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...

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...

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'...

The importance of manufacturing for industrialized countries has been reappraised, specifically in the wake of the financial crisis and of China's rise to world no 1 in manufacturing. A "new industrial policy" should bolster reindustrialization, different from the old selective and...

The southern European periphery suffered a severe setback in its catching-up process versus Western Europe after the financial crisis with GDP dropping by 10% between 2008 and 2012 and unemployment increasing to 20% for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We analyze first the reason for this setback,...