How Do Regions Diversify over Time? Industry Relatedness and the Development of New Growth Paths in Regions

Trade shocks, new industry entry and industry relatedness

A large body of literature has explored the determinants of manufacturing structural change, but little has highlighted industrial relatedness. This study probes the impact of technological and vertical relatedness on manufacturing structural rationalisation and advancement by constructing a panel data model with province and year fixed effects using data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2019. The empirical results show that manufacturing structural change differs based on industrial relatedness. Specifically, at the national level, technological relatedness can promote both structural rationalisation and advancement within manufacturing. Vertical relatedness holds a negative effect on structural rationalisation and no significant effect on structural advancement. Besides, the effects of industrial relatedness exhibit regional heterogeneity. In coastal China, technological relatedness can still promote structural rationalisation and advancement. Vertical relatedness has no significant effect on structural rationalisation and a negative effect on structural advancement. In inland China, governmental supports help break the dependency of regional manufacturing structural change on industrial relatedness, and the establishment of development zones restrains structural rationalisation within manufacturing. This study offers insights for policymakers to adopt different approaches to support local manufacturing development, depending on the characteristics of regional manufacturing structural evolution.

Termination of fire along with active removal of deciduous trees in favor of conifers together with anthropogenic transformation of productive forest into agricultural land, have transformed northern European coniferous forests and reduced their deciduous component. Locally, however, in the villages, deciduous trees and stands were maintained, and have more recently regenerated on abandoned agricultural land. We hypothesize that the present distribution of the deciduous component is related to the village in-field/out-field zonation in different regions, which emerges from physical conditions and recent economic development expressed as land-use change. We analyzed the spatial distribution of deciduous stands in in-field and out-field zones of villages in 6 boreal/hemiboreal Swedish regions (Norrbotten, Angermanland, Jämtland, Dalarna, Bergslagen, Småland). In each region 6 individual quadrates 5 x 5 km centered on village areas were selected. We found significant regional differences in the deciduous component (DEC) in different village zones. At the scale of villages Angermanland had the highest mean proportion of DEC (17%) and Jämtland the lowest (2%). However, the amounts of the DEC varied systematically in in-field and out-field zones. DEC was highest in the in-field in the south (Småland), but generally low further north. By contrast, the amount of DEC in the out-field was highest in the north. The relative amount of DEC in the forest edge peaked in landscapes with the strongest decline in active agriculture (Angermanland, Dalarna, Bergslagen). Because former and present local villages are vital for biodiversity linked to the deciduous component, our results indicate a need for integrated management of deciduous forest within entire landscapes. This study shows that simplified satellite data are useful for estimating the spatial distribution of deciduous trees and stands at the landscape scale. However, for detailed studies better thematic resolution is needed to determine biologically relevant differences in quality of deciduous stands.

Climate change, higher levels of natural resource demands, and changing land use will likely lead to changes in vegetation configuration in the mountain regions. The aim of this study was to determine if the vegetation cover and composition have changed in the Swedish region of the Scandinavian Mountain Range, based on data from the long-term landscape biodiversity monitoring program NILS (National Inventory of Landscapes in Sweden). Habitat type and vegetation cover were assessed in 1740 systematically distributed permanent field plots grouped into 145 sample units across the mountain range. Horvitz-Thompson estimations were used to estimate the present areal extension of the alpine and the mountain birch forest areas of the mountain range, the cover of trees, shrubs, and plants, and the composition of the bottom layer vegetation. We employed the data from two subsequent 5-year monitoring periods, 2003-2007 and 2008-2012, to determine if there have been any changes in these characteristics. We found that the extension of the alpine and the mountain birch forest areas has not changed between the inventory phases. However, the total tree canopy cover increased in the alpine area, the cover of graminoids and dwarf shrubs and the total cover of field vegetation increased in both the alpine area and the mountain birch forest, the bryophytes decreased in the alpine area, and the foliose lichens decreased in the mountain birch forest. The observed changes in vegetation cover and composition, as assessed by systematic data in a national and regional monitoring scheme, can validate the results of local studies, experimental studies, and models. Through benchmark assessments, monitoring data also contributes to governmental policies and land-management strategies as well as to directed cause and effect analyses.

Industrial relatedness and regional resilience in the European Union

Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience

Stakeholders’ perceptions on ecosystem services in Östergötland’s (Sweden) threatened oak wood-pasture landscapes

This note studies the mechanisms through which regional economies diversify over time and formulates suggestions on how policy can influence such process. In particular, two closely related concepts will be defined, that is, technological relatedness and related variety. Regional diversification is a crucial process in order to develop new growth paths. It is understood as an emerging process through which new activities develop out of existing ones, but the scope and outcome of this process are fundamentally affected by technological and cognitive constraints. We discuss how technological relatedness may provide an input for effective policy making. In this respect, public policy should avoid picking winners that do not fit into the regional actual and potential industrial space and should prevent supporting declining industries that occupy a peripheral position in the industry space of a region. More in particular, we direct attention to various mechanisms through which new industries may be stimulated to connect to technologically related industries at the regional level. We also introduce the process of entrepreneurial discovery, in which entrepreneurs generate the key information guiding the selection of the domains of future regional specialization, and discuss its relationship with policy schemes based on related diversification.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regional problems of the Kingdom of at the beginning of the 21st century and to confront these findings with the regional policy of the Czech Republic. In the introduction the basic issues of Swedish regional development will be presented. In the text the tax issues will also be outlined, i.e. the system of taxes redistribution to the regional and local authorities in our republic and in Sweden. In the text a case study of regional association of Western Sweden follows (West the EU Project Analysis Service - WEPA). This association has established in Brussels its permanent representation and it promotes here the interests of individual cities and regions - for now only of mentioned Western Sweden, which is not a municipal Swedish region, just the association composed of three Swedish regions (Halland, Varmland and Vastra Gotaland) and 71 cities. In the paper current practice and principles are documented, and the question remains: Is it possible to use this model of Western Sweden also in the Czech Republic? This article was created within the research project Innovation Approach to Analysis of Disparities on Regional Level, realized under the state subsidy of The Ministry for Regional Development WD-30-07-1 at the Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Liberec, the Czech Republic.

In some European countries, sub-national regions are important geographical arenas for spatial planning. However, in Sweden, statutory regional planning is rather limited and the regional level is often described as having a weak position in the spatial planning system. In this article, we investigate territorial governance practices in two Swedish regions, with a focus on their interaction with the EU and the national level, and with the local level, as well as how these regions function as organisations and arenas for coordination of different policy fields. The study is based on semi-structured expert interviews and document analysis. The results show that spatial planning is practised both through statutory planning and soft planning approaches, and that these practices in different ways coordinate sectoral policies i.e. transport infrastructure and regional development. Both cases also illustrate difficulties not only of external coordination between different institutions and policy fields but also internally within organisations. It is also highlighted that spatial planning at the regional level focuses on coordinating actors and policy fields but that spatial planning is also an instrument to implement regional policies. In conclusion, it is argued that the organisation and territorial governance practices within a given institutional arrangement and the perception of spatial planning are crucial in determining how regions might function as multi-level coordination actors and policy arenas within spatial planning.

abstractResearch highlighting the differential resilience of economies to shocks opens up the possibility that long-run growth paths are associated with how regions cope with and recover from such shocks. To date, however, there has been limited exploration into whether long-run evolutionary growth paths or trajectories influence regional economic resilience and what types of trajectories might be more associated with resilience. This article explores the connections between regional economic resilience and regional and national growth trajectories by utilizing a novel set of methods to group regions according to the similarity of their growth paths, identifying the relative importance of national growth for regional growth, and categorizing regions according to their resilience to the 2007–2008 economic crisis. The results suggest that regions have empirically identifiable long-run and path-dependent development trajectories that are significantly associated with industrial employment shares and observed resilience outcomes. Critically, however, these regional growth paths are significantly shaped by national trajectories. Furthermore, regions with greater employment shares in sectors that are less susceptible to demand fluctuations are likely to experience more stable growth rates and be more resilient to economic downturns. This has implications for understanding the importance of evolutionary trends and specifically the role of national contexts and industrial legacies in shaping regional resilience.

This chapter demonstrates the applicability of the Social Cohesion Radar to a level of geopolitical organization below the national one, namely the regional level. We take the case of Germany, as a federal republic of 16 federal states (Bundeslander). Applying the same conceptualization of cohesion (see Chap. 1) and virtually the same methodology (see Chap. 2), we pursue the same research questions as in the previously presented international comparison. The results point to a clear division along the lines of the former West and East Germany, with all former East German federal states exhibiting a lower level of social cohesion. Just as on the national level, social cohesion on the regional level is a fairly stable phenomenon across time. Affluence, lower spread of poverty, urbanization, a more age-homogeneous composition of the population, as well as ethnic diversity foster the degree of regional cohesion. Cultural aspects and values do not seem to have an effect. In turn, social cohesion boosts both the aggregate level of subjective well-being across the federal states and that of individuals. Moreover, it is the resource-poorer groups of society that particularly benefit more from higher cohesion at the regional level.

Infrastructure developments depend on decision makers' perceptions of the particular policy issue and a preferred future state. The complex relationship between accessibility and rural development and the long periods from problem recognition to transport infrastructure realisations bring further uncertainty into regional planning. Therefore, government and public administration tend to rely on narratives to explain the policy issue and to transfer their perspectives into the policy process. However, oversimplified narratives unduly limit the understanding of the problem and so the choice of solutions. This paper aims therefore to contribute to an understanding of the recognition of accessibility and transport infrastructure as a policy problem for sustainable regional development in rural areas. It investigates the narrative that emerges from local officials' perceptions about a future society, reasons for sustainable growth and the collaboration at the local and regional levels in central Sweden. The analysis details the four key perspectives of the narrative: local people, work and leisure, an urban neighbourhood and public transport services. The findings stress the narrative's lack of oversight and inclusion that accounts for societies' heterogeneity. In particular, the analysis expounds a remarkable faceless story that conveys a prevalent lack of understanding of stakeholder needs and the role of critical infrastructure for societal development in rural areas.

Previous research has pointed out the negative impact of traffic noise on wildlife adjacent to major roads, but despite the scientific evidence, the impact of traffic noise in natural environments is rarely assessed, and even more rarely mitigated, in road planning, in Sweden as well as in most other countries. It has been argued that the reason to this shortcoming is the lack of a practical method to assess this impact on natural environments. We developed a desktop method for assessing the traffic noise impact on areas of importance for nature conservation, with special emphasis on important bird sites. The method output is a calculation of the effective habitat loss due to traffic noise for each site, based on dose-effect relationships presented in literature, available GIS data on selected habitat types, official road data, and a simplified model for noise distribution. The method has a dual purpose; to estimate the impact of traffic noise on birds at larger geographic scales, and to identify priority sites for mitigation efforts. We applied the method in two Swedish regions with relatively low or moderate road and traffic densities. The results from these case studies pointed out that i) at regional level, the impact zone covers a small part of the land area (0.6 and 3.3% of lower and higher density regions, respectively), ii) for certain important bird habitat types, >10% of sites are within the impact zone, iii) the impact from traffic noise represents an effective loss of 0.02-1.7% of the total area of the selected habitat types. The latter figures can be taken as estimates of the present conservation debt of traffic noise. The results indicate that traffic noise may have a disproportionate impact on some important bird habitats. Because bird sites are often rich also in other taxa, and in addition tend to be important areas for outdoor recreation, we argue that traffic noise may have a broad impact on nature conservation, and that mitigation efforts should be made to minimize this impact. We discuss the general applicability of the method. Keywords: Traffic noise; birds; assessment; method; Sweden.

This paper investigates the conditions for the assimilation of information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) in organizations and the influence of various actors in the organization and eBusiness context. To do so it draws on the literature on assimilation gap, sociomateriality and infrastructure together with a study of implementation and use of information and communication technology in and among organizations in a Swedish region. There were substantial investments in web infrastructure made on a regional level and the focus of this study is how the investments were transformed and assimilated in practices, relations and communication. Based on the empirical data from the case study, the paper extends the assimilation process into interplay among actors in organizations contexts. It describes organizations' strategies for coping with their needs for information and the actors in these processes. Two categories of actors are identified, sensemaking and sensegiving actors, as most important in assimilation of IS/IT in organizations. A sociomaterial perspective gives guidance and a better understanding of the assimilation process in terms of knowledge and interpretative frames, and how assimilation involves identity construction and negotiations among sensemaking and sensegiving actors. The contribution of this paper is a better understanding of the context of assimilation and adaptation of IT in organizations' business processes, and steps to be taken to improve readiness.