More recently, there has been a renewed interest in cluster policies for supporting industrial and regional development. By virtue of the linkage between growth and innovation, R&D intensive industries play a crucial role in cluster development strategies. Empirical cluster research has to...

Econometric analysis of convergence processes across countries or regions usually refers to a transition period between an arbitrary chosen starting year and a fictitious steady state. Panel unit root tests and panel cointegration techniques have proved to belong to powerful econometric tools if...

A test strategy consisting of a twofold application of a Lagrange Multiplier test is suggested as a device to reveal spatial nonstationarity and spurious spatial regeression. It is further illustrated how the test strategy can be used as a diagnostic for presence of a spatial cointegrating...

Changes in production and employment are closely related over the course of the business cycle. However, as exemplified by the laws of Verdoorn (1949, 1993) and Okun (1962, 1970), thresholds seem to be present in the relationship. Due to capacity reserves of the firms, output growth must exceed...

In this paper, we use the Beveridge relationship to address the effectiveness of the matching process, that brings workers searching for jobs together with employers searching for workers. For a fixed matching technology, the curve yields a negative relation between the unemployment rate and the...

Regional convergence of German labour markets represents a politically important question. Different studies have examined convergence processes in Germany. We derive equations to estimate the speed of convergence on the basis of an extended Solow model. The technique of geographically weighted...

In recent times, there has been a renewed interest in cluster policies for supporting industrial and regional development. Prominent economics like Porter and Krugman emphasise the role of clusters in regional competition and show in which way clusters can positively affect competition by...

Strong regional clusters are increasingly seen as a response to economic globalization by policy makers and regional development agencies. The reasoning of competitive advantages of countries and regions with enterprises organized in clusters has mainly been popularized by Porter (1990, 1998,...

The wage curve introduced by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990, 1994) postulates a negative correlation between wages and unemployment. Empirical results focus on particular theoretical channels establishing the relationship. Panel models mostly draw on unionized bargaining or the efficiency wage...

The wage curve introduced by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990, 1994) postulates a negative correlation between wages and unemployment. Empirical results focus on particular theoretical channels establishing the relationship. Panel models mostly draw on unionized bargaining or the efficiency wage...