Growth and Change最新文献

This article studies how three sets of regional factors—knowledge, agglomeration, and openness—impact and interact differently with startups and incumbent firms in their innovative capacity building. Based on a large dataset of Chinese high-tech firms, regression analysis shows that the speed of growing startup innovative capacity relies positively on regional knowledge stock and localization economies. In addition to regional knowledge stock, incumbent innovative capacity building benefits from urbanization economies and regional openness. Favorable regional factors, including the presence of universities and the clustering of knowledge-intensive peers, also enable startups (but not incumbents) to leverage internal knowledge assets into their innovative capacity. The results suggest that it is not only the access to the external knowledge environment but also proactive endeavors to cross-fertilize between internal and external knowledge that underlie the eco-systemic nature of startup innovative capacity building.

As universities have become more integrated into their communities and regions, their host cities have become locations of choice for the highly educated facilitating increased innovation and productivity rates in several locales. Recent transitions toward knowledge-driven economies have also intensified growing geographic divides along the lines of education and raised concerns about the possibility of brain drain in a growing number of cities/regions. This study examines the changing geography of highly educated individuals (2000–2017) with a focus on small and medium-sized U.S. metropolitan areas with and without research universities. Results indicate the continuing trend of divergence among regions, but research universities are found to complement (the lack of) talent agglomeration and generate spatial spillovers beyond the county boundaries.

Both entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment (FDI) are frequently identified as being sources of local and regional economic growth. However, the relationship between the two is not always clear, with a negative competition effect and a positive demand effect potentially present. China provides an interesting case to study with its large state-owned sector, combined with a recent history of successfully attracting considerable FDI. This study examines the relationship between self-employment and different elements of foreign influence (FI) at a provincial level. The results imply that foreign investment reduces the level of self-employment, whilst the number of foreign enterprises and foreign exports have positive effects. The results therefore show the importance in considering multiple perspectives in terms of FI. It appears that policies that attract individual large investments suppress the development of domestic enterprise as predicted by the competition effect, but where more foreign enterprises are present, and a cluster starts to develop, a demand effect appears to take over. This means that provincial government policy may need to be more nuanced to avoid economies being highly reliant on a limited number of what might be quite footloose larger foreign employers.

This paper aims at estimating the regional and sectoral impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the state of Sergipe, Brazil in 2020. We use an input-output model with partial hypothetical extraction. The main results suggest a significant reduction in economic activity in the state, particularly in the Transport and Industry sectors. On the other hand, the Real estate and Food and Accommodation sectors have a greater capacity for recovery with the introduction of an emergency aid program. The municipalities with the largest absolute impact on gross domestic product are Aracaju, Canindé de São Francisco and Nossa Senhora do Socorro, two of them located in the metropolitan area of Aracaju.

Reducing carbon emissions is the only way to solve the global climate problem, which obviously requires the joint efforts of all regions. From the perspective of carbon emission reduction demand, this research obtains the data of low-carbon patents and CO₂ emissions from 2000 to 2019, and then explores the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). We draw the following conclusions: (1) Low-carbon technology transfer has a positive impact on low-carbon technology innovation. However, a large number of low-carbon technology transfers are concentrated between developed regions in the YREB at present. (2) No matter from the perspective of total amount or efficiency, carbon emission reduction demand can play positive moderating role in the process of exerting the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer, indicating that the transfer of low-carbon technologies to regions with high demand is efficient. (3) The moderating effect of carbon emission reduction demand in different regions has regional heterogeneity. Carbon emissions per unit of GDP plays a greater role in moderating the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer in the eastern region, while CO₂ emissions plays a greater role in the central and western regions. Therefore, we propose to strengthen the transfer of low-carbon technologies between developed and less-developed regions, and adopt differentiation strategies according to the actual situation of each region. Our research has deepened the understanding of environmental economic geography on the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer, and has reference significance for global low-carbon technology cooperation.

The recent economic, technological, and social shocks have led to a period of high economic uncertainty. The term “economic resilience” has been used to describe how regional clusters deal with and adapt to various shocks. This paper aims to analyze the elements that influence the resilience trajectory of a cluster. We conduct qualitative and exploratory research on the centennial Wine Cluster in Serra Gaúcha, Brazil, using data sources, interviews, and documents. To this end, we first identify seven elements that influence cluster resilience from the literature review. Subsequently, through an empirical case study, we verify whether these elements could represent the resilience of clusters. The results show that these seven elements are integrable and represent dimensions that explain the resilience of the cluster analyzed. Moreover, the findings highlight that resilience and resistance to crises are the historical results of improvements and the development of new routines for clustered companies. This study contributes to the cluster resilience literature and presents elements explaining how regions can adapt to and deal with shocks.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a boom in world heritage site (WHS) inscriptions in China. Nevertheless, incumbent studies have not sufficiently explained why cities are enthusiastic about and capable of joining the boom. They tend to attribute such enthusiasm to the WHS values in heritage protection and tourism development. However, why stakeholders have motivations and opportunities to create the boom and what institutional environments support the craze are still yet to be answered. This paper investigates the boom through the concept of embeddedness to display how multi-scalar institutional contexts in China stimulate and sustain WHS nomination. This study argues that the enthusiasm for WHS inscription is embedded in the political-economic interests of stakeholders on different scales. At international and national levels, WHS nomination is regarded as a political tool to address diplomatic agendas, shape national honor, and balance regional development. On a local scale, WHS inscriptions can serve as a solid pretext for local states in China to fulfill their strong developmental imperatives and break financial constraints. These imperatives are embedded in China's transitional institutional environment, associated with power decentralization, central-local fiscal rearrangements, and the top-down system of cadre evaluation. In this context, local states are ambitious of initiating large-scale development projects to boost local development. WHS nomination has become a pretext for local states to fulfill extraordinary development in tourism and other industries, such as the real estate industry. This study discloses the hidden political economy behind the WHS inscription boom using the cases of Wulingyuan and the South China Karst.

We indirectly analyze the residential environment for long-staying internationals in Seoul, Korea, by extending the image–satisfaction–loyalty mechanism widely used in tourism, specifically by examining the internationals' satisfaction and loyalty. We consider residential difficulties, sociodemographics, and survey years along with image as exogenous variables and evaluate satisfaction not only in terms of its absolute but also its relative level, which is the difference between absolute satisfaction (AS) and previous expectation. Tourism studies have measured loyalty using individuals' intention to recommend to another and their own revisit intention, but we evaluate the revisit intention with place attachment/hometown perception, which is more suitable for long-staying residents. The variables are measured with 2016–2018 data from an annual quality of life survey for Seoul residents (n = 5279 individuals) and analyzed with structural equation modeling. Our results show that the conventionally used AS is associated only with recommendation intention, but the relative satisfaction (RS) both with recommendation intention and hometown perception. Regarding the exogenous variables, AS is substantially affected by image and RS is somewhat strongly influenced by residential difficulties. However, image is the principal determinant of loyalty level, whether recommendation intention or hometown perception. These findings confirm the applicability of the image–satisfaction–loyalty mechanism not only to short-staying inbound tourists but also to long-staying international residents.

Using insights gained from Jacobian externalities, we consider how a more diverse economic industrial base relates to business survival rates. While a low survival rate is often perceived negatively among policy-makers, evidence suggests that business exit is part of a dynamic and robust economy. The high opportunity cost of continuing with a struggling business in a more diversified economy may ultimately sway entrepreneurs with less competitive ventures to exit leading to lower survival rates. We model average 5-year survival rates at the county level annually from 1990 to 2012 employing a spatial panel Durbin specification. The data support the central hypothesis that more diversified economies increase the opportunity costs of operating an underperforming new business, thereby lowering survival rates.