The aim of this paper is to introduce an alternative measure that incorporates the concept of a global Malmquist productivity index with a directional distance function. Unlike a conventional geometric mean form of the Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, this global index is circular and...

Do the social and cultural environments have any impact on regional development, expressed in terms of e.g. entrepreneurship, innovations and growth of new industries? A rapidly increasing field of research has found many indications on that such an impact of the civil society exists. In the...

The main purpose in this paper is to study to what extent accessibility to R&D can explain patent production. Therefore a knowledge production function is estimated both on aggregated level and for different industrial sectors. The output of the knowledge production is the number patent...

Recent studies have documented extensive heterogeneity in firm performance within countries, and innovation has been found as an important determinant. This paper addresses the issue of innovation firm performance across countries. A growing number of national firm level studies on the...

Knowledge is maintained as a core variable for growth in a large set of contemporary theories. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between knowledge accessibility and regional growth. The knowledge resource used in our model R&D conducted at universities and in companies. A precise...

Two programmes regarding research funding are investigated with respect to their evaluation processes. One programme targets individuals and the other centers of excellence. The study attempts to disclose some of the features of the selection procedures and the aim is to contribute with further...

Recent empirical evidence strongly supports Jacobs’ (1969) externality hypothesis, that urban diversity provides a more favorable environment for economic development. In order to correctly gauge Jacobs’ hypothesis, economic development should be understood as a result of innovations....

During the last decades, enhancing entrepreneurship has emerged as commonly used policy- measure in order to improve economic growth. However, is it true that entrepreneurship unambiguously can be claimed to improve economic growth? This paper intends to review the empirical evidence on the...

This paper provides an overview of how globalization can impact on new firm formation and its consequence on regional economic development. Although there is a large body of research on new firm formation, the economic context in which new firm formation takes place has received considerably...

In general there is agreement about the positive impacts of R&D on performance of firms measured as productivity, profitability and growth. However, the opposite relationship is less obvious and very little attention has been paid on examining the feedback from performance on investment. This...