We design a conceptual framework for linking two approaches: the literature on absorptive capacity and the literature on spatial knowledge spillovers. Regions produce new knowledge, but only part of it is efficiently adopted in the economy; the share of efficiently adopted technology depends on...

We exploit employment data from 10,528 parishes across nineteenth century England and Wales and find that a one standard deviation increase in finance employment increases the annualized growth rate of secondary labour by 0.8 percentage points. An endogenous growth model with finance and...

Knowledge drives the growth of nations and regions in a competitive space-economy. Hence, we would expect a strong correlation between investments in R&D, knowledge and learning processes, on the one hand, and productivity increases, on the other. However, the empirical evidence shows consistent...

The aim of this paper is to assess the role played by creativity and other components of human capital on the process of economic growth for 257 regions in the 27 member countries of the European Union. We first decompose the regional human capital endowment to distinguish between the...

After the German reunification, interregional subsidies accounted for approximately four percent of gross fixed capital investment in the new federal states. We show that between 1992 and 2005 infrastructure and (small) business aid had a negative net impact on regional economic growth. This...

After the German reunification, interregional subsidies accounted for approximately four percent of gross fixed capital investment in the new federal states. We show that between 1992 and 2005 infrastructure and (small) business aid had a negative net impact on regional economic growth. This...

An emerging literature on the geography of bohemians argues that a region's lifestyle and cultural amenities explain, at least partly, the unequal distribution of highly qualified people across space, which in turn, explains geographic disparities in economic growth. However, to date, there has...

We analyze the extent to which endogenous cultural amenities affect the spatial equilibrium share of high-human-capital employees. To overcome endogeneity, we draw on a quasi-natural experiment in German history and exploit the exogenous spatial distribution of baroque opera houses built as a...