Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and the Diffusion of Innovations

This article builds on punctuated equilibrium theory to evaluate the diffusion of public policy innovations in the United States. The article argues that punctuated equilibrium theory provides a unifying framework for understating three mechanisms leading to the diffusion of innovations: gradual policy diffusion driven by incremental policy emulation, rapid state‐to‐state diffusion driven by policy imitation and mimicking, and nearly immediate policy diffusion driven by state‐level responses to a common exogenous shock. Drawing upon the Bass mixed influence diffusion model, this research generates measures of the coefficients of external and internal influences for diffusion for 81 public policy innovations that have spread across the United States. The article then evaluates how the policy image and direct participation of the federal government contribute to distinct patterns of diffusion over time.     

Greening America's Skylines: The Diffusion of Low-Salience Policies

The diffusion literature is replete with examples of highly salient policies spreading across subnational governments. However, low-salience policies that do not benefit from a groundswell of public opinion also spread across jurisdictions in patterns that appear similar to those of other, more well-known policy ideas. This research is an investigation of the mechanisms that propagate low-salience policies. I analyze the adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy Efficient Design standard across 119 U.S. cities from 2000 to 2008. The investigation indicates that a knowledge broker, in this case the USGBC, occupies critical roles in linking a low-salience policy to a broader set of widely held societal values, developing a common policy vocabulary, providing a base policy that jurisdictions may freely adapt, and creating a diffusion infrastructure by acting as a communication hub for existing and interested jurisdictions to discuss innovations and progress.     

Change in the Innovation Process: New Knowledge Production and Competitive Cities--The Case of Stuttgart

The global integration of economic activities is bringing with it major changes in innovation processes. New kinds of innovation, such as service and organizational innovations, became increasingly important in the 1990s. The shift to new forms of knowledge creation reflects the emerging knowledge based economy. This has effects on the existing comparative advantages of metropolitan innovation systems and is a major challenge to the ability of cities to adjust, especially those in mature industrial sectors whose competitiveness is based on innovations in industrial technology and scientific and technological knowledge production. Stuttgart is one of these cities. Much of the comparative innovative strength of the Stuttgart region derives from the generation of synergy effects of its technological and institutional development paths. The high levels of industrial exports and the competitiveness of the global players in the Stuttgart region indicates how advantageous the technology based knowledge production and diffusion in the region has been for the innovativeness of the core industrial branches. The crisis at the start of the 1990s showed that the economic success of particular firms does not mean that the metropolitan region as a whole is innovative and competitive. The institutional structures used to establish and maintain the comparative innovative advantages of the industrial sector have hindered adjustment to new forms of knowledge production and diffusion. The paper examines the adjustment processes in the Stuttgart region which are changing the organization of innovation and learning in a way that makes it receptive to new forms of knowledge production and diffusion.     

Does Policy Diffusion Need Space? Spatializing the Dynamics of Policy Diffusion

For decades, scholars in multiple disciplines have examined spatial diffusion, or the spatiotemporal properties associated with the diffusion of innovations. These properties include contagious, hierarchical, and relocation diffusion. Each of these refers to a spatial model that epitomizes how innovations spread among geographic locations. Policy diffusion, a separate but homologous research tradition, had its theoretical underpinnings in spatial diffusion. However, contemporary policy diffusion has focused largely on mechanism‐based diffusion. This article demonstrates how exploratory spatial data analysis can be used to uncover spatial policy diffusion properties. In this study, municipal smoking regulation adoptions, religious‐based initiatives, and bag ban and bag fees are examined. This study finds evidence that for each policy more than one property is occurring; therefore, this study proposes that a hybrid model best explains diffusion. This article demonstrates how examining spatial diffusion properties, in addition to diffusion mechanisms, can improve the conceptualization of diffusion theories, enhance mechanism or theory‐based specification of diffusion models, and unravel the specific regional or neighboring causal pathways linking policies between adopting jurisdictions.     

Immigration and Net Migration in New York City 1980–90

The relationship between immigration and the net migration of the native-born is an important component of the overall impact of immigration. Prior analyses of cross-sectional state and Metropolitan Statistical Area data suggest that a negative relationship exists, particularly among those with relatively little education. At the national level, much attention has been paid to the potential ethnic segregation of the population as primarily non-White immigrants displace primarily White native-born residents from certain areas, but there are important state and local policy issues as well, as this population shift has potentially significant implications for demand for municipal services and school enrollment. Yet until now, there has been no attempt to examine this relationship for a particular metro area. This article provides some preliminary estimates of the relationship between immigration and the migration of the native-born in New York City between 1980 and 1990 using a census survival methodology and zip code-level data. Initial results suggest a statistically significant negative relationship between immigration and net migration of the native-born. The policy implications of this phenomenon are discussed briefly.     

Regional Innovation Policies in the Czech Republic and the Case of Prague: An Emerging Role of a Regional Level?

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the development of Czech innovation policy which started to get its shape in the first years of the 21st century. The article traces its origins to a number of interlinked factors—the introduction of European regional policy in the Czech Republic, the increased inflow of foreign direct investment into R&D-intensive sectors and also the devolution of power to Czech regions that were established in 2001 and gave a new, regional dimension to research and innovation policy. It pays particular attention to the process through which the regionally-based innovation policy advocated by the European Union (EU) has been translated and adapted in the context of a new EU member state. As an illustration of the efforts at the regional level to make a better use of the potential of R&D and innovation in the regional development, a case study of a regional innovation strategy of the City of Prague is analysed. The City of Prague was selected for a critical analysis of an innovation system and innovation policy due to the fact that it is a region with significant but until now not fully exploited innovation potential and, in addition, its first innovation strategy has been recently adopted. The innovation strategy is closely scrutinized and the process of its elaboration is critically examined within the European and especially national context. The authors demonstrate that there is a lot of conceptual ambiguity and confusion associated with the process of transferring the experiences of Western European regions to the Czech Republic. The authors believe that at least some of their observations and analysis of weaknesses of the process through which the regional innovation strategy (RIS) has been carried out will have relevance for other Czech regions and even for other regions in the new EU member states.     

The Role of Pilot Projects in Urban Climate Change Policy Innovation

Cities are taking a leadership role in addressing global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but policy innovations are needed to help cities move from goals to outcomes. Pilot projects are one means by which cities are experimenting with new ways of governing and financing climate change mitigation. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the role of pilot projects in urban policy innovation: their emergence and rationale, and the means by which they ultimately scale up and out to reduce GHG emissions. We use this framework to evaluate a pilot project for retrofitting social housing buildings in Toronto. We find the initial pilot project helped address the challenges of pursuing deep retrofits of social housing. Scaling these lessons up to the city level required overcoming challenges to financing and coordinating a larger project; scaling out to the provincial level revealed institutional and political obstacles to pursuing the co-benefits of deep building retrofits in social housing. Bridging agents play an important role in both scaling processes. The analysis reveals the additive nature of urban policy innovation and the dynamic interplay of change agents and institutional and political context in innovation processes.     

The Role of Interactive Learning to Close the “Innovation Gap” in SME-Based Local Economies: A Furniture Cluster in the Basque Country and its Key Policy Implications

This paper identifies an “innovation gap” in the (in)efficient relation between innovation structures and production systems in SME-based economies and, by elucidating an implicit aspect of key theoretical contributions from Lundvall and Cooke, among others, sets the basis for a policy focus that may help reducing those margins of inefficiency. In this work, we identify three interdependent drivers of innovation: the “critical mass” of firms in a specific geographical location; the formation of “organizations” devoted to the creation and diffusion of knowledge and innovations; the ignition of “learning processes” within the production system that help catalyse significant innovations within the local economy. We suggest that the importance of processes of codified knowledge flows needs to be complemented by interactive flows of tacit knowledge that help overcoming the “innovation gap” that often exists between firms and knowledge institutions. Since this gap represents the inefficiency of the innovation structures, we suggest that it should be targeted by policy-makers and business associations as a central issue for innovation promotion through actions that intensify interactions and learning processes through bottom-up initiatives. These elements are analysed in a furniture cluster in the Basque Country and are highlighted on the basis of successful micro-territorial experiences.     

Go East,Young Cadre: Experiments in Inter‐Provincial Training of Party and State Managers in China

This article situates China's local policy experimentation in the broader context of policy experiments in decentralized political systems, through a case study which represents a local state response to China's transition to a market economy. With growing regional and urban–rural inequalities evident after the initial reform period (1978–1994), local party leaders of inland provinces devised strategies for addressing these inequalities and encouraging public–private sector mobility among party officials. County and township‐level leaders pursued local policy experiments in which they selected and sent officials to find private‐sector work in China's booming coastal cities. Initiated in the 1990s and peaking in the 2000s, these policy experiments and inter‐provincial transfers demonstrate the discretion that local officials possess to conduct programmatic/policy experiments in a unitary political system and show how officials resort to extra‐institutional strategies in order to bridge perceived knowledge gaps. The ultimate demise of these programmes illuminates the challenges to extra‐institutional policy innovations in transitioning states.     

Where cities fail to triumph: The impact of urban location and local collaboration on innovation in Norway

The role of cities in fostering innovation has for long been taken for granted. Agglomeration and the knowledge spillovers generated in dense urban environments have been considered fundamental drivers of innovation. This view has, however, become challenged by research questioning the returns to physical agglomeration and local networking, placing instead more emphasis on the importance of interregional and international collaboration, and on innovation in peripheral regions. This paper delves into the debate on the role of cities for innovation by examining the interplay between urban location and local collaboration in Norway. It uses data from the Community Innovation Survey for 2006–2010 to map out the geographical dimension of R&D collaboration in Norwegian firms with a view to assessing whether different types of R&D collaboration in urban and rural locations affect firms’ propensity to innovate. The results show that local collaboration is associated with increased process and organisational innovation, while it does not produce higher levels of product or marketing innovation. Conversely, international collaboration is connected with higher probabilities of product, new-to-market and marketing innovations. Furthermore, location in urban or rural areas makes no difference for most innovation outcomes in Norway when other characteristics are controlled for. Location in cities also does not shape the returns to local R&D collaboration. Hence, the role of cities for innovation in Norway, whether in themselves or as sites for dense local interaction, is less relevant than the urban innovation literature would predict.     

Space, place and innovation: a distance-based approach

Innovation is increasingly considered a prerequisite for regional development and it is commonly understood that certain regions are more conducive to innovation than others. Regions that do not possess the required institutional and cultural contexts are often encouraged to work on creating them. However, there is increasing evidence that innovation is also a spatial phenomenon: the propensity of establishments to innovate also varies with their location relative to major and minor metropolitan areas, independent of local context. This article investigates whether the geography of innovation is similar for three different types of manufacturing sectors ( high-tech (HT), medium-tech, first and second transformation) and across two different types of innovation (product, process). It is shown that, in Québec, to the extent that geography and innovation are connected, it is principally distance from a metropolitan area that plays a role. Our results lend support to   McCann's (2007)   recent spatial model of innovation and are also compatible with   Duranton and Puga's (2003)   theory of nursery cities. Our results also show that HT innovators behave differently from other manufacturers, with a tendency to internalize their innovation behaviour (perhaps out of necessity or for reasons of secrecy) in more distant locations.     

SPID: A New Database for Inferring Public Policy Innovativeness and Diffusion Networks

Despite its rich tradition, there are key limitations to researchers' ability to make generalizable inferences about state policy innovation and diffusion. This paper introduces new data and methods to move from empirical analyses of single policies to the analysis of comprehensive populations of policies and rigorously inferred diffusion networks. We have gathered policy adoption data appropriate for estimating policy innovativeness and tracing diffusion ties in a targeted manner (e.g., by policy domain, time period, or policy type) and extended the development of methods necessary to accurately and efficiently infer those ties. Our state policy innovation and diffusion (SPID) database includes 728 different policies coded by topic area. We provide an overview of this new dataset and illustrate two key uses: (i) static and dynamic innovativeness measures and (ii) latent diffusion networks that capture common pathways of diffusion between states across policies. The scope of the data allows us to compare patterns in both across policy topic areas. We conclude that these new resources will enable researchers to empirically investigate classes of questions that were difficult or impossible to study previously, but whose roots go back to the origins of the political science policy innovation and diffusion literature.     

Land Policy and Farming Practices in Laos

The government of Laos has identified the eradication of poverty as a priority. Given the primarily agricultural character of the country, it has selected land reform as a core policy to reach this goal. The policy has two major aims: to increase land tenure security in order to encourage farmer involvement in intensive farming, and to eliminate slash‐and‐burn agriculture to protect the environment in a country still rich in forest resources. State intervention takes the form of land allocation, a process which combines the protection of some areas of village land with the formal recognition of private ownership in authorized farming areas. In a country with different types of geography, the effects of the policy are variable, but the research presented in this article demonstrates that the land laws have shortcomings which allow for differing interpretations depending on the local social relationships. Since local specificities are not taken into account, the reform is proving counterproductive for both forest protection and agricultural modernization, as well as having a negative social impact by marginalizing the poorest farmers.     

Renewable energy innovations and sustainability transition: How relevant are spatial spillovers?

In the societal challenge to switch to renewable energy, innovation has become an ever‐increasing critical determinant. However, while sustainability transition is a global challenge, diffusion and adoption of innovation tends to be uneven in space and unequal access may cause substantial heterogeneity in energy transition. This research analyzes how domestic and foreign innovation activities in the renewable energy sector influence energy transition over time. Empirical testing shows that a country's domestic innovation activity impacts renewable electricity generation capacity sooner than foreign technological innovations. I document that there are substantial barriers to substitute foreign technologies for domestic innovation efforts in the short run but also observe that foreign technologies have a stronger impact after some years. These findings have implications for cross‐border coordination of governmental innovation support and complementary policy instruments that aim at increasing adoption speed across borders.     

Wissenschaftsstädte – Zur Bedeutung des Topos der ‘kreativen Stadt’ für die Wissensproduktion

Science Cities: What the Concept of the Creative City Means for Knowledge Production. – The article aims to show that the relationship of science and the city has changed since the 1970s in the context of the knowledgeable society. While cities have principally been regarded as the typical space of science, of new ideas and innovation for centuries, since the 1960s and 1970s universities, research institutes as well as industrial research institutes have relocated to the periphery of cities. There, however, these sites of knowledge have been organized in an ‘urban mode’. That means that the concept of the city as a place of science and innovation has determined the architectural, spatial, and social organization of these sites on the periphery of cities. Certain features of the city have been copied, such as social infrastructures, places of communication, restaurants, cafes etc., while others have been left out – housing, cinema, theatre etc. An ‘urban mode of knowledge production’ in the sense of a very stylized model of the city has become a tool to enhance the production of scientific and technological knowledge. – The article exemplifies this by focusing on a case study, namely of the so‐called ‘Science City’ of the Siemens Company in Munich‐Neuperlach.     

The Development of “Sports-City” Zones and Their Potential Value as Tourism Resources for Urban Areas

In recent years, several cities have constructed new sports facilities in concentrated areas or supplemented existing facilities to create a themed sport zone. Some have branded these areas as “sports cities” to give them visibility and coherence. This research assesses the rationale for these projects, in particular, their potential value as new tourist areas for cities. Although the relationship between sport and cities is an established part of urban studies, there is currently little research that explicitly addresses this new phenomenon of themed areas of cities dedicated to sport. To address the lack of previous work, existing literature on comparable manifestations of themed urban areas is used as a conceptual basis for the paper. A comparative analysis is then conducted of four specific schemes: “SportCity”, Manchester (UK); “The International Sports Village”, Cardiff (UK); “The Aspire Zone”, Doha (Qatar) and “Dubai Sports City” (UAE). These different sports-city zones are compared and evaluated with reference to issues raised in the literature. The paper concludes that, to be successful, sports-city zones need to be planned as such, and not merely employed as convenient brands for existing events facilities.     

吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力的定量化研究

本文选取吉林省9个地区的核心城市,进行可持续发展能力的定量化研究。提出了针对吉林省核心城市的可持续发展能力评估的5个方面49个指标,分别采用指数化方法与因子分析法对吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力进行测度。经对比分析,最后确定以指数化方法的研究结论作为吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力的测试结果,并对结论进行了定性分析。     

Do We Need a GCC Bank to Facilitate the Economic Turnaround of the GCC Region?

Amidst the ongoing crisis of plummeting oil prices, the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) terrain has become a haunt of economists and financial analysts to tackle the ongoing challenges in the region. GCC constituents are gearing themselves with a robust political will that they hope could result in a turnaround of their economy by adopting a policy of economic diversification in nonoil‐based sectors. With this background supported by extensive qualitative scan of literature pertaining to the reforms proposed by the six members of the GCC to drive the economy forward amidst ongoing economic crisis, this article seeks to underscore the prospect of a shared initiative by the GCC constituents in institutionalizing a GCC bank as a potent innovative solution which may serve to provide an edifice for pushing forth the region's economy in nonhydrocarbon segments contingent upon the individual needs of the GCC constituents. As an exploratory study, this paper sheds light on these issues besides discussing the fundamental functions of the GCC bank.     

清代黄土高原地区城镇书院的时空分布与选址特征

清代城镇书院已比较普遍地发展起来,但城镇书院在各地的发展却经历了不同的时空演变过程。本文通过对黄土高原地区不同级别城镇书院的考察,详细地揭示了不同级别城镇书院的时空演变过程及其特征。府县级城镇仿效省会设立书院的实践主要在乾隆年间才出现,城镇书院的发展总体上由区域东南部向西北部推广,乾隆时期出现发展高峰,发展重心向黄河以西转移。城镇书院时空变化特征显著。书院选址以城内为主,空间上体现了偏重东部和东南部的观念。