This paper contains one of the first empirical attempts to investigate the influence of local Entrepreneurial Social Capital on startup propensity. We use a unique database including not only total startups, but data on startups divided in six branches to study the impact of Entrepreneurial...

This study examines intra-regional disparity and municipal merger in Fukuoka Prefecture. Fukuoka Prefecture (Fukuoka-ken) is a prefecture of Japan located on Kyushu Island. It faces the sea on three sides, bordering on Saga, Oita, and Kumamoto prefectures and facing Yamaguchi Prefecture across...

The popularity and growth of Internet usage and Internet enabled devices have changed the people life style and ways of communications. Mobile Internet usage increases year by year and have created prosperous Internet access market by myriad Internet service providers (ISPs). Mobile Internet...

We analyse free-riding behaviour of Finnish municipalities prior to voluntary municipal mergers. The merger process creates a temporary common pool problem, because of a delay from the initial decision to the actual merger during which municipalities stay autonomous. Using a...

In this article, we quantitatively analyze changes in the size distribution of municipal jurisdictions in Japan by using their rank-size distribution to capture the change. In Japan, the central government sometimes enacts large-scale municipal mergers, aimed at the creating of municipalities of...

This paper aims at analyzing the obstacles to in-depth cooperation between Swedish universities and other parts of society. Social capital is used as a comprehensive concept for the norms, values and relations that exist in the university sector and between this sector and the surrounding...

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...