Palgrave Advances in Regional and Urban Economics – serie

As national leaders struggle to revive their economies, the people of Europe face a stark reality, which has created an opportunity for local leaders and citizen movers and shakers to rise to the occasion to spur revitalization from the bottom up. The author offers a six-point plan to prosperity.

This book brings together previous work by the authors that explores the location of foreign direct investment. It uses a broad range of approaches and quantitative techniques. The issues that are addressed concern the changing nature of FDI location, its determinants, and the role of policy in attracting FDI. The chapters of this book focus on the UK experience, but also analyse the location determinants at a European level. The authors present expert analysis that charts the increase in FDI since the mid-1980s and examines the shift in manufacturing and service location, arguing that these result from policy changes and the creation of the European Single Market. Overall, the book finds that the regional benefit of FDI location is unlikely to be long-lasting, owing both to the nature of plant reinvestment and to the effect of agglomeration economics on FDI location.

Endogenous growth theory has significantly impacted most of the developing and developed countries, shifting priorities of industrial policies towards innovation. In line with this trend, the European Union significantly increased its budgetary allocation for R&D. However, statistical data show a weak correlation between R&D expenditure and the acceleration of economic growth. Regional innovation policies display divergent returns according to different institutional conditions and policy choices.Grillo and Nanetti attempt to understand the reasons that lie behind differences in performance. Their results show that better performing innovation strategies require the following factors: clear choices of locally congruent smart specialization; strong capacity of public investment to stimulate additional private investment; clear distribution of responsibilities for decision-making and independence of policy implementation from political interference; and problem solving partnerships amongst innovators, universities, and governments that pre-exist the programmes. These factors point to a relationship between democracy (defined as openness of policy-making) and innovation (as technology-enabled growth) which is explored throughout this book.

As national leaders struggle to revive their economies, the people of Europe face a stark reality, which has created an opportunity for local leaders and citizen movers and shakers to rise to the occasion to spur revitalization from the bottom up. The author offers a six-point plan to prosperity.

Global cities today are facing fundamental challenges in relation to unaffordable housing and growing economic inequality. Singapore’s success in making homeownership possible for 90% of its population has attracted much attention internationally. This book represents a culmination of research by the author on key housing policy innovations for affordable housing.Housing policy changes were effected in the 1960s through reforms of colonial legislation and institutions dealing with state land acquisition, public housing, and provident fund savings. The comprehensive housing framework that was established enabled the massive resettlement of households from shophouses, slums and villages to high-rise government-built flats. In the 1980s and 1990s, housing market and land use regulations were amended in response to the changing needs of a growing economy.Housing policies have also been utilised to curb housing speculation, build racially inclusive communities, and reduce wealth inequality. More recently, an ageing population of homeowners has necessitated focus on policies for housing equity extraction. This landmark title is of relevance to all developing economies exploring alternative systems of affordable housing.