High-skilled Return Migration and Knowledge-based Development in Poland

It is by now well known that return migration of the highly skilled can have a significant impact on knowledge-based development in the regions to which they return. Whereas previous research has mainly focused on developing and newly industrializing countries, this paper looks at high-skilled return migration in an East European transformation economy, namely Poland. In our paper, we propose an analytical framework which integrates migration theory and regional development perspectives. Based on narrative interviews with high-skilled return migrants in Warsaw and Poznań, we show that high-skilled return migrants have an impact on economic development by acting as both investors and innovators, i.e. that they transfer and successfully integrate financial means as well as different types of knowledge into these local economies. Furthermore, the Polish example illustrates that social relations and institutional context are crucial in understanding how high-skilled return migrants contribute to knowledge-based development.     

Knowledge and Proximity

Over the years knowledge has come to be seen as crucial for economic progress, and proximity as conducive to knowledge exchange. As a result, knowledge-related processes are often considered as possible explanation of the spatial agglomeration of economic activities. However, knowledge and proximity are general concepts that have to be detailed before it is possible to specify the concrete mechanisms at work. Building on recent work that focuses on proximity, this paper develops a perspective in which proximity features as an enabling element, but no more than that, in ongoing processes of knowledge creation, transfer, absorption, and change. We argue that knowledge is to be viewed as activity and process, rather than object or commodity. Concentrating on “knowledge agents”—those engaged in knowledge-related processes, individuals and collectives—will be more productive than persisting to rely on the distinction between tacit and codified knowledge to explain spatial aspects of the economy. Finally, we argue that regions are different when it comes to the extent, and the way, they facilitate creation, transfer, and other knowledge processes. Contributions to local or regional economic development, whether through research or policy, have to take existing repertoires—patterns in collective knowledge—into account.     

Fragmented Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization in the Greek Regions

This paper examines the degree of business cycle synchronicity among Greek regions and investigates the determinants of the business cycle co-movements of output associated with specific functional and spatial aspects of the integration process among the Greek regions. We analyse nearly 30 years (1980–2008) of data at the NUTSIII level (prefectures). We conclude that the business cycles of prefectures are more synchronized with the NUTSII regional cycle than with the national business cycle revealing a regional (NUTSII) border effect. Moreover, the intensification of the integration process seems to diachronically affect the structural characteristics of the Greek regions and the geography of cyclical synchronization. Our study reveals a two-stage integration process where in the first stage we detect the existence of urbanization economies, while in the second one the existence of localization economies. Furthermore, our study reveals that the metropolitan regions have a low level of business cycle synchronicity with the other regions, stressing Greece's pattern of economic and structural dualism.     

Economic Policies and Local Development: Some Reflections

Every national system is also a sum of all its regional economies. Then, there are economically differentiated regions within nations. If the foregoing is true, a crucial problem for economic policy is determining which policies should be pursued at the national level (national policies), and on what grounds, and which should instead be developed at the local, regional level (local policies). What policies influence the development and competitiveness of regional economies? This article tries to discuss these issues.The first causal relation to examine is that between national economic policies and the competitiveness of a country's regions. The picture grows even more complex if we consider that there are national policies which have explicitly geographical objectives. Then, why not count on national policies, even locally differentiated ones? Having answered this question this paper addresses the opposite issue: why should we not view the entirety, or at least the largest part, of national economic policy--and development policies in particular--as simply the sum of local economic policies? How can one distinguish between the local effects of national economic policies and those of local development policies? A further problem is providing a satisfactory definition of regions (i.e. the areas in which policies are to be implemented) and of their boundaries.     

Intra- and inter-regional knowledge spillovers: Evidence from European regions

Is the knowledge creation process linear or characterized by feedback relations among actors involved in the regional innovation system? How can the innovation process of ‘lagging’ regions be strengthened? What is the role and extent of inter-regional knowledge spillovers? The paper aims at providing satisfactory answers in investigating a knowledge production function framework adapted to the specific questions and which is tested on an extended sample of European regions. On the basis of the results, concrete policy measures are derived aiming at upgrading the knowledge creation capacity of European regions.     

全球视野下的价值链治理研究

在全球化背景下,以地方产业集群为发展模式的区域经济,其竞争力的提升需要在全球价值链中与区域外的经济行为主体积极互动,并实现升级。而价值链治理分析是经济地理学理论研究地方产业集群升级的关键。在这种研究视角下,本文以价值链治理为研究对象,首先界定了价值链治理的概念;并从理论上讨论了全球价值链治理模式的主要类型和演化过程;然后,进一步分析了价值链治理产生的原因、价值链治理的应用,以及价值链治理对地方产业网络升级的影响;最后,本文对国际现有的价值链治理理论进行了比较深入的讨论,并提出进一步研究的展望。     

THE DATA AVALANCHE IS HERE. SHOULDN’T WE BE DIGGING?

ABSTRACT.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of fine-grained data on cities, transportation, economies, and societies, much of these data referenced in geo-space and time. There is a tremendous opportunity to discover new knowledge about spatial economies that can inform theory and modeling in regional science. However, there is little evidence of computational methods for discovering knowledge from databases in the regional science literature. This paper addresses this gap by clarifying the geospatial knowledge discovery process, its relation to scientific knowledge construction, and identifying challenges to a greater role in regional science.     

New High-Tech Industries and Windows of Locational Opportunity: The Role OfLabour Markets and Knowledge Institutions During the Industrial Era

This paper presents a theoretical concept (the so-called“Open Windows of Locational Opportunity” concept, or OWLO concept) which provides an explanation for why it is rather uncertain and unpredictable where new high-technology industries will emerge in space. This is due to three tightly linked features of new high-tech industries. Firstly, new high-tech industries reflect a high rate of discontinuity because they place new demandson their local production environment. Secondly, due to this mismatch, new high-tech industries depend on their creative ability to generate or attract their own favourable production environment. This creative capacity compensates for the lack of specific local stimuli, as associated with their discontinuous nature. Thirdly, the OWLO concept claims that chance events may have a considerable impact on the place where new industries emerge. This is because it remains unpredictable at which place potentially favourable resources of a generic nature set in motion a creative process which brings increasing returns (that is, “localization economies”) into the local production environment. As a consequence, many regions are considered to be in a more or less equal position to develop new high-tech industries during their initialstage of growth, despite their different techno-industrial histories. We have further illustrated this OWLO concept by linking it to the problem of whether regional labour markets and knowledge institutions may facilitate the ability of regions to generate new high-tech industries, despite the fact that these require new knowledge and skills. We made an attempt to specify in broad terms the extent to which local supplies of labour and institutionalized knowledge may have influenced the place where so-called new clusters of innovative industries emerged in Great Britain and Belgium during the industrial epoch. We presented some evi-dence that the three key notions of the OWLO concept described above have indeed been features of the spatial emergence of many new clusters in both countries during their initial stage of development.     

Agglomeration and the Local State: The Tobacco Economy of Yunnan, China

This paper explores the interplay of local state action with historical contingency, innovation and external economies in the world's largest tobacco-producing region – Yunnan, China. Formed in a relatively unindustrialized province and promoted by local authorities as their primary revenue base, Yunnan's tobacco economy gained a headstart through concentrated resource support and ad hoc regulatory flexibility. Its further growth has drawn greatly on intraregional spillovers of knowledge of locally based institutional innovation, which foster and enhance conventional forms of external economies. Implications for the study of regional economies are discussed.     

Scientific knowledge production in European regions: patterns of growth,diversity and complexity

ABSTRACT

We study regional patterns of scientific knowledge production in Europe using all scientific publications in the period 2000–2014 attributed to 813 scientific subfields. We show that the existing scientific portfolio of regions offers opportunities for related diversification and discourages the creation of knowledge on topics unrelated to the local knowledge base. Many lagging regions show clear growth, but complex knowledge production remains highly concentrated in regions in the North and West of Europe. For lagging regions there are advantages in not specializing too soon and to first diversify before moving into developing more complex knowledge.     

权力集中化、生产片断化与全球价值链下本土产业的升级

全球领先企业的权力集中化和生产的片断化导致价值分配的非均衡,并进一步加剧了全球生产网络中权力结构的不对称。本文提出全球价值链上的权力是一种建立在战略资源基础上的不对称的话语权,并归纳了八种基本的市场权力形式。通过对全球十大工业制成品及服务业的市场份额分析,发现技术能力和品牌能力是全球领先企业市场权力集中的主要根源,也是决定全球价值链上价值分配的决定性因素。嵌入全球价值链有利于发展中国家的本土企业迅速提高生产能力、接近全球市场和技术通道,但是从生产能力到创新能力的升级过程并非自动发生;全球价值链生产片断化带来创新过程的垂直分离和重新整合,发展中国家产业升级的关键在于本土企业的吸收能力和学习速度。     

A note on,wind‐stars

There has been a revival of interest in recent years in the relationships between multinational corporations (hereafter MNCs) and the host regions in which they operate. The branch plant thesis which generally views inward investment by MNCs in a negative light — as reinforcing power relations between core and peripheral regions — has been challenged, with the suggestion that such developments can play a key role in linking up local economies to important flows of knowledge and information in a global economy. It has also been suggested that MNC branch plant activities are in practice often upgraded over time, leading to the development of important competitive advantages for host regions. In this paper, such claims are investigated through a case study of the Aberdeen oil region in the north east of Scotland. The changing position of Aberdeen within the oil industry's corporate division of labour is evaluated in terms of the wider theoretical debate.     

Regional Economy Size and the Growth–Instability Frontier: Evidence from Europe

Predictions of the portfolio model of the economy are tested using regional growth data from Europe. It is shown that more aggregated regions of Europe tend to be more economically diverse than more disaggregated regions. Then, using different frontier estimation methods, evidence of a convex growth–instability frontier for aggregated regions is presented. At the most regionally disaggregated level for which there are data, there is weak if any evidence of the frontier. The results suggest that large economies are appropriately modeled as portfolios, whose growth processes are characterized by the convex growth–instability frontier, whereas small local economies do not display this characteristic.     

FACTOR ACCUMULATION,EXTERNALITIES, AND ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY IN REGIONAL GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM EUROPE

This paper proposes a model that incorporates capital accumulation and spatial spillovers across economies, while allowing for regional differences in absorptive capacity. This model is estimated using a sample of EU regions, over a period including the enlargement of the single‐market area in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. Results confirm the relevance of local absorptive capacity that is directly linked with the process of making the most of externalities. Capital deepening reduced the role of capital in explaining the regional productivity gap, but was not enough to help lagging regions to equal the return to human capital investments reached by most advanced regions.     

The Fukuoka Silicon Sea-belt Project—An East Asian Experiment in Developing Transnational Networks

This article illustrates the recent development of the Fukuoka Silicon Sea-Belt Project in Japan which enhances transnational inter-linkages between regional clusters. Local innovation cluster developing in Fukuok on Kyushu Island, is situated in a wider cross-border division of labour in globalizing economies, especially in the current political economy of East Asia. The development of the semiconductor industry in Kyushu Island is analysed in terms of the developing transnational networks of knowledge production which encompass regions in East Asia.     

Smart specialization and institutional context: the role of institutional discovery,change and leapfrogging

ABSTRACT

Recent years have witnessed much experimentation with smart specialization strategies (RIS3) and entrepreneurial discovery processes (EDPs) in European regions. The EDP can be seen as an opportunity to address institutional questions. Because institutional patterns can explain why some policies are eventually successful while others are not, looking at the institutional context of regional economies can increase the effectiveness of regional policy. This article argues that the EDP functions as a framework to discover institutional patterns specific to a regional economy, and to define policies either consistent with existing institutions or aiming at institutional change. The article proposes a conceptual framework to understand and analyze the two institution-related roles of the EDP, first as an institutional discovery process and second as an institutional change process. The article builds on empirical case studies in two regions (Lower Austria, Austria and South Tyrol, Italy) and two small countries (Slovenia and Croatia). The case studies focus on how these regions or countries organized the EDP that eventually led to the formulation of their RIS3, and on the institutional dynamics of the EDP in discovering and changing institutions. The article concludes with policy implications that contribute to the debate on post-2020 EU Cohesion Policy.     

农区产业集群、网络与中部崛起

我国中部六省地区由于多种原因在全国区域经济格局中已经成为了"经济增长速度的相对塌陷地区",实施"中部崛起"战略是学术界、中央和地方政府达成的共识。本文在分析中部地区存在问题的基础上提出,实施产业集群战略、创建本地企业网络是实现中部崛起的有效途径。发展农区产业集群可以提高集群企业和区域产业的竞争力,推动农村工业化和城镇化进程,促进县域经济的发展。而企业之间的网络联系是产业集群的本质特征,培育产业集群必须从创建企业网络入手。最后,本文对如何在中部农区培育产业集群、创建企业网络作了探讨。     

Arriving at the Dawn of the New Economy: Is Knowledge-Based Industrial Renewal Possible in a Peripheral Region?

In the contemporary knowledge economy, characterized by both globalization and localization of economic activities, the ability of both firms and their respective regions to adapt to changes in their external environment and to retain their competitiveness is closely related to their capacity to innovate and to continually upgrade existing structures, practices and knowledge bases. In this respect, co-location of firms operating in the new knowledge-intensive sectors is typically considered to be beneficial for both the firms themselves and for their respective regional economies. In this study, we considered whether knowledge-based industrial renewal is possible in peripheral regions. The empirical study was designed to identify tendencies towards and potential concentrations of new knowledge-intensive industries in the relatively peripheral region of Pohjois-Savo in Finland. The strength of such tendencies was determined by employing the Herfindahl index and location-quotient methods. The analysis indicates that while the more traditional industries still appear to be dominating the region's economic landscape, the new knowledge-intensive industries have gained at least a foothold in the region, indicating a potential target for local policymakers' further development efforts. Pohjois-Savo can be considered to be a typical Finnish region, characterized by a large central city with a university, a few smaller sub-regional centres and the surrounding large rural periphery. However, earlier literature with the same focus is lacking and regional strategies and entrepreneurial structures differ in different regions; thus, we cannot establish whether these conclusions hold in other regions in Finland or how applicable these results are in an international context.     

从地方到全球全球价值链框架下集群的升级研究

从"地方"到"全球"是近5年来国际上对产业集群研究视角的新转向。本文首先回顾了学术界强调的"内生生长因素"集群发展观。并揭示现阶段"新区域主义"在产业集群发展出现新状况时,解释力的局限。由此,介绍了目前国际地理学界对"新区域主义"理论的置疑和再思考,同时引入国际上"重视外部资源、把地方经济发展纳入全球产业背景"的新集群发展观。并通过对全球价值链(ValueChains)分析框架的介绍,从理论上探讨国际产业集群研究新动态对中国集群研究的启示。