Michaela Trippl, Maximilian Benner, Jannik Kastrup
The climate crisis confronts carbon-intensive industries with profound decarbonisation challenges, which may lead to reductions in production, job losses and other negative impacts in regions. Understanding these processes of regional industrial path decline is crucial, but so far path scholars have paid far more attention to new path emergence than to the radical transformation, shrinking, or even dissolution of old paths. To address this gap, the article identifies and discusses various dimensions of path decline (sources, vulnerabilities, forms, management and aftermath) and proposes a research agenda, raising topical questions on each dimension.
{"title":"Breaking out of old paths? Towards a research agenda on path decline","authors":"Michaela Trippl, Maximilian Benner, Jannik Kastrup","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf045","url":null,"abstract":"The climate crisis confronts carbon-intensive industries with profound decarbonisation challenges, which may lead to reductions in production, job losses and other negative impacts in regions. Understanding these processes of regional industrial path decline is crucial, but so far path scholars have paid far more attention to new path emergence than to the radical transformation, shrinking, or even dissolution of old paths. To address this gap, the article identifies and discusses various dimensions of path decline (sources, vulnerabilities, forms, management and aftermath) and proposes a research agenda, raising topical questions on each dimension.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"125 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145535560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Benjamin Cornejo Costas, Nicola Cortinovis, Andrea Morrison
This paper investigates the relationship between migrant inventors, informal institutions and the development of green technologies in European regions. We argue that migrant inventors act as an unlocking mechanism that transfers external knowledge to host regions, and that informal institutions (i.e. social capital, migrant acceptance) mediate this effect. The work is based on an original dataset of migrant inventors covering 271 NUTS2 regions in the 27 EU countries, the UK, Switzerland and Norway. The analysis shows that migrant inventors help their host regions to diversify into green technologies. The regions with the highest levels of both measures of social capital show a higher propensity of migrant inventors to act as knowledge brokers. Conversely, regions with lower levels of migrant acceptance and social capital do not seem to contribute to this effect.
{"title":"How migrant inventors and informal institutions enable green innovation in EU regions","authors":"Benjamin Cornejo Costas, Nicola Cortinovis, Andrea Morrison","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf042","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the relationship between migrant inventors, informal institutions and the development of green technologies in European regions. We argue that migrant inventors act as an unlocking mechanism that transfers external knowledge to host regions, and that informal institutions (i.e. social capital, migrant acceptance) mediate this effect. The work is based on an original dataset of migrant inventors covering 271 NUTS2 regions in the 27 EU countries, the UK, Switzerland and Norway. The analysis shows that migrant inventors help their host regions to diversify into green technologies. The regions with the highest levels of both measures of social capital show a higher propensity of migrant inventors to act as knowledge brokers. Conversely, regions with lower levels of migrant acceptance and social capital do not seem to contribute to this effect.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145492149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the role of system-level agency in shaping green transitions in peripheral regions. The comparative case study analysis of four peripheral regions in Germany reveals significant differences in capacities to address challenges, overcome dependencies and seize green opportunities. It showcases how intermediaries function as conducive actors that unlock regional transition processes, highlighting how policy translation processes either maintain path dependencies or shape new development paths. The findings emphasise the need for place-sensitive policies and the critical role of system-level agency in driving or hindering green transition processes.
{"title":"Unlocking green transitions: system-level agency in peripheral regions","authors":"Max Roessler","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf044","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the role of system-level agency in shaping green transitions in peripheral regions. The comparative case study analysis of four peripheral regions in Germany reveals significant differences in capacities to address challenges, overcome dependencies and seize green opportunities. It showcases how intermediaries function as conducive actors that unlock regional transition processes, highlighting how policy translation processes either maintain path dependencies or shape new development paths. The findings emphasise the need for place-sensitive policies and the critical role of system-level agency in driving or hindering green transition processes.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"139 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145492148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jesús M Valdaliso, Patricia Suárez, Matías Mayor, Edurne Magro
This paper examines why some old industrial regions (OIRs) show strong lock-ins while others experience weaker ones. To do so, it compares the resilience of two OIRs in northern Spain — Asturias and the Basque Country — to major shocks and structural changes over the last fifty years, tracing their divergent development paths and advancing a tentative explanation for these differences. It employs a mixed-methods approach, combining dynamic shift-share analysis to evaluate regional resilience and the role of economic structure with qualitative analysis of how agency shapes regional trajectories, in addition to taking a historical perspective. The extreme cases of Asturias and the Basque Country offer contrasting examples of lock-in and path breaking (and renewal) in regional development. Asturias illustrates the strength of reproductive agency (place maintenance), while the Basque Country exhibits greater change agency (place leadership), engaging a broader range of actors in regional transformation. Ultimately, the paper advocates a holistic approach to regional development that combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
{"title":"Lock-in, resilience and path development in old industrial regions: an agency-based explanation","authors":"Jesús M Valdaliso, Patricia Suárez, Matías Mayor, Edurne Magro","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf043","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines why some old industrial regions (OIRs) show strong lock-ins while others experience weaker ones. To do so, it compares the resilience of two OIRs in northern Spain — Asturias and the Basque Country — to major shocks and structural changes over the last fifty years, tracing their divergent development paths and advancing a tentative explanation for these differences. It employs a mixed-methods approach, combining dynamic shift-share analysis to evaluate regional resilience and the role of economic structure with qualitative analysis of how agency shapes regional trajectories, in addition to taking a historical perspective. The extreme cases of Asturias and the Basque Country offer contrasting examples of lock-in and path breaking (and renewal) in regional development. Asturias illustrates the strength of reproductive agency (place maintenance), while the Basque Country exhibits greater change agency (place leadership), engaging a broader range of actors in regional transformation. Ultimately, the paper advocates a holistic approach to regional development that combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145492152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Milene Simone Tessarin, Ron Boschma, Deyu Li, Sergio Petralia
This paper presents an evolutionary perspective on regional development traps that centres around the structural inability of regions to develop new and complex occupations. Using the European Labour Force Survey, we follow occupational trajectories of 237 European regions and provide evidence on which regions are trapped, what kinds of traps they have fallen into and which regions have managed to escape such traps. We find a clear-cut divide in Europe: Almost all non-trapped regions are in Northern and Western Europe, while trapped regions are found primarily in Southern and Eastern Europe. However, this geographical divide does not apply to all types of regional traps. Our results also show that regional development traps are persistent: Regions often remain in the same trap, but not always. Our study suggests a feasible pathway for low-complexity regions to overcome a development trap is by building capabilities in related occupations and then diversifying into complex occupations. Once complexity levels are high, regions tend not to lose their complexity.
{"title":"Regional development traps in Europe: a study of occupational trajectories of regions","authors":"Milene Simone Tessarin, Ron Boschma, Deyu Li, Sergio Petralia","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf040","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents an evolutionary perspective on regional development traps that centres around the structural inability of regions to develop new and complex occupations. Using the European Labour Force Survey, we follow occupational trajectories of 237 European regions and provide evidence on which regions are trapped, what kinds of traps they have fallen into and which regions have managed to escape such traps. We find a clear-cut divide in Europe: Almost all non-trapped regions are in Northern and Western Europe, while trapped regions are found primarily in Southern and Eastern Europe. However, this geographical divide does not apply to all types of regional traps. Our results also show that regional development traps are persistent: Regions often remain in the same trap, but not always. Our study suggests a feasible pathway for low-complexity regions to overcome a development trap is by building capabilities in related occupations and then diversifying into complex occupations. Once complexity levels are high, regions tend not to lose their complexity.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145472918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Climate change poses risks to regional economies reliant on vulnerable infrastructure. While evolutionary economic geography highlights how established infrastructure sustains economic paths, less is known about path reproduction under adverse conditions. This is vital as climate change destabilises paths, sparking political conflicts over regional economic futures. Through a comparative case study of ski infrastructure expansion in differing climate conditions, this paper combines interviews and archival research to reveal how political conflicts about the region’s future shape path reproduction. It extends path dependence literature by emphasising the role of politics and future visions in maintaining path stability, offering key insights into regional development as climate change accelerates.
{"title":"The politics of path reproduction under vulnerable climate conditions: the case of skiing infrastructure expansion in the Austrian Alps","authors":"Valentina Ausserladscheider","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf036","url":null,"abstract":"Climate change poses risks to regional economies reliant on vulnerable infrastructure. While evolutionary economic geography highlights how established infrastructure sustains economic paths, less is known about path reproduction under adverse conditions. This is vital as climate change destabilises paths, sparking political conflicts over regional economic futures. Through a comparative case study of ski infrastructure expansion in differing climate conditions, this paper combines interviews and archival research to reveal how political conflicts about the region’s future shape path reproduction. It extends path dependence literature by emphasising the role of politics and future visions in maintaining path stability, offering key insights into regional development as climate change accelerates.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145311075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper provides micro-level evidence of how and why functional lock-ins persist, despite clear articulations of cognitive unlocking at firm, cluster and regional levels. We draw on literature on regional clusters and vertical value chains and consider how their dynamics condition incumbent firms’ efforts to diversify. Empirically, we employ an extended case study and trace diversification strategies of 12 incumbent supplier firms in the automotive industry in Olofström (Sweden) from 2000 to 2022, based on annual reports and 25 interviews. Findings show that regional cognitive unlocking during the 2008 crisis was not sufficient to decrease supplier firms’ dependence on the automotive industry, due to the persistence of functional lock-ins and vertical value chain dynamics.
{"title":"Regional lock-ins and realities of firm-level diversification","authors":"Linda Stihl, Josephine V Rekers","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf034","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides micro-level evidence of how and why functional lock-ins persist, despite clear articulations of cognitive unlocking at firm, cluster and regional levels. We draw on literature on regional clusters and vertical value chains and consider how their dynamics condition incumbent firms’ efforts to diversify. Empirically, we employ an extended case study and trace diversification strategies of 12 incumbent supplier firms in the automotive industry in Olofström (Sweden) from 2000 to 2022, based on annual reports and 25 interviews. Findings show that regional cognitive unlocking during the 2008 crisis was not sufficient to decrease supplier firms’ dependence on the automotive industry, due to the persistence of functional lock-ins and vertical value chain dynamics.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145311073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
John-Erik Bergkvist, Anna Essén, Karl Wennberg, Anna Krohwinkel
Mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) are promoting the formation of ‘mission arenas’ (MAs) where actors collectively try to address societal ‘wicked problems’. Yet, little is known about how attention — and subsequently time and effort — towards specific problems and solutions, and their geographical dimensions, unfolds within MAs. We conducted a multiple-case study of four MAs mandated and granted public funding to address self-articulated ‘missions’ in public health. We identify four distinct types of MA organisation with different attention-regulating properties that contribute to significant variation in MAs’ flexibility and breadth of attention. We propose a model explicating how all four MA organisations regulate attention in ways that impede future attention to regional problems and solutions — a finding that serves to problematise assumptions about attention in the MOIP literature.
{"title":"How the organisation of mission arenas regulates attention away from regional problems and solutions: an attention-based view","authors":"John-Erik Bergkvist, Anna Essén, Karl Wennberg, Anna Krohwinkel","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf031","url":null,"abstract":"Mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) are promoting the formation of ‘mission arenas’ (MAs) where actors collectively try to address societal ‘wicked problems’. Yet, little is known about how attention — and subsequently time and effort — towards specific problems and solutions, and their geographical dimensions, unfolds within MAs. We conducted a multiple-case study of four MAs mandated and granted public funding to address self-articulated ‘missions’ in public health. We identify four distinct types of MA organisation with different attention-regulating properties that contribute to significant variation in MAs’ flexibility and breadth of attention. We propose a model explicating how all four MA organisations regulate attention in ways that impede future attention to regional problems and solutions — a finding that serves to problematise assumptions about attention in the MOIP literature.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145241854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines how multi-scalar state actors are integrated in a regionalised ecological transition, and how this process, in turn, exacerbates scalar contradictions within state strategies. Drawing on a case study of the Wuhan City Circle in Hubei Province, China, it proposes a framework of entrepreneurial scalecraft to theorise the mission-oriented scalar experimentation and inherent crisis tendencies of state entrepreneurialism. This framework comprises two coexisting and intersecting spatial–institutional processes: (i) shareholding of multi-scalar states, referring to the strategic integration of state actors at different levels through equity (re-)structuring, and (ii) cross-scalar state assetisation, referring to the rise of state power at new scales of governance through selective asset grabbing. However, these scalar innovations also exacerbate internal tensions within multi-scalar states, ultimately giving rise to unintended consequences such as social protest.
{"title":"Entrepreneurial scalecraft: spatial–institutional processes and state scalar politics of eco-city-regional development","authors":"Yimeng Yang","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf029","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how multi-scalar state actors are integrated in a regionalised ecological transition, and how this process, in turn, exacerbates scalar contradictions within state strategies. Drawing on a case study of the Wuhan City Circle in Hubei Province, China, it proposes a framework of entrepreneurial scalecraft to theorise the mission-oriented scalar experimentation and inherent crisis tendencies of state entrepreneurialism. This framework comprises two coexisting and intersecting spatial–institutional processes: (i) shareholding of multi-scalar states, referring to the strategic integration of state actors at different levels through equity (re-)structuring, and (ii) cross-scalar state assetisation, referring to the rise of state power at new scales of governance through selective asset grabbing. However, these scalar innovations also exacerbate internal tensions within multi-scalar states, ultimately giving rise to unintended consequences such as social protest.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145241975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To better understand place-based impacts of mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP), this article analyses the evolution of different types of smart city initiatives in urban contexts. The three smart city cases in Japan (that is, Kitakyushu, Hamamatsu and Aizuwakamatsu) show processes of recovery, revitalisation and transition where the local governments set the direction by defining MOIPs to fit with the current and future local needs and challenges. The national and subnational contexts of evolving MOIP discourses and smart city governance and implementation provide insights into the changing role of the local governments, affecting and being affected by the local innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems over time.
{"title":"Smart cities as “mission-oriented” innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems—insights from 20 years of experiments in Japan","authors":"Fumi Kitagawa","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsaf019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf019","url":null,"abstract":"To better understand place-based impacts of mission-oriented innovation policy (MOIP), this article analyses the evolution of different types of smart city initiatives in urban contexts. The three smart city cases in Japan (that is, Kitakyushu, Hamamatsu and Aizuwakamatsu) show processes of recovery, revitalisation and transition where the local governments set the direction by defining MOIPs to fit with the current and future local needs and challenges. The national and subnational contexts of evolving MOIP discourses and smart city governance and implementation provide insights into the changing role of the local governments, affecting and being affected by the local innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems over time.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"141 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145127457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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