SpringerBriefs in Regional Science – serie

The book illustrates the use of spatial econometric models to analyze the economic resilience of regions to climate-related shocks. Although climate change is a global externality, climate anomalies can trigger locally disruptive shocks, whose adverse effects on economic growth are transmitted through neighbouring relationships (based on geography, trade, or technological bonds). After laying out the theoretical case for spatial analysis in the study of economic resilience, the book introduces spatial econometric models, their estimation and testing procedures, as well as applications of spatial econometrics in various domains. It then reviews the current literature on the role of space in the propagation of climate shocks, and discusses how adaptation and mitigation policies can leverage spatial dependencies, with a special focus on renewable energy technologies and agricultural productivity. It appeals to scholars of regional and spatial sciencesand econometrics as well as those interested in the spatial effects of climate and environmental shocks.

This open access book explores the role of innovation in technological convergence processes in the EU regional space and shifts the focus from absolute and conditional income convergence to technological convergence and its determinants.

This book explores the spatial and contextual factors behind citizens' anger, frustration, and sense of abandonment, alongside the role of digital platforms in politically marginalized areas. It shifts the focus from voting geography to the geography of discontent, offering a new perspective on digital inequalities. The study addresses the complexities of "left-behind" places, recognizing that patterns of decline in developed countries differ from those in developing nations, where political and cultural dynamics play a key role.Using Chile’s Valparaíso region as a case study, the book applies its framework to a context characterized by a strong party system, robust institutions, and high Internet penetration. Chile’s recent political crisis, marked by widespread dissatisfaction, makes this analysis particularly relevant. Valparaíso, with its unique role as the host of the National Congress and as a focal point of the 2019 social uprising, serves as a microcosm for understanding the spatial dimensions of political discontent in digitally connected societies.

This Springer Brief offers a comprehensive synthesis of research on four domains shaping regional economic competitiveness: industry clusters, economic geography of knowledge and innovation, occupation and skill clusters, and social networks. The selection and review of literature draws on a bibliometric analysis and interdisciplinary perspectives. This volume traces the origins of the industry cluster concept, its evolution and contemporary frameworks, and definitions developed in the U.S. The review analyses knowledge and innovation through the lens of economic geography and includes case studies of industry clusters and international examples. The review further explores occupation and skills clusters and the importance of regional workforce competitiveness and labor market information, including applications for skills targeting and workforce development. This book provides a succinct but thorough review of social networks, including theory and evolution, explanation of key concepts, structural and relational flows, application of networks in industry clusters, planning, and urban development.

This book intends to provide analytical and policy tools for investigating the question of the development of rural and peri-urban areas. The aim is to shed some light on this topic and in particular to contribute to a better understanding of the link between issues of regional or territorial development and issues of rural development. The text addresses the question of the disputed notions and definitions of rural development in rural and regional studies, examines the literature of regional and territorial development and the policies of regional development and planning. It also presents scenarios for the future of rural areas, with a focus on European territories.

Industrial and technology parks are commonly regarded as a policy panacea. They tend to be considered as the ideal instrument to alleviate an assortment of institutional, political, economic, social and ultimately, technological weaknesses and often form the centrepiece of development strategies. Yet, the real impact of industrial and technology parks, especially in emerging countries is still poorly understood. Focusing on examples from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the book represents a first approach to understand the potential and reality of industrial and technology parks in emerging countries. It is argued that although some parks have been successful in addressing a range of key problems, including underdevelopment, unemployment and a lack of investment, the majority have failed to deliver, rendering the promise of many parks little more than a pipedream.

The evaluation of public policies is of paramount importance for modern policy making, especially in a period of severe budget constraints. The literature has proposed several methods to deal with the issue of causality and counterfactual evaluation in a variety of contexts, with an increasing attention to the local dimension. The book aims to present the state-of-the-art of evaluation techniques with a special focus on the consideration of geographical and spatial effects into existing methodologies (such as propensity score matching, regression discontinuity, difference-in-difference). Furthermore, the volume highlights how strict the identification conditions for models with spatial effects are and proposes instrumental variables as a technique able to circumvent the issue. Finally, some insights into the emerging literature on ex ante evaluation are offered with respect to EU Cohesion Policy.

This book deals with the creation of local innovation systems (LIS) in emerging countries. The authors analyze the role of the government, firms and research centers in the formation of LIS. Special attention is paid to the manner in which different leading actors implement their LIS development strategies. The book presents detailed case studies on different strategies used to implement LIS in Singapore, Dubai, Taiwan and Iran.

To date, research into urban economics, regional science and economic geography has predominantly focused on the firm and industry as the key units of analysis in order to understand economic development;

Presenting case studies on Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the authors examine the co-movement of regional business cycles as well as the differing responses of regional economies to external shocks due to regional characteristics such as availability of natural resources, and the degree of integration into national and global markets.

The availability of spatial databases and widespread use of geographic information systems has stimulated increasing interest in the analysis and modelling of spatial data. Spatial data analysis focuses on detecting patterns, and on exploring and modelling relationships between them in order to understand the processes responsible for their emergence. In this way, the role of space is emphasised , and our understanding of the working and representation of space, spatial patterns, and processes is enhanced. In applied research, the recognition of the spatial dimension often yields different and more meaningful results and helps to avoid erroneous conclusions. This book aims to provide an introduction into spatial data analysis to graduates interested in applied statistical research. The text has been structured from a data-driven rather than a theory-based perspective, and focuses on those models, methods and techniques which are both accessible and of practical use for graduate students. Exploratory techniques as well as more formal model-based approaches are presented, and both area data and origin-destination flow data are considered.

Quantile regression analysis differs from more conventional regression models in its emphasis on distributions. Whereas standard regression procedures show how the expected value of the dependent variable responds to a change in an explanatory variable, quantile regressions imply predicted changes for the entire distribution of the dependent variable. Despite its advantages, quantile regression is still not commonly used in the analysis of spatial data. The objective of this book is to make quantile regression procedures more accessible for researchers working with spatial data sets. The emphasis is on interpretation of quantile regression results. A series of examples using both simulated and actual data sets shows how readily seemingly complex quantile regression results can be interpreted with sets of well-constructed graphs. Both parametric and nonparametric versions of spatial models are considered in detail.

This book provides an overview of three generations of spatial econometric models: models based on cross-sectional data, static models based on spatial panels and dynamic spatial panel data models. The book not only presents different model specifications and their corresponding estimators, but also critically discusses the purposes for which these models can be used and how their results should be interpreted.