The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature and geography of innovation and knowledge sourcing activities in the ICT manufacturing sector in the region of Vienna. Vienna is often regarded as a prime example of a fragmented metropolitan regional innovation system. Fragmented regional innovation systems are characterised by a strong endowment with knowledge infrastructure elements and other innovation relevant institutions, but they suffer from a lack of local networking and knowledge circulation. In this paper we examine for Vienna whether this key deficiency of the regional innovation system, i.e. fragmentation, is also a crucial feature of knowledge based sectors such as the ICT manufacturing industry which exhibit an analytical knowledge base. Drawing on 18 face-to- face interviews with firms and an analysis of 207 knowledge links and 264 knowledge transfer channels we will show that local collective learning processes are vital for innovative companies in the Vienna ICT manufacturing sector, whilst at the same time they rely heavily on international knowledge sources. The significance of the local level as interaction space for knowledge exchange found in the ICT manufacturing sector indicates that at least for this knowledge based industry, Vienna's innovation system is of a less fragmented nature than previous studies have suggested. Knowledge based sectors are characterised by a high level of localised knowledge circulation which underpins radical innovation. (authors' abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Many innovation studies have been focusing on a narrow concept of innovation such as the generation of patents or new products. The performance of companies, however, often depends on innovation defined from a broader perspective. This includes process, organisational and market innovations as was pointed out already by Schumpeter. Drawing on the concept of knowledge bases and innovation networks we argue that these different types of innovation require both internal competencies, and technological and market knowledge from variour kinds of external sources. These can be located at regional, national and international levels. In the present paper we are going to analyse evidence from eight European countries in this respect. Based on a multivariate model we are able to show that product, process and organisational innovations indeed rely on quite different types and sources of knowledge, and that in addition also the institutional characteristics of regions and countries matter. (author's abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Due to strong regionalization tendencies in many parts of the world, the political collapse in Central and Eastern Europe and the continuing enlargement of the European Union crossborder regions have grown considerably in number and importance in the last years. There is a widespread agreement in the academic literature that in the emerging globalized knowledge economy the competitive strength of these areas increasingly rests on their capacity to create an integrated innovation space. The focus of this paper is on a theoretical analysis of different stages in the development of cross-border regional innovation systems and on a comparative analysis of the innovation capabilities of two cross-border areas in Europe, the Öresund region, composed of Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark, and the Centrope area, which is located at the intersection of Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary. Departing from the regional innovation system approach, in a first step we will identify conceptually crucial preconditions and key determinants for the rise of transfrontier innovation systems. From an evolutionary perspective cross-border regional innovation systems could be seen as the last and most advanced form of cross-border integration building on the success of previous incremental but less advanced modes of integration. We will discuss a conceptual framework describing the different stages of such a process and we will examine how the prospects for a successful development vary between different geographical settings.(...) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

The adequacy of existing transport infrastructure to four distinct clusters in Austria's key regions is tested by examining the willingness of logistics managers to pay for additional service improvements. Findings show an overall willingness to pay for multiple service improvements; this reveals a general dissatisfaction with current shipping options, regardless of transport mode, where rail mode services ("Bahn") provoke the greatest dissatisfaction. Willingness to pay for improvements generally increases by degrees of regional EU remoteness and relative youth of cluster industries, as hypothesized from Schumpterian assumptions concerning infrastructure innovation. / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

We analyse in a Footloose Capital productive public services provided by a central government aiming at reducing regional disparities. Two countervailing effects occur - one upon productivity and another upon local demand - the relative strength of which depends upon the financing scheme. Only if the "rich" region contributes sufficiently to the financing of the public services in the "poor" region, the poor region will actually gain. In studying these questions we pay particular attention to the dynamic adjustment processes and to the role of trade freeness. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Das Pilotprojekt Triestingtal beschäftigte sich mit der Frage, über welche Arten von Netzwerkbeziehungen KMU in ihrer Region verfügen und welchen Nutzen sie daraus ziehen können. Als Untersuchungsregion für die Studie wurde die LEADER-Region Triestingtal in Niederösterreich ausgewählt, da hier zahlreiche kleinregionale Projekte erfolgreich umgesetzt werden konnten. / Series: Research Reports / RICC

Driving factors and mechanisms for cluster development have often been investigated based on the standard cluster approach as conceptualised e.g. by Michael Porter. These studies have revealed certain insights regarding the role of local entrepreneurship, factor conditions, demand, and related industries in supporting clusters. However, such factors were analysed often from a static competitiveness perspective, and they were often seen as rooted in a region or part of an overly schematic local-global pattern. We suggest instead that driving factors of cluster development coexist at several spatial scales such as regional, national, European and global levels. We also argue that specific factors change in their importance for firms and for clusters over time, and that these changes are industry- and knowledge base specific. Relying on insights from cluster life cycle-, evolutionary- and knowledge base approaches among others we investigate changes in driving factors for cluster development and their relationship to different geographical scales. We provide some answers to these questions by comparing the environmental technology sector of Upper Austria and the New Media sector of Vienna, industries that differ in their knowledge bases and their spatial rootedness. (authors' abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

This article investigates the effects of introducing demography into the New Economic Geography. We generalize the constructed capital approach, which relies on infinite individual planning horizons, by introducing mortality. The resulting overlapping generation framework with heterogeneous individuals allows us to study the effects of aging on agglomeration processes by analytically identifying the level of trade costs that triggers catastrophic agglomeration. Interestingly, this threshold value is rather sensitive to changes in mortality. In particular, the introduction of a positive mortality rate makes the symmetric equilibrium more stable and therefore counteracts agglomeration tendencies. In sharp contrast to other New Economic Geography approaches, this implies that deeper integration is not necessarily associated with higher interregional inequality. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Traditionally, regional endowments are viewed as external variables when it comes to location choices of companies. In most concepts on location choices and regional economics companies are thought to view the local labour market, the local innovation system or the general quality of life in a region as given and chose the location that best suits the company's needs. Increasingly however, scholars from different research fields are providing arguments to reverse that view and show that there can be good reasons for a company to engage in improving its location despite implicit externalities. In this paper we try to systematically analyse issue of corporate engagement in regions. We will show how strong and in which fields companies engage in their respective region, how this engagement can be related to their existing regional integration and what differences appear between industries and types of companies in this respect. In this study we draw upon extensive interviews with over thirty companies from three industrial sectors in the Austrian region of Styria: the metals industry, which dates back to medieval times and has gone through a deep process of economic restructuring, the automotive industry, the first industry in which a comprehensive cluster policy approach was applied in Austria and the software industry, a rather young industry that experienced high growth rates in the past years. We will conclude that even though there are differences between the industries and types of companies in terms of scope and scale of regional integration and regional engagement, there is a strong correlation between the two: the higher the regional integration, the higher corporate regional engagement and vice versa. / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Recently, issues of international taxation have also been analysed from a New Economic Geography perspective. These discussions show that agglomerative forces play a non negligible role. In the paper, we introduce explicitly taxation into a Footloose Capital Model and compare implications of taxation according to the residence principle and the source principle from a New Economic Geography perspective. We confirm that agglomerative effects change the results substantially compared to the standard analysis and that the two taxation principles have different implications for industry agglomeration. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination