The aim of the study is to analyze the representative variables of the stock of social capital available in the São Paulo State's counties, Brazil, according to the theory and methodology proposed by Robert Putnam. It describes some representative elements of social capital in the counties of...

Does an individual's housing situation affect community social capital and influence regional development through this channel? A body of literature which followed the seminal work of DiPasquale and Glaeser suggests that homeownership is positively related to social capital formation due to both...

A new urban revolution begun in the second half of the XX century and it is going to challenge the relation between the size and economic role of cities: on one side, the last decades have witnessed the emergence and the never seen growth of a number of Mega-cities, with more than 9 million...

China has experienced rapid economic growth and the recent Global Economic Projections 2004 by the World Bank suggest that there is a continuation of Chinese growth of at lest 7 to 8 percent (World Bank, 2003). Nevertheless, on the background of rapid growth came increasing regional disparities....

In the rural areas where there is an economic potential clearly defined by the agricultural or commercial activities, tourism is the business key within reach. Under the circumstances, the socio-economic reflex takes the form of developing projects for tourist services, especially in the places...

Nowadays it is more and more important to know that how certain units of regional economy (enterprises, higher education institutions, other units) affect local economy. The economic impact analysis of higher education institutions is more complex than the impact analysis of enterprises, since...

The paper deals with a new approach in German innovation policy that organizes contests of initiatives for public funds. Based on an overview of the different programs we investigate the advantages and problems of such an approach. We find that this type of policy may have a large impact and...

Empirical evidence about income convergence among regions and countries is inconclusive and it is necessary to clarify the economic and institutional conditions for convergence. We investigate movements in the income distribution among regions in an integrated market with high mobility of labor,...

Agricultural cooperatives represent nearly 75% of all farmers in France. They have become major actors in the development of rural spaces. Over the past 30 years, French cooperatives have steadily modified their organizational structures in response to changes in the economic environment,...