The term "competitiveness" has been used in conceptually distinct ways at the firm, regional and national levels. After primarily reviewing existing concepts at the national level, we introduce a new definition of regional competitiveness adapting definitions used in the academic literature....

There is evidence that a budget consolidation strategy can work with only a small and shortlived negative impact on growth. However, many countries are currently trying to consolidate at the same time as firms and consumers are deleveraging. We develop ten guidelines for consolidation during...

The financial crisis has affected the real economy in stages yet nevertheless at an unexpected rate and with all regions being affected simultaneously. It advanced almost independently of the regions' exposure to the actual initial causes, among them the subprime crisis, innovative financial...

The experiences of 259 regions in 21 European countries with within country GDP per capita and labour productivity growth suggest that variables associated with pro-active, growth oriented strategies are consistently more important predictors of successful regional development than variables...

Industrial policy is back on the agenda and the consensus is that it must be different "this time" from the past. We redefine industrial policy for industrialised countries as a strategy to promote "high-road competitiveness", understood as the ability of an economy to achieve "Beyond-GDP"...

Europe 2020 tried to overcome the failures of the Lisbon Strategy. Goals set by the European commission were allowed to be adapted to take account of the starting position and the preferences of member countries ("national ownership"), the monitoring process was improved and the coordination...