Recently there has been growing interest in local industrial agglomeration and specialisation, by economic geographers, economists and policy-makers. Michael Porter's work on 'clusters' has proved by far the most influential to have emerged. His 'cluster theory' has become the standard concept...

Opinion is sharply divided over whether EMU is leading to regional economic convergence or regional economic divergence. This paper examines the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for these opposing views, and presents some additional analysis of patterns of regional productivity...