Industrial Enterprises and Economic Space: the Network Paradigm

This paper is an extended review essay stimulated by the book of Conti, Malecki and Oinas (1995) on The Industrial Enterprise and its Environment. Three different paradigms of industrial organization are outlined with what has earlier been referred to as the network paradigm best capturing contemporary realities. The spatial implications of this framework are then drawn out and the limits of the paradigm summarized.     

Compensation modes of border effects in cross‐border regions

Both international and regional economics discuss borders as barriers to economic growth. They hamper trade flows between areas sharing an international border (a demand effect), as well as causing firms’ inefficiency because of the increase in production costs (supply side). In the theoretical and empirical discussions, no question has been raised on whether regional economies are able to set up compensation mechanisms, by replacing low endowments with high efficiency in the use of existing assets, or by compensating an inefficient use of internal assets with an efficient use of external ones. The reply to this question has normative implications. Empirical evidence on the universe of 1,398 European NUTS3 regions is presented and policy suggestions elaborated.     

A Minimal Representation for Dead-Reckoning Navigation: Updating the Homing Vector

A number of organisms are capable of traveling directly back to the origin of locomotion after following a circuitous outbound path, using dead-reckoning navigation. We describe a minimal representation that could be used for such navigation. It involves keeping track of only the polar coordinates of the origin of locomotion with respect to the observer's current location. An exact solution is provided first, followed by a simplified solution, then a solution involving linearization of trigonometric functions. The paper also examines performance attainable with these solutions and briefly considers ways in which the model might be modified to account for human navigation without reference to landmarks.     

Recent Theoretical Paradigms in Urban Growth

The aim of this article is to present a critical view of the theoretical toolboxes developed in urban economics to explain urban city size. The article starts with the consideration that, during the 1960s and 1970s, the question of optimal city-size tended to be expressed in a misleading way. The real issue is not an “optimal city size” but an “efficient size”, which depends on the functional characteristics of the city and on the spatial organization within the urban system. Economies of scale exist up to a certain city size. However, urban development generates conditions leading to structural readjustments which lead to new economic advantages. These structural adjustments may be either sectoral transformations towards higher-order functions, or the emergence of external linkages with other cities. The article provides recent empirical evidence of the role played by urban functions and city networking in explaining urban equilibrium size. The empirical analyses reported here witness the importance of the structural adjustment of cities needed to achieve a higher equilibrium size.     

A Reappraisal of Dinas Powys: Local Exchange and Specialized Livestock Production in 5th- to 7th-century Wales

RESULTS OF THE analysis of a previously unstudied group of animal bone from Dinas Powys are tested against the original report and subsequent interpretations. Assumptions inherent in the initial sampling policy and analysis are discussed. The present interpretation explores the concept of social production in early medieval Wales.     

The Colonial History of the 1905 Aliens Act

The passing of the Aliens Act of 1905 was a defining moment in British immigration law and history. This article investigates the influence of settler-colonial immigration restriction laws on the passing of the Act, and questions the current historiographical inclination to focus solely on the influence of American immigration restriction laws. By analysing the trajectory of contemporary public debates, the evidence given to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration (1902–03) and the political discussion on various bills, the article shows that the existence of colonial immigration restriction laws played an important role in the formulation and passing of the 1905 Aliens Act. Putting the Act in this larger context highlights its colonial derivation, but also its uniqueness: the British Act's defence of asylum, the exception extended to those landing as political and religious refugees, has no parallel in either early US law or any of the settler-colonial laws.     

Competitiveness through integration in the European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region: a ‘balanced development’ approach

In the last 10 years, the European Union has devoted specific attention and resources to the establishment of macro-regional strategies, with the objective of joining together transnational areas to favour the effective and organized management of common challenges. In most macro-regions, however, the identification of strategies to increase competitiveness is a rather difficult task, given the extreme internal diversity in economic activities. Focusing on the youngest macro-regional strategy – EUSALP – this paper highlights the specific combinations of territorial growth assets that allow to overcome the inefficient use of local abundant strategic resources, in line with a ‘balanced development’ approach. The results, obtained on the basis of a database gathered at NUTS3 level, are useful to provide policy suggestions to support the competitiveness of EUSALP through synergies and complementarities, according to a cooperation networks perspective.