This paper provides two things. First, it gives an overview on the existing top-down methods for the identification of clusters (Section II). Second, it presents a new method that has been recently introduced by Scholl and Brenner (2016) in a basic version. However, the existing version of this...

This paper investigates the mutual impact channels of Germany's major regional policy instrument (GRW) on regional economic development. Different from earlier studies which have predominately focused on a partial assessment of output ef-fects, we explicitly endogenize the factor inputs of the...

Summary This paper studies the relationship between firm growth and external factors. Externalities from related economic, public research and higher educational activities are traced back to specific locations in space. The spatial characteristics of their impact are examined within a...

This paper discusses several features of knowledge that are often considered crucial for characterizing the economic significance of knowledge: whether it is overtly accessible or tacit, whether it can be or is encoded or not, and whether it has public or private good character. It is argued...