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...

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...

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)...