The ‘cluster theory’ has become one of the main concepts promoting regional competitiveness, innovation, and growth. As most studies focus on measures of concentration of one industrial branch in order to identify regional clusters, the appropriate analysis of specific vertical relations...

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...