The importance of users as a source of information for company innovation activity was raised in the 1980s by von Hippel. Today, a concept of a similar basis is known and developed in Europe under the name of User-Driven Innovation (UDI). The UDI is based on the belief that enterprises which are...

It is well known that people’s consumption patterns change with income. Relative price changes therefore affect rich and poor consumers differently. Yet, the standard price indices are not income-specific and hence, the use of these mask these differences in cost-of-living. In this paper, we...

Enhancing competitiveness is a popular target in economic policy making - not only at the national, but at the regional level as well despite neither generally accepted definition nor any strong agreement on how to measure it. In this chapter we discuss the conceptual underpinnings of why it is...