In this paper, the changing roles of agglomeration externalities during different stages of the industry life cycle are investigated. A central argument is that agglomeration externalities vary with mode of competition, innovation intensity, and characteristics of learning opportunities in...

The question of how new regional growth paths emerge has been raised by many leading economic geographers. From an evolutionary perspective, there are strong reasons to believe that regions are most likely to branch into industries that are technologically related to the preexisting industries...

Cities vary with regard to the characteristics of their economic life. A formal model by Duranton and Puga (2001) suggests a division of labour between diversified and specialized cities. Diversified cities (the “nursery cities”) provide a fertile environment for search and innovation....

In this paper we measure technological relatedness between industries using a dataset on product portfolios of plants. For this purpose we first develop a general methodology to extract data on co-occurrences of classes (e.g. industries) in a single entity (e.g. a plant) to construct estimates...

Using dynamic panel data methods on UK counties (1841-1971), we investigate long-term employment dynamics in seven distinct local industries. We study how industries benefit from specialised environments (MAR), diverse local economies (Jacobs’) and large local markets (urbanization), and, in...

This article studies path dependent regional structural change using a quantitative framework. Based on an inter-relatedness indicator, the degree to which local skill-bases exist and force local economies onto a path-dependent development trajectory is studied. The main question is into which...

Who introduces structural change in regional economies: Entrepreneurs or existing firms? And do local or non-local firms and entrepreneurs create most novelty in a region? Using matched employer-employee data for the whole Swedish workforce, we determine how unrelated and therefore how novel the...

The economic geography can be viewed as a large and growing network of interacting activities. This fundamental network structure and the large size of such systems makes complex networks an attractive model for its analysis. In this paper we propose the use of complex networks for geographical...

In economic theory, one can distinguish between variety as a source of regional knowledge spillovers, called Jacobs externalities, and variety as a portfolio protecting a region from external shocks. We argue that Jacobs externalities are best measured by related variety (within sectors), while...

Urban economic growth and industrial clustering is traditionally explained by Marshallian agglomeration economies benefiting co-located firms. The focus on firms rather than people has been challenged by Florida arguing that urban amenities and a tolerant climate attract creative people, and the...