Universities are increasingly encouraged to take a leading role in economic development, particularly through innovation. Simultaneously, economic development policy itself is increasingly focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), creating overlapping interactions in the roles of...

The vast majority of regions in West Germany, and the EU, have become more similar in terms of per-capita income and productivity between 1980 and 2000. But a number of rich areas - generally large agglomerations - have succeeded in departing from this trend of convergence. They are continuing...