KIBS as inputs to 5 specific types of innovation (service, process, marketing, human
resources and managerial) and what types of KIBS are inputs to each type of innovation. It will also
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examine whether local or distant KIBS providers are used in the innovation process. In particular,
we examine whether - like for manufacturing innovators – KIS rely on more distant KIBS providers
when they are located in more remote towns. This study contributes both to a better
understanding of the geography of knowledge and know-how transmission via KIBS, and to a better
understanding of innovation processes in the service sector. In particular it will add to our
understanding of the extent to which these processes are local or non-local.
Michael Fritsch, Friedrich Schiller University Jena [email protected]*
Holger Graf, Friedrich Schiller Unioversity Jena
Matthias Piontek, Fridrich Schiller University Jena [email protected]
Regional Innovation Networks and Innovation Performance over Time - An empirical
Investigation
A central idea of the concept of regional innovation systems (RIS) is that the interaction, particularly
R&D cooperation is of key importance for the performance. The empirical evidence supporting this
conjecture is, however, still rather scarce. Many studies focus on just one or a few regions or on a
specific industry. Most importantly, nearly all of these studies provide just snapshots of a certain
period of time because the available time series are too short to analyze the dynamics of the
system and its medium to long-term impact on performance.
Based on data on networks of patenting inventors in the period 1995-2008 for 9 German regions,
we analyze the relationship between structural properties of these networks and regional
innovation performance over time. The analysis is at the level of planning regions which are
functional entities somewhat larger than labor market areas. Main indicators for the innovative
performance of these regions are the number of patents, the number of R&D employees and the
number of patents per R&D employee. The relatively long time-series enables us to gain important
insights on the dynamics of the regional networks. A particular focus of the analysis will be on the
relationship between patents from private and public organizations (e.g., universities and other
publicly funded research institutes) and on the role of large firms in the network.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY VI – SCIENTIFIC LABOUR MARKETS, UNIVERSITIES, INDUSTRY,
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
AND
Shiri M. Breznitz, University of Toronto [email protected] *
Paige Clyston, University of north Carolina, Chapel Hill
Public Goods in a Time of Crisis
To produce "public goods" universities rely on public funding. This funding placed universities under
constant pressure by local and national governments to promote economic growth.
Commercialization of technology has been identified as the main mechanism by which universities
can do this. However, the 2008 financial crisis brought a reduction in state support for public
universities. To evaluate the impact of the financial crisis on local economic development this paper
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analyzes the research and commercialization output of three universities in one city: the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, and Emory University in Atlanta, GA. In particular,
this paper examines the evolution of the role taken by these three universities while including
important elements of history and environment. Though all three are research intensive
universities, one is private and two are state universities, servicing different populations of
students, and located in different parts of the city.
Christian R. Oestergaard, Aalborg University [email protected] *
Ina Drejer, Aalborg University
The role of geographical, cognitive and social proximity in university-industry collaboration on
innovation
Studies have shown that different types of proximity matter for interaction between industry and
university. However, most studies focus only on one or two types of proximity; are based on small
samples; or have limited information on which organizations actually collaborate. In the present
analysis we broaden the scope to include three types of proximity - geographical, cognitive as well
as social proximity - in the analysis of university-industry collaboration on innovation. This analysis
is based on a combination of detailed register data and innovation survey data for 2,183 innovative
Danish firms during the period 2010-12. We study (i) whether firms are more likely to collaborate
with universities located in their geographical proximity; (ii) whether firms who have university
graduates among their employees are more likely to collaborate on innovation with universities
(cognitive proximity); and (iii) whether firms with university graduates among their employees are
more likely to collaborate with their employees' alma mater universities (social proximity). We
furthermore study whether the different types of proximity vary in importance across different
types of regions.
Vassilis Monastiriotis, London School of Economics [email protected] *
Regional upgrading or regional downgrading? Over-education and underemployment in Greece's
lagging-behind regions
Regional disparities in most national settings prove rather persistent and difficult to address,
despite policy efforts aiming at upgrading the physical and human / educational infrastructure of
lagging regions to instigate regional convergence. Moreover, and despite the focus of mainstream
policy doctrines on supply-side measures to stimulate economic development (including measures
aiming at increasing labour mobility and upgrading the skills content of the local labour force), in
many of the lagging regions labour market conditions suggest that problems of skill shortages and
educational gaps are limited - instead, such supply-side problems are often more pressing in the
most dynamic regions. This paper examines the extent of over-education, and its spatial variation,
across the Greek regions as a means for measuring the degree to which skill shortages – and, in this
sense, supply-side problems – may be linked to problems of economic performance at the lagging
regions of the country. As over-education is found to be more prevalent in the less developed
regions – both in general and for specific sectoral-occupational groups – it is argued that policy
measures aiming at the upgrading of lagging regions should rely more on the labour-demand side
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and in particular on incentives and strategies to diversify and modernise the economic base of
these regions. As such processes of diversification have a long-run horizon, it is further argued that
a regional upgrading strategy may also involve elements of "educational down-grading", as a means
for matching the local labour supply to the skill-mix of local labour demand.
Helen Lawton Smith, Birkbeck, University of London [email protected] *
Rupert Waters, Birkbeck, University of London [email protected]
Universities, local labour markets and local economic development
Universities are a crucial part of high technology economies as repeatedly asserted in the literature
and policy in many countries throughout the world. The key role of universities and other Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs) in providing skills to regional economies with their links with research
and innovation forms a key element in the EU's smart specialisation agenda (see EU 2014).
UK policy is in tune with that of the EU. A number of government sponsored reports have
highlighted the importance of universities working with local policy fora to improve local skills. This
paper looks at what the graduates of universities in competitive places do and compares that to the
policy rhetoric, for example in the Adonis Review 2014 and the 2013 Witty Review of Universities
and Growth. Evidence is taken from the Higher Education Statistics Agency which produces first
destination data for all UK universities on where graduates go and what they do. It illustrates reality
using case studies of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire which are among the most competitive
places in the UK albeit with rather different HEIs. The paper addresses the issue of spatial
differences, examining whether different patterns of skills matching emerge in different regions,
even in adjacent regions. It also reflects on spatial mobility: whether and how the migratory
behaviour of skills influences education-job match.
EU
2014
http://ec.europa.eu/research/regions/documents/publications/ExpertReportUniversities_and_Smart_Spec-WebPublication-A4.pdf
Ulrich Hilpert, Friedrich-Schiller-University [email protected] *
Networking Regionalised Innovative Labour Markets
Innovative and creative labour is increasingly recognised as having a key role in regional economic
development. The more advanced the processes of innovation-led entrepreneurship are, the more
important become highly skilled scientific, engineering, professional and university trained
personnel. Similar to the process of regionalisation that resulted in the building the Islands of
Innovation (EC 1994), such highly-skilled individuals are concentrated in particular regions and
locations. There are two tendencies that can be identified immediately: (i) the existing
concentration in Europe and the US of innovative labour in a limited number of locations (as
elsewhere in the world) and (ii) the tendency, on both continents for further concentration at these
Islands of Innovation.
The paper will discuss both the role of innovative labour markets for advanced regional
development and the migration of researchers and engineers to these regions or locations. In doing
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so, it will take into consideration the extent to which these regionalised labour markets function
within global or continental labour markets through recruitment; this means to what extent is such
innovative labour recruited by firms and universities in the US from Europe and vice versa. Existing
studies indicate a clear continental picture; there is only a low percentage of recruitment taking
place across the continents. They also indicate, to a certain extent, that European integration is
taking place in these regionalised innovative labour markets. This paper therefore highlights how
mobility operates in a variety of national, regional and sectoral contexts, and explores the drivers of
those patterns.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY VII – PATH CREATION, BREAKTHROUGHS, AND NEW INNOVATION SPACES
Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Utrecht University [email protected] *
David Rigby, University of California, Los Angeles [email protected]
The geography and evolution of complex knowledge
There is a consensus among scholars and policy makers that knowledge is the key driver of long run
economic growth. But too often in the literature in economics and geography we have been
obsessed with counting knowledge outputs rather than assessing knowledge quality. In this paper,
we take up this challenge by mapping the distribution and evolution of (technological) knowledge
complexity in U.S. cities from 1975 to 2009. We build on the 2-mode structural network analysis
proposed by Hidalgo and Hausmann (2009) to develop a knowledge complexity index (KCI) for
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) using more than 2,000,000 patent records from the USPTO.
Following this network approach, we are able to characterize the complexity of the (technological)
knowledge structure of cities based on the range and ubiquity of the technologies they develop.
The KCI indicates if the knowledge embodied in a given city can easily be (re-)produced in many
other MSAs, or if it is so sophisticated that it can only be produced by a few key cities. We find that
knowledge complexity is very unevenly distributed in the U.S. and that cities with the most complex
technological structure are not necessarily the ones with the highest patent per capita rates. Our
results suggest that looking at knowledge quality on top of knowledge quantity provides insights on
the distribution of knowledge production that cannot be captured by simply counting aggregate
knowledge outputs such as patent applications.
Martijn Van Den Berge, PBL Environmental Assessment Agency [email protected] *
Eco-technological breakthroughs
It is often claimed technological development is path dependent in nature: new paths are built on
previous technological paths (Dosi, 192). In recent empirical studies in evolutionary economic
geography more and more evidence is found this process is a result of related diversification: new
technologies arise from recombining pre-existing, related (and localized) capabilities (Boschma et
al., 2014; Van den Berge & Weterings, 2014). At the same time, recent studies have found that
technological breakthroughs more often result from recombining unrelated instead of related
technological capabilities (Della Malva & Riccaboni, 2014; Arts & Veugelers, 2014). Technological
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breakthroughs might be important to sustain economic renewal on the long run as it opens up a
new technological path from which new related recombinations are able to appear afterwards
(Castaldi et al., 2013). Yet, it is an unrevealed question whether (long term) technological
development requires related or unrelated diversification (Boschma, 2013).
Eco-technologies are an interesting case study to provide more insight in this unrevealed question.
Not only because eco-technologies receive increasing attention in innovation and environmental
policies, they are also viewed as being more often breakthrough technologies, because they need
to break with 'dirty' technological paths (Alkemade et al., 2011) and are more general applicable
(Dechezlepêtre et al., 2013). By using patent data (PATSTAT, REGPAT) we test whether ecotechnologies indeed are more often breakthrough technologies, to what extent this is the result of
recombining (un)related technological capabilities and what the role of geography is in this process.
Christian Binz, Harvard University [email protected]
Bernhard Truffer, EAWAG, Switzerland [email protected]
Lars Coenen, Lund University, Sweden [email protected] *
Path creation, system building and anchoring - The emergence of an on-site water recycling
industry in Beijing
Where and how new industrial paths emerge are much debated questions in economic geography,
especially in light of the recent evolutionary turn. This paper complements the on-going debate on
path creation with a new perspective based on insights from innovation system approaches. It
suggests that regions which successfully induce new industrial paths combine the build-up of a
territorially embedded innovation system with anchoring innovation resources from other regions
of a global technological innovation system. This argument will be elaborated with a case study on
on-site water recycling technology (OST) in China, based on interviews with 40 experts in three
Chinese cities. The data suggests that, despite rather unfavourable initial conditions, a considerable
on-site water recycling industry developed only in Beijing. Its success is explained by system buildup processes that created key local resources for industry formation while at the same time
effectively anchoring global resources into the regional context. The proposed process-based
conceptualization of system building creates a nuanced view on the early path creation phase,
which, existing evolutionary frameworks are not well suited to capture. Regional policies to support
emerging industries should accordingly apply a multi-scalar, systemic approach.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, SUNY-Buffalo [email protected] *
Dieter F Kogler, University College Dublin [email protected]
Peter J Kedron, Ryerson University [email protected]
The emergence of innovation spaces in renewable energy
Understanding how innovations emerge and enter the market by analyzing patenting trends is a
key research area in the post-Bayh-Dole era. Past patenting research primarily focused on the life
sciences has made key contributions to understanding the role of local knowledge in cluster
creation and the importance of star scientists, dealmakers, and university-industry collaboration to
regional development. Within this field, researchers commonly treat government regulation as a
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national context within which various geographies of innovation emerge. Our paper focuses on
another bundle of patents, biofuels, and examines their development at a regional scale. From the
agri-processing of corn, biofuel has transitioned into a research intensive period focused on the
development of alternative feedstocks (e.g., forest residue, municipal waste) and production
processes. This paper's patent analysis shows how technologies from related industries have come
together to provide a coherent set of discoveries forming the basis of a new innovation space in the
United States. However, uncertainties remain as difficulties translating research to production
persist and motivate experimentation with alternative forms of production. This paper explores an
early phase of innovation within the biofuel industry, and examines emerging geographies of
translation with a critical look at barriers to the development and selection of production
processes.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY VIII – RESILIENCE: REGIONAL GROWTH AND DECLINE
Jacob Rubæk Holm, IKE/DRUID, Aalborg University [email protected]*
Christian Richter Oestergaard, IKE/DRUID, Aalborg University
No way out? How regions overcome specialization in a declining industry
Recent research have suggested that regions facing crisis in key industries are better able to
overcome the crisis if there is a presence of skill related industries in the region (Neffke et al., 2011;
Boschma, 2014; Diodato and Weterings, 2014). These related industries are able to absorb the
redundant workers from the declining industry and put the workers' skills to new productive use. In
this paper we show the limits to this path and analyze the effects of alternate paths.
As the Danish shipbuilding industry sharply declined during the 1980s and 1990s, the regions that
had relied on the industry for a relatively large share of employment struggled to overcome the
crisis. The regions that proved to be most resilient were the regions with an industry structure
incorporating a large share of skill related industries. However, less than a decade later, all regions
with an industry structure related to shipbuilding were facing declining employment regardless of
whether the shipbuilding industry itself was still present in the region.
Preliminary results are based on a regression of regional employment growth on variables
describing the industrial and institutional structure of regions. These results show that regions,
which did not fall back on related industries but instead had to undergo a process of structural
transformation as the shipbuilding industry declined, had relatively high employment growth after
an initial adjustment and were, in this sense, the most resilient regions when a longer time
perspective is taken.
Joan Crespo, Utrecht University [email protected] *
Ron Boschma, Lund University [email protected]
Shock resilience of regional networks
The interest on regional resilience has grown in the last years. Inspired by the evolutionary
perspective (Simmie and Martin, 2010; Boschma, 2014) and the adaptive cycle framework (Martin,
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2012), the literature has mostly focused on the recovery after the shock stage (Fingleton et al.,
2010; Diodato and Weterings, 2014). However, little attention has been given to the changes that
occur right after the shock. This paper aims to fill this gap. To do so, we draw on relatedness theory
to build up a network representation of regional economies (Neffke et al., 2011; Boschma et al.,
2014). Then, we study the sensitivity of these regional networks face to massive shocks that imply
node removal and linkage dissolution. In that sense, the paper has two main concerns. In a first
step, it analyses the transformation of regional networks, the dimensions and the amount of
change. In a second step, it test whether network topology properties, regional industrial
composition and institutional features are relevant factors to explain why some regions have weak
sensitivity and absorb the shocks, while others go through an important re-organization.
Silvia Rita Sedita, University of Padova [email protected]*
Ivan De Noni, University of Milan [email protected]
Luciano Pilotti, University of Milan [email protected]
How Do Related Variety and Differentiated Knowledge Bases Influence the Resilience of Local
Production Systems?
This contribution attempts to systematize some first evidence on the sustainability and resilience of
local production systems in the economic recession and first hypothetical phases of recovery, 2007
to 2013, focusing on the role played by diversified economy, related and unrelated variety and
differentiated knowledge bases, as drivers for territorial resilience. The results confirm the
importance of related variety to growth and stability during recessions and support the creative
capacity of culture, providing evidence that a moderate concentration in cultural/creative economic
activities contributes to resilience and that industrial districts and international development play a
positive role.
Frank Van Oort, Utrecht University [email protected]*
Mark Thissen, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency mark. [email protected]
Thomas De Graaff, Free University Amsterdam [email protected]
Regional resilience: structural determinants versus interregional demand effects in regional
economic growth
The economic crisis in Europe that started with the banking crisis in 2008 and still continues into
2013 is characterized by interregional spillovers of (negative) growth. These negative growth
spillovers make it difficult to analyze the performance of regions and thereby the effectiveness of
regional investments to enhance a region's resilience and competitiveness. Competitiveness
measures local conditions in location, economic performance and endowments for firms and
industries but focuses less on network effects of trade that influence local growth opportunities. In
this paper we want to distinguish between regional growth that is the result of an increase in
demand in other parts of the world, and growth that is due to a change in structural factors
strengthening a region's competitiveness and increasing its productivity. We propose a growth
decomposition that provides region specific sources of economic growth in European NUTS2regions for the period 2000-2010. We show that the decomposition can be done on the aggregate
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or industry, technology-specific level. We will illustrate the proposed decomposition method for
heterogeneous sets of regions that are focus of EU and national policies: large urban versus
polycentric and small regions, regions in Eastern Europe versus Western Europe and regions with
technologically specialized versus diversified economies. First estimates show that regional
development may be up to 75% dependent on exogenous influences, suggesting much less room
for local development policies as suggested by policy makers. We translate these outcomes to
smart specialization strategies of regions, where "smart" may mean more network oriented than
many policymakers expect.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY IX – INSTITUTIONS, CAPITALISM, TRADE, AND THE ROLE OF RELATEDNESS
Ronald V. Kalafsky, University of Tennessee [email protected] *
Remoteness as a Trade Barrier? Considering the Case of SME Exporters from Nova Scotia
Despite policy-led encouragement for increased export-driven growth in many locales, a growing
body of research suggests that not all regions benefit equally from trade. One reason is firms may
encounter location-based obstacles that hinder them from engaging with international markets.
Remoteness can be one such impediment; one that may impact firms from Nova Scotia, a Canadian
province that has reported decreased export activity in recent years, particularly in relation to other
provinces. This article will examine the case of successful SME exporters from Nova Scotia,
including their trade-related motivations and impediments, and the strategies they have used to
overcome possible location-related problems.
Stefano Usai, University of Cagliari [email protected] *
Emanuela, CRENoS and University of Cagliari
Manuel Romagnoli and Raffaele Brancati, MET-Economia
Export and Innovative Performance of Italian Firms
This paper uses firm-level data for Italian firms to investigate on the export performance of
enterprises in Italy in the aftermath of the economic crisis started in 2008. In particular we merge
survey data collected in four waves along the years starting in 2008 by MET Economia on about
25000 firms in Italy (with unique information about innovation, openness and networking) and
balance sheet data provided by AIDA dataset. The result of this merge is a subsample which
includes around 16000 firms which are representative of the Italian production structure. We
therefore use either the full sample, which is also representative of firm ditribution across the
twenty Italian NUTS2 regions; or the smaller but wider subsample which allows us to use also
indicators extracted from balance documents. We are able to estimate a model where export
activity, either intensive or extensive margin, depends on individual characteristic of the firms, on
the regional innovation system in which it operates and on its ability to relate with local and global
markets. Results show that export performance is the result of a combination of forces which are at
the firm level as much as the regional and the sectoral level.
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Sergio Petralia, Utrecht University
Andrea Morrison, Utrecht University [email protected]*
Pierre Alex Balland, Utrecht University
Understanding Countries' Patterns of Technological Development
In the fifties, development scholars would have argued that a successful strategy for development
required diversification from traditional to "modern" activities which had higher potential for
growth (Singer, 1950; Lewis, 1954; and Hirschman 1958). In recent years this discussion has seen a
renewed interest and a 'new consensus' seems to have arisen: 'economic development requires
diversification, not specialization' (Rodrik 2003, Bell 2007 and 2009). Such a 'consensus' builds on
recent empirical evidence suggesting that: developing economies have to diversify their economic
structure in order to enhance growth (Hausman et al 2007); the relationship between GDP per
capita and sectoral concentration follow a U-shaped curve, rather than a linear one (Imbs and
Wacziarg, 2003), and that the process of technological diversification is bounded by the
competences present in a region (Boschma et al.2014).
Our work builds on the above streams of literature and aims at providing new insights into the role
of relatedness in economic development. Our results confirm that the likelihood of a country
diversifying into a new technological domain is higher for those activities that are 'related' to its
existing technological profile. In addition, our evidence shows that this effect is stronger at early
stages of economic development, while the likelihood decreases as technologies become more
complex. Therefor emerging economies have stronger constraints (or less degree of freedom) in
developing new technologies as compared to advanced economies. Our findings suggest that any
strategy aiming at diversifying countries' technological capabilities cannot disregard the initial
pattern of indigenous technological development.
Ron Boschma, Utrecht University [email protected] *
Gianluca Capone, IUSS, Pavia [email protected]
Institutions and Diversification: Related versus Unrelated Diversification in a Varieties of
Capitalism framework
The Varieties of Capitalism literature has drawn little attention to industrial renewal and
diversification, while the related diversification literature has neglected the institutional dimension
of industrial change. Bringing together both literatures, the paper proposes that institutions have
an impact on the direction of the diversification process, in particular on whether countries gain a
comparative advantage in new sectors that are close or far from what is already part of their
existing industrial structure. We investigate the diversification process in 23 developed countries by
means of detailed product trade data in the period 1995-2010. Our results show that relatedness is
a stronger driver of diversification into new products in coordinated market economies, while
liberal market economies show a higher probability to move in more unrelated industries: their
overarching institutional framework gives countries more freedom to make a jump in their
industrial evolution. In particular, we found that the role of relatedness as driver of diversification
into new sectors is stronger in the presence of institutions that focus more on 'non-market'
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coordination in the domains of labor relations, corporate governance relations, product market
relations, and inter-firm relations.
Karl-Johan Lundquist, Lund University [email protected] *
Lars-Olof Olander, Lund University [email protected]
Mikhail Martynovich, Lund University [email protected]
Techno-economic paradigms, national macro oriented factors and long term growth and change
in regional systems
The overarching aim of the paper is to analyze the importance of techno-economic paradigm, in
interplay with national macroeconomic preconditions, for long term structural transformation and
growth in various types of regions in a regional system of national economy. We argue that these
general preconditions will largely determine which types of regions will grow at different time
periods and how interdependencies across elements of the regional system evolve over time. Based
on the neo-Schumpeterian tradition in economics and a macro oriented approach on evolutionary
economic geography we suggest a theoretical framework taking into account the influence of
i) techno-economic paradigms (technological shifts),
ii) national macroeconomic preconditions (national growth rates and industry mix)
iii) individual regions' ability for transformation and growth during different time periods (based on
regional receiver competence, hierarchical position and distances in the regional systems).
The paper aims to increase our understanding of "normality" and "uniqueness" in regional growth
and transformation in different elements of a country's regional system over time, and whether
and how these factors affect the stability of the regional system. Our empirical work, based on
detailed analysis of the Swedish regional system between 1985 and 2010, have resulted in some
first estimations indicating that regions belonging to the same level of the regional hierarchy tend
to follow similar narrow "growth corridors" leaving rather limited space for leap frogging up or
down the hierarchy. However, windows of opportunity for switching growth corridors are opened
during particular periods in the long term process of change.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY X – INSTITUTIONS, SKILLS, DECISIONS AND DEALMAKERS
Evans Korang Adjei, Umea University [email protected]*
Rikard Eriksson, Associate professor, Umea university [email protected]
Urban Lindgren, Associate professor, Umea university [email protected]
How Do Social and Cognitive Proximity affect Plant Performance? The Importance of Family and
Skills Relatedness.
Previous studies have emphasized that geographical proximity is not sufficient for interactive
learning and innovation. Consequently, an increasing number of studies on other dimensions of
proximity have become evident in evolutionary economic geography. However, what is often
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missing in most studies is the interrelationship between the different dimensions of proximity and
how they facilitate learning and innovation across different spatial and sectoral contexts. While
other studies have emphasized on the relevance of cognitive and social proximity, the aim of this
study is to further contribute to existing literature by investigating the interrelationship between
cognitive (education, skills etc.) and social (here referred to as family related social ties) proximity
and how it affects plant performance, while also arguing that social and cognitive proximity can be
imperative for interactive learning and innovation.
This will be accomplished by means of matched employer-employee registers containing
information on all workplaces and workers in the Swedish economy. The data provides individual
level socioeconomic attributes and also provides a unique identity on family relations (i.e. core and
extended family). This allows us to map workers and their socioeconomic attributes in all
workplaces and estimate their impact on performance. This is something that, to our knowledge
has not previously been assessed in a systematic manner. By controlling for workplace and regional
characteristics, we expect the relationship between social and cognitive proximity to positively
influence plant performance mostly in regions with economic mass and diversity.
Jonathan Borggren, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå University
[email protected]*
Rikard H Eriksson, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå University
[email protected]
Urban Lindgren, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå University
[email protected]
Knowledge flows in high-impact firms: How does relatedness influence survival, acquisition and
exit?
Following the impact on regional renewal and employment ascribed to rapidly growing firms (High
impact firms, HIFs) this paper argues that little is still known in economic geography and business
studies today regarding the mechanisms influencing growth and the locational characteristics of
such firms and, hence, the potential impact on regional growth. Further, there tends to be an urban
bias neglecting the potential contribution of rapidly growing firms located in the periphery. Through
the use of an evolutionary framework and a longitudinal micro database this paper explores how
the qualitative content of skills (i.e. the degree of similarity, relatedness and un-relatedness)
together with total stock of new employees recruited to a firm during a period of fast growth
influences its future success. In addition, in order to study how the regional portfolio of industries
influences the firm´s future destiny, we also assess the impact of industry specialization and related
specialization on future firm success. Our findings, based on a sample of 1,589 HIFs in the Swedish
economy, suggest that it is not only the number of people employed that matters to aid
understanding of the future destiny of the firms - but also, more importantly, it is the scope of the
skills recruited and their proximity to related industries. From a regional development perspective
and using a population distribution measurement, our findings also indicate that HIF's tend to be
over-represented in peripheral areas which points in the direction of a somewhat different
approach to understanding regional development.
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Lech Suwala, Humboldt-University, Berlin / Ritsumeikan University, Osaka [email protected] *
Päivi Oinas, University of Turku [email protected]
The decision-maker in economic evolution: Economic geography and the institution of the
manager?
The emerging research field of management geography calls attention to its foundations.
Management geography is a new approach dealing with the nexus between the manager and
space. Even if often neglected in economic geography, managers or the management have early on
implicitly played a role in classical writings within the discipline and have been later explicitly
mentioned as key actors in the different interpretations of the geography of the firm over the last
half century of so. Especially, the recent strong influx of theories, concepts and ideas from
economic sociology and economic psychology brought the manager to the fore.
However, the role of the manager in the economic geography literature remains to be identified,
established, and systemized. Moreover, both the precise meaning and the spatiality of
management as well as the managerial functions/activities in space are far from being elaborated
in the various theoretical frameworks.
Management geography and the manager in economic geography should not be solely
management studies attempted by geographers, but should be defined as an eclectic framework
taking a genuine geographical perspective on studying management. Against this background, we
intend to trace the evolving role of the manager in economic geography by (a) investigating the
history of thought in our discipline, by (b) outlining different conceptions of space and their
allocation of meaning to the manager and by (c) proposing a systemic and distinctively geographical
perspective on the manager.
Thomas Kemeny, University of Southampton [email protected] *
Maryann Feldman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [email protected]
Dealmakers, Regional Social Capital and Firm Performance
This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to test the idea that urban social networks have
economic value. Economic geographers consider the better-connected regions will outperform
those with weak networks. But, despite a flood of theoretical and empirical studies, we do not
adequately understand what constitutes a better-connected place. One problem is that studies
commonly represent network structures in aggregate. Relatedly, despite theory pointing to the
importance of individual brokers who bridge disparate network components, most existing studies
simply conflate having a larger networks with being better connected. Perhaps most
problematically, existing work suffers from major endogeneity issues that preclude confident
statements about any possible causal effects of networks. This paper seeks to address these gaps.
Rather than defining networks in aggregate terms, it focuses on a particular set of agents within
regional economies, known as Dealmakers. Dealmakers are accomplished actors who are
uncommonly enmeshed in local social capital. This paper investigates the following research
question: what effect do dealmakers exert upon the firms with which they become affiliated? To
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answer this question, it employs a quasi-experimental approach and detailed data about firms and
the key actors that link them together in social networks within 12 major regional economies in the
U.S. Findings suggest that dealmakers exert independent and positive effect on firms to which they
become linked, specifically by augmenting sales and employment. These results suggest that
networks do indeed have value, and identifies a particular channel through which this value is
conferred.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY XI – GEOGRAPHIES OF DIVERSITY AND INEQUALITY
Rebecca P Pero, BAH, MA, Queen's University [email protected] *
The Localization of Immigration Policy in Canada: Concepts of Diversity and the Local Immigration
Partnership project in Ontario
Immigration is foundational to Canada's identity and has significantly shaped the Canadian
landscape. Heavily managed by the state, the process of nation building (pre-1960s) did not include
immigrants from non-European countries. Subsequently, the topic of multiculturalism and the
concept of diversity became more frequently addressed in Canada in the 1970s under the Trudeau
government; the Multiculturalism Act became law in 1988. Changes to Citizenship and Immigration
Canada's management priorities, particularly in the last fifteen years, reflect the increased interest
in immigrant diversity from provinces and territories, and now shapes how immigration policy is
delivered, from federal, to more local levels.
Implemented on the local scale, the federal government has developed a partnership model that
serves to coordinate the efforts of service providers and immigrant associations in small- and
medium-sized municipal and regional areas in order to attract and retain a greater number of
immigrants in these areas. With approximately forty-five LIPs in Ontario, the Local Immigration
Partnership (LIP) innovation is formally touted as a successful way to promote equitable access to
opportunities and increase inclusivity, and project expansion has been encouraged as a promising
practice.
Through the use of semi-structured interviews with key informants (members of government, the
LIPs and immigrant organizations) and immigrants, this paper will address measures of LIP success
and optimal outcomes for immigrants across sub-national and national scales. There are various
perspectives on the success of LIPs and their ability to both inform policy and welcome immigrants
in small- to medium-sized municipally- and regionally bound geographic areas.
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Rikard H. Eriksson, Associate Professor, Umeå University [email protected]
Emelie Hane-Weijman, PhD-student, Umeå University [email protected] *
Martin Henning, Associate professor, University of Gothenburg [email protected]
Returning to Work
In the recent past, many regions in Europe have been challenged by severe structural changes,
caused by the dismantling of dominating industries. The downsizing or even seizure of production
sets of processes where redundant labor in the region need to be reallocated from old to new
industries in order to stay productive, or they may be forced to leave the region. By means of
Swedish longitudinal micro-data 1990-2004, the aim of this paper is to analyse individual labour
market trajectories after involuntary lay-offs. We analyse to what extent variables on individual,
plant and regional level influence time to re-employment. We address the following questions:
What determines if and when a person becomes re-employed? Are there sacrifices in terms of
wage level, commuting distance or skill destruction? If the individuals' skills are related to the
region's industries, will that have an impact on time to re-employment, as well as the probability of
staying in or moving from the region?
Since most other studies on this topic has been case-studies, highlighting the consequences for
different groups, this paper will contribute to a more general understanding of how the individual,
plant and region interact and create possibilities of re-employment and knowledge transfer or
labour scape and skill destruction, which would have a big impact on the regional development and
resilience.
Thomas Kemeny, University of Southampton [email protected]
Abigail Cooke, University At Buffalo [email protected] *
The Social Returns to Immigrant Diversity in Cities
Using longitudinal matched employer-employee data for the U.S., this paper provides new evidence
on the relationship between workers' productivity and immigration-spawned diversity. Theory
suggests that diversity can act as a local public good, making workers more productive by enlarging
the pool of available knowledge and by fostering opportunities to recombine ideas. But diversity
can also inhibit productivity by making co-operation more difficult. Although researchers have
generally found a robust positive correlation between productivity and immigrant diversity, most
work suffers from at least three major problems. First, existing studies ignore bias from hard-toobserve differences across workers that may affect productivity and are correlated with diversity.
Second, nearly all studies do not model firm heterogeneity, in terms of diversity and other factors.
Third, most findings do not capture dynamics in the relationship between diversity and
productivity, thereby weakening causal identification. This study leverages longitudinal matched
employer-employee data for roughly 60 percent of the US workforce to address these issues.
Findings suggest that, after accounting for diversity at the workplace, and a wide range of other
sources of bias, urban immigrant diversity generates positive spillovers for U.S. workers. These
social effects represent a distinct channel through which immigration generates economic benefits.
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Jamie Michelle Goodwin-White, UCLA [email protected] *
Hanging together or falling apart? Estimating City Wage Inequality of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity:
2000-2010
Metropolitan labor markets vary in terms of how demographic categories of workers are positioned
relative to each other. With mounting recent attention to who gained or lost out in the recent
recession, I aim to estimate the relative earnings position of major gender, race, and nativity groups
for 15 large US metro areas, employing an inequality of opportunities approach that focuses
analysis on between-group differences. How and to what extent did between-group earnings
inequality characterize metro labor markets before the recession, and what changed as the
recession played out? What forms of wage inequality are attenuated or intensified and where?
Which differences are the most significant? What follows is then an analysis of 1) how betweengroup inequality is configured and varies geographically and 2) how these configurations changed
over the decade. Results show varying configurations of labor market inequality both pre- and postrecession, as well as generally declining gender inequality, an inverse relationship between gender
and immigrant/native inequality at the metro level, and generally increasing or static racial wage
gaps. All cities move away from gender inequality and toward greater shares of racial or immigrant
inequality over the period, although the nature of the shifts varies in ways that reflect cities'
differing inequality of opportunity contexts.
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY XII – UNEMPLOYMENT, SKILLS, EMPLOYMENT: CYCLE OR EVOLUTION
Mikhail Martynovich, Lund University [email protected] *
Worker flows as a mechanism of inter-regional knowledge diffusion in pioneering industries:
Evidence from the Swedish ICT-services sector 1990-2010
Proposed study of worker mobility in ICT-industries addresses two questions:
(1) What characterises workers moving across levels of regional hierarchy? Particularly, are there
differences between workers moving up- and down the hierarchy?
(2) What implications does labour reallocation across regional hierarchy have for destination
firms/regions?
Motivation for the study comes from empirical facts regarding worker reallocation in ICT-services in
Sweden observed in 1990-2010:
- moves down the regional hierarchy represent a significant (up to 50%) share of total regional
moves indicating that development of ICT-services at lower levels of regional hierarchy was driven
to a great extent by labour inflows from top regions;
- while switches from unemployment/non-participation into job in ICT-services are more typical as
an upward move, job-to-job switches (particularly, switches from related industries) are
overrepresented in downward moves; this might be speculated to lead to knowledge diffusion from
upper to lower levels of regional hierarchy;
- average age of upward movers is consistently lower than that of downward movers;
- median income of upward movers is lower than that of downward movers (even before correcting
for costs of living).
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These trends, which are particularly pronounced in the 2000s, when compared to 1990s, make it
possible to suggest the following working hypothesis to be tested in the paper:
Spatial reallocation of workers in Swedish ICT-services worked in the way which facilitated
concentration of knowledge in metropolitan areas in the 1990s, and promoted knowledge diffusion
from regions at the top of regional hierarchy to more peripheral regions in the 2000s
Lisa Östbring, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umea
[email protected]*
Rikard Eriksson, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå
[email protected]
Urban Lindgren, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå University
University
University
Relatedness through experience: On the importance of collected worker experiences for plant
performance
This article contributes to the current discussion in economic geography on the role of
complementarities and skill matching to promote economic growth for firms. The purpose of the
article is to add to the current literature by assessing the role of past working experiences of
individuals in plant performance. We compare the effects of relatedness in experiences with the
effects of relatedness in formal skills (education) on plant performance. This is done to determine
the relative power of experience as an alternative measure of cognitive relatedness between
workers. By the use of register data we trace former workplaces and co-workers of individual
employees in knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) in Sweden between 2000 and 2010 and
estimate the variety of knowledge associated with the individual's work experience. For each year,
a 15-year backlog of knowledge exposure is created for every individual currently employed in KIBS.
Entropy measures of variety are calculated for knowledge exposure, industry experience and formal
knowledge, respectively. Pooled OLS regression models are estimated to determine the effects of
different forms of cognitive relatedness in the in-house portfolio on plant performance. By so doing
we account for, not only, the current formal knowledge held by the employees but also for previous
experiences in knowledge exposure, when we calculate the degree of relatedness of knowledge
within a firm. We find that relatedness in previous knowledge exposure is equally important to
relatedness in formal education for the performance of plants.
Anet Weterings, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency [email protected] *
Exiting unemployment: the role of industry-specific skills and relatedness of the regionaleconomic structure
Interregional mobility is often considered important for reducing differences in regional
unemployment. But empirical evidence showed that the geographical mobility of labor is very low.
Consequently, policies aimed at stimulating interregional mobility of unemployed workers are
unlikely to be very effective. For unemployed workers intersectoral mobility may be a much more
attractive option, as this increases the probability that they find re-employment without having to
migrate. While intersectoral job mobility can involve high adjustment costs (e.g., retraining), that is
less the case when the unemployed workers move to industries where the skills that they acquired
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during their working career are also relevant. But exiting unemployment through intersectoral
mobility also has an important geographical dimension. Following differences in regional economic
structures, the opportunity to exit unemployment of unemployed workers that used to work in the
same industry may still differ per region as the presence of related industries differs per region. This
paper aims to explore the role of both industry-specific experience and regional differences in a
related economic structure for the unemployment duration of different exit states (intrasectoral,
intersectoral and interregional mobility) by analyzing all workers who received unemployment
benefits in the Netherlands between January 2005 and December 2009. Cox regressions show that
regional differences in the presence of related industries increase the probability of exiting
unemployment through intersectoral mobility while it lowers the probability of interregional
mobility. In other words, if the regional context allows it, unemployed workers prefer moving to
another industry above moving to another region.
Martin Henning, University of Gothenburg, Lund University [email protected]*
Mikhail Martynovich, Lund University
Building a labor force in renewing industries
Drawing on March and Simon's 'decision to participate' model combined with recent findings about
the sectoral and geographical mobility of labor, this paper analyzes the background of individuals
entering the renewing and expanding knowledge-intensive ICT services industries in Sweden 19902010. Using a dataset which provides data about all entering individuals in these industries, we
distinguish between individual backgrounds in terms of 1) labor market status at entry (from nonparticipation, education, unemployment or from another job), 2) industry background (sector and
related or unrelated industry), 3) formal skills (education), and 4) geography (regional move and
destination region). We analyze how these backgrounds of individuals affect the 1) entry conditions
in the knowledge-intensive ICT service industries and 2) the propensity to stay in the new industry.
While several recent studies have provided evidence on the labor market dynamics of mature and
outphasing industries, this study provides findings on how the labor force is built in quickly
expanding and renewing industries, and how this changes with the evolution of the industry. We
find that the individuals' ' mode of entry' has a high effect on with entry wage and the probability of
staying in these pioneering industries. The effects of moving geographically vary considerably
between the different modes of entry. Moreover, the propensity of individuals to stay in the
industry also varies considerably between regions, which could be connected to the regional
industrial structures. Overall, patterns of entry and educational backgrounds of newcomers are
consolidated around the ICT service industries over time.
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ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY XIII – AMBIDEXTERITY, ADAPTABILITY, AND COLLABORATOR NETWORKS
Lionel Sack, Circle, Lund University [email protected] *
Ambidexterity and the evolution of clusters
Recent debates of smart specialization have discussed the need for exploratory structures for
renewal and evolution of industry clusters. Yet, very little time of this discussion has been spent on
how such an exploration can really be implemented, while not neglecting the dominance of
exploitative practices of incumbent firms, and the often fairly static institutional frameworks
prevailing in established clusters - largely working against explorative agency. This study proposes
that insights about ambidextrous organizations from the management literature can, to a certain
extent, be drawn to the level of analysis of the cluster. While some features, notably the
manageability of clusters vs. that of firms, is highly different, there seems to be a strong potential
for cross-fertilization in the theoretical debate. In several studies on clusters in recent years,
ambidexterity has already vaguely been mentioned and operationalized in this context, but without
putting much emphasis on conceptual implications. The study aims at filling this gap and providing
a more reflexive and explicit operational framework in this respect. It is based on insights from an
old and established beverage cluster in France in which some firms have successfully created new
paths of development since the 1990s, breaching with existing institutions and engaging in
explorative strategies.
Frank van der Wouden, UCLA [email protected]*
The role of technological relatedness and inventor collaboration networks on knowledge
production of U.S. cities between 1975 and 2005
This paper examines the regional knowledge production of specialized and diversified U.S. cities
between 1975 and 2005. First, we use patent data to construct a measure of technological
relatedness to examine the influence of relatedness in economic variety on knowledge production.
Second, we explore the structural differences in the inventor collaboration networks of specialized
and diversified cities. The main results are twofold. First, we find that relatedness matters: a
positive and significant influence is found for relatedness on the patents produced in U.S. cities.
Second, we find that specialized cities have structural different inventor collaboration networks
than diversified cities. These results indicate that the knowledge production of U.S. cities increases
with the relatedness of its technological knowledge.
Balazs Lengyel, Hungarian Academy of Sciences [email protected] *
Rikard Eriksson, Umea University [email protected]
Co-worker networks and regional growth in Sweden 1990-2008
This paper provides a new empirical perspective for analysing the role of social networks in regional
economic growth by constructing large-scale networks based on employee co-occurrence in plants.
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It is assumed that employees in different plants know each other if they have been engaged in a coworker relationship previously. We calculate the probability of relations for every employeeemployee pair in every plant and every year using plant size as well as age, education, and gender
characteristics of all highly educated employees in Sweden for the 1990-2008 period. The 50 most
likely relations are selected of every worker in every year and traced as co-worker tie over the full
period. Tie weights are computed by the length of time spent in the co-worker relation, which is
reduced by the amount of time after the termination of the co-worker relation. We illustrate that
the geographies of our network fit to previous studies and also demonstrate how the co-worker
network across industries differs from the skill-relatedness network frequently used in economic
geography. In a further step we show that strong social ties concentrate within same industries but
this is increasingly true in small regions. While the share of edges across skill-related industries is
higher in large metropolitan areas, a key finding suggests that social relatedness of industries has
the highest importance in middle-sized regions. We provide empirical evidence for a central claim
in economic geography: the density of the professional social network has positive effect on
regional productivity growth.
Xiaohui Hu, University of Kiel [email protected] *
Robert Hassink, University of Kiel [email protected]
Either Adaptability or Adaption in Old Industrial Areas?
In recent years, regional resilience has become a fashion mainly used to understand how regional
economies recover after 'sudden' shocks. However, little attention has been paid to how regions
adapt to a 'slow-burn' crisis in a long-term perspective, and why they adapt differently. The idea of
a trade-off between adaptation (changes within old paths) or adaptability (creating new paths) is
proposed in the literature (Grabher 1993) to better explain these long-term regional industrial
evolutions. Based on an in-depth interview survey, this study comparatively explores the
mechanisms and determinants of adaptability in two typical Chinese mining regions (Zaozhuang
and Fuxin) under the circumstance of diminishing coal reserves. We reveal that a higher
adaptability does not simply mean a stronger ability to create new growth paths, but rather a more
'endogenous', 'locally embedded' and 'transformative' process of industrial restructuring. The
Chinese experiences hence show that the prevailing idea of a trade-off between adaptation and
adaptability creates a false dualism and is hence problematic. In future research more attention
should be paid to the differentiated processes and qualities of regional long-term economic
evolution both from the adaption and adaptability perspective.
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