Over time, the research has played a key role in the economic development reflected by the GDP growth, the increase of the patents' number, the volume of exports, the economic competitiveness of countries which have invested in research and development.The aim of this paper is to make a study at...

In this paper we look at the evolution of the R&D intensity gap between the EU and its major competitors using data from the Industrial Scoreboard covering the period 2002-2010. We focus on R&D intensity and we assess whether the gaps relative to major competitors arise from differences in...

Difficulty in extracting scientific and research findings from EU universities and placing such knowledge at the commercial disposal of innovation-dependent firms and industries is a cause for grave concern by the European Commission and many of its member states and regions, particularly when...

Gender equality has long been a focus in regional development in the European Union. In a Swedish context, the interest has been borne from the fact that rural and sparsely populated areas have a 'women shortage', and that this tendency is accelerating as young women move to cities, while young...

Increased productivity is one of the main drivers of economic growth. Considering the increasing importance of the service sector in many economies studies of productivity in service firms are essential, but still rare. Questions concerning the underlying reasons for productivity differences in...

This paper analyses the effect of innovation on the well-established productivity-export association in the literature. Here, we argue that actively innovative firms have a higher productivity, which make them more likely to become exporters. Moreover, exporting firms learn from their trading...

This paper addresses the relationship between productivity in the retail sector and market size. In the paper, the systematic variations between central and non-central retail markets, as well as the systematic variations across different types of retailing activities are investigated. The...