This paper explores the impact of industrial clusters on regional growth at level of German labour market regions within a regional convergence model. It focuses on vertically connected industrial sectors, which can emerge parallel to horizontal interconnections. Based on works of Schnabl (2000)...

Regional politicians regard the cluster concept as a key factor for promoting regional economic performance. They refer to a comprehensive set of theoretical and empirical literature which provides the clusters' positive impact on regional development. Recent studies dealing with that topic...