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Regional economies are continuously evolving shifting from more traditional manufacturing toward more service-oriented production systems. Despite the increasing relevance of services, however, the analysis of innovation at the regional aggregate level has mainly focused on manufacturing, gathering the attention on the role of R&D expenditure as input in the production process and, in some cases, accounting for research-based knowledge externalities. In this paper the role of Knowledge Intensive Business Services is studied and their contribution to the regional aggregate innovation is evaluated. The aim is twofold. First is to provide insights on the role covered by KIBS as a second knowledge infrastructure. Second is to examine the extent to which KIBS operate as bridges between the general purpose analytical knowledge produced by scientific universities and more specific requirement of innovative firms. A role commonly acknowledged to KIBS is in fact that of knowledge transferors. If on the one side it is however clear to whom they transfer knowledge, their client firms, on the other it is not as clear from whom the knowledge is originally transferred. For this reason a major attention in this work is dedicated to scientific universities considered as a primary source of knowledge. Being this knowledge analytical and highly codified, it probably can be more easily accessed by nearby located firms having higher opportunities of research collaboration and less easily by firms located in different regions. It is argued that KIBS, in transferring knowledge from universities to firms, are therefore specially important in the latter case. To test hese hypothesis a knowledge production function is estimated for a sample of 200 EU NUTS II regions including also information of university research and KIBS concentration. Parameters are estimated using the heteroschedasticity-consistent G2SLS estimator for spatial models and the evidence suggests that the contribution of KIBS to regional innovation is considerable. In fact accounting for the knowledge embedded in business services can considerably contribute to explain the cross-regional variation in innovative activities. Furthermore it is find that the KIBS contribution is more sizeable in regions in which there are not scientific universities. The highlighted results have important policy implications asking to rethink to how much effective an R&D-centered innovation strategy could be, at least in some regions.

This paper addresses consequences of increased labour migration in Europe due to productivity effects in a core-periphery model. Traditional trade and growth models predict an overall beneficial impact of the accession of the current candidate states to the European Union. However, models incorporating imperfect competition warn that peripheral countries may realise only a small portion of this beneficial impact of the accession. In this chapter we go a step further: On the domestic level the countries accession may have negative effects while on the nationals level the effect will be positive. An empirical indication that benefits of accession may be low is the marginal benefits during the early phases of EU membership for Greece and Ireland and the Neue Länder of Germany. The following main questions are addressed in this chapter. What is the consequence of increased migration within the European Union due to deregulation in the context of the creation of a common market, and what will be the consequence of the extension of the European union with central and eastern European countries?

In economic theory, one can distinguish between variety as a source of regional knowledge spillovers, called Jacobs externalities, and variety as a portfolio protecting a region from external shocks. We argue that Jacobs externalities are best measured by related variety (within sectors), while the portfolio argument is better captured by unrelated variety (between sectors). We introduce a methodology based on entropy measures to compute related variety and unrelated variety. Using data at the NUTS-3 level in the Netherlands for the period 1996-2002 we find that Jacobs externalities enhance employment growth, while unrelated variety dampens unemployment growth. Productivity growth can be explained by traditional determinants including investments and R&D expenditures. Implications for regional policy follow

AbstractGentrification in China is intertwined with urban redevelopment, which causes the large‐scale displacement of rural–urban migrants from 'villages in the city' (ViCs). Because of the informality of ViCs, migrant renters have very insecure tenancy and during redevelopment they are treated as a negligible ('invisible') social group. As they are very difficult to locate after displacement, they are also literally invisible to researchers. To make the invisible visible, this study traced a sample of displaced migrants from Huangbeiling village in Shenzhen. The focus was on the displacement process and on identifying the consequences for the displaced. We found various forms of displacement during the redevelopment process. Nearby ViCs were prioritized by displaced migrants to minimize as much utility loss as possible. However, they generally suffer from decreased proximity, increased living costs, and the loss of social networks and job opportunities. Remarkably, some choose to return to the gentrifying village, enduring displacement in situ caused by increasing rents, drastic physical neighbourhood changes and declining liveability, in exchange for retaining their original social and economic networks. Large‐scale urban redevelopment is causing the rapid shrinkage of informal housing. Recognizing and addressing the housing needs of this impoverished social group is a matter of urgency.