We examine whether discretionary government grants influence thelocation of new plants. Grants have a small effect in attracting plants to specificgeographic areas, but their effectiveness increases with agglomeration externalities,measured by the number of other plants in that location in the...

This paper uses the case study example of the recent application by British Aerospace (BAe) for£25m in Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) for its Broughton facility in North Wales andsubsequent granting of £19.5 m in assorted grant aid, to illustrate some of the wider regionalpolicy issues...

Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are commonworldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. Weexploit multiple changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a major program to supportmanufacturing jobs...

Although other regional- and sector-oriented promotional approaches exist alongside cluster promotion, from today's perspective the popularity of the cluster approach appears undiminished. At the global scale, no funding approach is as much discussed and implemented as the cluster concept. It...

Due to globalization competitive firms face increasing economic opportunities for locating their activities in countries, regions and cities that provide the best business environment for their specific needs. In our study we focus on the impact of economic risk and risk preferences upon...

This paper sets out a comprehensive framework to identify regional business cycles within Spain and analyses their stylised features and the degree of synchronisation both within them and between them and the Spanish economy. We show that the regional cycles are quite heterogeneous although they...

In Western economies, the concrete design of fiscal federalism is determined by the status the federation grants to regionally comparable economic and social conditions, and to what extent this status is anchored in the constitution. If the political and social acceptance of regional differences...

We investigate the political and economic factors influencing the allocation of regional development grants for a panel of Canadian electoral districts in the 1988-2001 period. In a strong party system such as Canada's, models of political competition predict little role for individual...