This paper investigates the impact of regional sectoral diversity on regional employment growth in Italy over the period 1991-2001. Assuming that externalities may be stronger between industries selling similar products or sharing the same skills and technology (i.e. related industries), we...

This paper makes an attempt to estimate the impact of regional variety and trade linkages on regional economic growth by means of export and import data by Italian province (NUTS 3) and sector (3-digit) for the period 1995-2003. Our results show strong evidence of related variety contributing to...

This paper analyzes the effects of the evolution of knowledge base in the manufacturing sectors on regional productivity growth. Knowledge is viewed as a heterogeneous asset, and an evolutionary perspective is adopted. The results of the empirical estimations corroborate the hypothesis that...

This paper uses a Finnish policy intervention to study tax competition among local governments. Changes in the statutory lower limits to the property tax rates are used as a source of exogenous variation to estimate the responses of municipalities to tax rates in their neighbouring...

In this paper we contribute to the longstanding discussion on the role of knowledge to economic growth in a spatial context. We observe that in adopting the European policy strategy towards a competitive knowledge economy, The Netherlands is – as most European countries - mainly oriented...

This paper looks at the role of network effects in telecommunications markets. Network effects are said to exist when an existing user of a network benefits from any new user to the network. Even the expectation of a large network will positively influence users' willingness to pay. After the...

The provision of transport infrastructure outside the most populated regions in Finland has been under budgetary pressure for more than decade. Many of these less populated areas suffer a decline of the population, which adds to the stress on these regional economies. The prolonged reduction in...

Whilst there is a long tradition of economic analysis of charging for the use of road infrastructure, the situation relating to rail is quite different. In most cases until recently railways have been integrated organisations with the same body responsible for infrastructure and operations. Rail...

The paper presents an overview of issues related to standardization in the European transportation market. The paper identifies current trends in the European transportation policy: deregulation in service markets, horizontal integration of infrastructures/networks, and vertical disintegration...

The fast development in communications and information based industries as well as in other network related industries gives rise to new constellations in competition and innovation. These are strongly dependent on strategic decisions which can be analysed by the concepts of network...