Knowledge, innovation, agglomeration and regional convergence in the EU: motivating place-based regional intervention

Gianni Guastella and Francesco Timpano

Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, 2016, vol. 36, issue 2, No 2, 143 pages

Abstract: Abstract The accumulation of knowledge, human capital and agglomeration are indicated as prominent sources of externalities. Therefore, this study examines their contributions to the economic growth of regions in Europe, while accounting for non-linear and threshold effects as well as spatial dependence. The results highlight differentiated growth patterns for less and more developed regions with the effect of knowledge being considerable only in the latter group. The findings suggest that there is the potential for innovation and agglomeration in many less developed regions located in both the new member states (NMS) and the old member states (OMS). However, to reach sustained growth, structural change is necessary in these regions. We conclude that the existing gaps in the economic structure are deemed responsible for the persistence of income disparities. This reinforces the call for specific policy actions in catching-up regions, thus strengthening the arguments in favour of a place-based approach to regional policy.

Keywords: Agglomeration; Externalities; Regional growth; Generalised additive models; Place-based regional policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10037-015-0104-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jahrfr:v:36:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s10037-015-0104-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10037

DOI: 10.1007/s10037-015-0104-x

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft is currently edited by Thomas Brenner and Georg Hirte

More articles in Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft from Springer, Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().