The geographical sources of innovation of firms have been hotly debated. While the traditional view is that physical proximity within city-regions is key for the innovative capacity of firms, the literature on ‘global pipelines’ has been stressing the importance of establishing communication...

The creative industries have long been seen as an innovative sector. More recent research posits that creative occupations are also a fundamental, but overlooked, driver of innovation. Theory also suggests cities are important for both creative industries and occupations, with urban environments...

Creative cities are seen as important sites for the generation of new ideas, products and processes. Yet, beyond case studies of a few high-profile cities, there is little empirical evidence on the link between local creative industries concentration and innovation. This paper addresses this gap...

This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS III level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek...

Transport infrastructure has represented one of the cornerstones of development and cohesion strategies in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere in the world. However, despite the considerable funds devoted to it, its impact remains controversial. This paper revisits the question of to what...

We estimate the effect of interstate highways on the level and composition of trade for us cities. Highways within cities have a large effect on the weight of city exports with an elasticity of approximately 0.5. We find little effect of highways on the total value of exports. Consistent with...

Theory is divided on whether falling transport costs lead to more or less spatial concentration of economic activity. Using US county-level data we find that aggregate employment became more concentrated between 1972-92. This aggregate picture hides important differences between sectors though....

We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find muted effects of oil through market channels: offshore oil has no effect on municipal non-oil GDP or its composition, while onshore oil has only modest effects on non-oil GDP...

Simplifying entry regulation has been a popular reform since the publication of Djankov et al (2002). The inclusion of business entry indicators in the World Bank’s Doing Business project has led to an acceleration in reform: in 2003-2008, 193 reforms took place in 116 countries. A large...