Strong regional clusters are increasingly seen as a response to economic globalization by policy makers and regional development agencies. The reasoning of competitive advantages of countries and regions with enterprises organized in clusters has mainly been popularized by Porter (1990, 1998,...

This article analyses how regional employment growth in Germany is affected by related variety, unrelated variety and the functions a region performs in the production process. Following the related variety literature, we argue that regions benefit from the existence of related activities that...

Although the phase of euphoria seems to be over, policymakers and regional agencies have maintained their interest in cluster policy. Modern cluster theory provides reasons for positive external effects that may accrue from interaction in a group of proximate enterprises operating in common and...

Regional economic policy faces the challenge of two competing policy goals - reducing regional economic disparities vs. promoting economic growth. The allocation of public funds has to weigh these goals particularly under the restriction of scarce financial re- sources. If, however, some region...