Related Variety and Regional Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of European Urban Regions

Frank Oort, Stefan de Geus and Teodora Dogaru

European Planning Studies, 2015, vol. 23, issue 6, 1110-1127

Abstract: This paper introduces indicators of regional related variety and unrelated variety to conceptually overcome the current impasse in the specialization-diversity debate in agglomeration economics. Although various country-level studies have been published on this conceptualization in recent years, a pan-European test has been missing from the literature until now. A pan-European test is more interesting than country-level tests, as newly defined cohesion policies, smart-specialization policies, place-based development strategies and competitiveness policies may be especially served by related variety and unrelated variety conceptualizations. We test empirically for the significance of variables based on these concepts, using a cross-sectional data set for 205 European regions during the period 2000-2010. The results confirming our hypotheses are that related variety is significantly related to employment growth, especially in small and medium-sized city-regions, and that specialization is significantly related to productivity growth. We do not find robust relationships that are hypothesized between unrelated variety and unemployment growth .

Date: 2015
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Working Paper: Related Variety and Regional Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of European Urban Regions (2013)
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DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2014.905003

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