We explore the extent to which present day economic development at the sub-national level, captured by GDP per capita, urbanization, and night-time light density, is correlated to regional economic development in the year 1850. Drawing on historical city data, we construct a measure of urban...

Regions with high population agglomeration have always been important centers of growth throughout history. However, little is known about the economic spillovers an agglomerated region produces on its neighboring areas. In this paper, I look at the effect of growth of an agglomerated county on...

This chapter describes how the spatial distribution of economic activity changes as economies develop and grow. We start with the relation between development and rural–urban migration. Moving beyond the coarse rural–urban distinction, we then focus on the continuum of locations in an...

This paper contributes to the new literature on the role of personality for regional innovativeness by examining whether this role varies between different types of regions. Building on regionally aggregated levels of individual Big Five personality traits, we find that only extraversion has a...

The present paper deals with the perceptions about market conditions and public policies related to enhance entrepreneurial activities at regional levels. This is the first academic research at regional level in Chile and one of the few in Latin America to study this issue. The main results seem...

This paper focuses on the Ink Jet Printing (IJP) industry in the vicinity of Cambridge, UK, and explores the emergence and maturation of a knowledge-based cluster of activity. The discussion is organised in terms of the origins and progeny of the firms in the cluster and their business...

In recent decades, the ethnic composition of the European population has changed substantially, leading to a rapid increase of cultural diversity in the EU as a whole, at the level of individual member states, and at the regional level. This paper focusses on the regional level and investigates...

This paper discusses alternative measures of cultural diversity to be used in subsequent investigations of the impacts of cultural diversity on regional development in Europe. It derives indicators for the measurement of cultural diversity from the literature and describes possible adjustments...

Several regions across the EU, including the Netherlands, face the challenges of population decline, which entails changing demographics and related social and economic implications. Social ties are disrupted by continuous out-migration, causing a decrease in support systems which may adversely...

We investigate regional differences of the effect of new business formation on employment growth in West Germany. We find an inverse 'u'-shaped relationship between the level of start-up activity and employment change. The main variables that shape the employment effects of new businesses in a...