Post-industrial economic restructuring in developed countries has downgraded the role of blue-collar labour in regional growth, giving way, conversely, to occupations that demand high concentrations of human capital. Human capital has been documented to positively affect regional growth and income, signifying an urban planning shift towards amenities provision, as a human capital attraction tool. An emerging, highly-valued amenity in the post-industrial society is nightlife. Following Florida’s reasoning on the rising salience of the creative class, this paper investigates the hypothesis that nightlife attracts high human capital or skilled individuals. It focuses on the paradigm of Greece, using data acquired by the Greek statistics agency and, to a lesser extent, the Greek yellow pages. It employs two measures, the human capital one –calculated as the percentage of the population holding a bachelor degree and above- and an approximation of Florida’s creative class measure –occupational categorization according to job complexity. Bivariate correlations are applied to account for human capital attracting factors and structural equation modelling to assess nightlife’s impact on the two measures and respectively, on regional growth.

In the last decades, small firms have accounted for a disproportionately large share of new jobs. Using data from 1993 to 2009, the concern of this thesis is to examine regional differences in employment growth in Sweden, with  a focus at the role of small firms. The author employs findings from previous studies and theoretical discussions on advantages and disadvantages of small firms to derive a number of variables to use in two multiple regression models on regional employment growth, one for the period 1993-2001 and one for the period 2001-2009. The results show that, unlike increases of well educated workers and the population growth, increases in small firm employment is significant in explaining employment growth in both periods, with a positive relationship. For both periods, changes in small firms’ share of employment is not significant in explaining employment growth. Although many new jobs have been generated in service industries, changes in the service sectors’ share of employment is highly insignificant as an explanatory variable for employment growth. Moreover, an increased share of highly educated workers is negatively related to employment growth.

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In this study, the relationship between the tourism policies and economic development in China was analyzed from the three levels: nation, region and province. The analysis included the evolution of tourism policies, the survey of tourism market, the strength of tourism resources and the unique features of tourism development. At national level, the changes before and after the three period were studied, including the founding of PRC in 1949, open-door economic reform policy in 1978, and entering WTO in 2001. Concerning the regional level, the eastern and western were analyzed. In the aspects of province, only those showing distinguished developmenmt were chosen for analysis, including Jiangsu in the eastern coastal region, and Yunnan in the western inland region. From the viewpoint of national policies and market mechanism, the direction concerning the development of regional tourism policies was discussed. Based on the theory of regional economic development, the differences in tourism development were investigated. In terms of the theory of industrial competition advantage, the advantage of tourism resources was examined. Finally, the correlation between tourism and economic development was analyzed. The unique features of tourism in China from the three levels were also explored, respectively.

Despite the advantages and dominance of globalization in today&rsquo / s world economics / clusters, as a regional based development tool, still attract many researchers and policy makers from all over the world in order to obtain sustainable competitiveness. As a result of fast rising number of cluster development policies and initiatives, the importance of measuring the performance of clusters arises. The purpose of this thesis is to design a performance measurement model, which will be applied to industrial clusters in Turkey. A model framework is developed, based on expected outcomes of clusters which are classified as productivity, innovativeness, new business formations and social capital. Indicators are selected based on extensive literature survey under these four determinants, and a scorecard is developed. After the design phase, the performance of two cluster cases from Turkey is studied. In order to improve clustering approach, it is important to monitor, measure identify the progress of clusters. It is believed that this work will be utile for policy makers to identify whether the interventions, incentives and promotions are beneficial for the desired purposes and whether they are used effectively.

In parallel to developments around the world, regional policy issue has become an important issue in Turkey&rsquo / s agenda. However, political tools such as projects and plans were performed poorly due to the fact that these policy efforts failed to take into account bottom-up institutional setting according to own dynamics of each region. The European integration has made a positive impact on Turkey&rsquo / s highly centralized structure. Turkey displayed a series of changes within the scope of institutional reforms. Firstly, NUTS Classification in accordance with EU&rsquo / s statistical regions was introduced and then, Development Agencies were established by The Law on The Establishment and Duties of Development Agencies, based on NUTS-II regions. Thus, institutionalization at regional level was emerged for the first time in Turkish history as one of the significant movement. Following experiences gained during the institutional establishment efforts, this thesis aims to examine the existing DA&rsquo / s institutional performance in the regional plan activities. Izmir Development Agency (IZKA) was chosen as a case study topic in order to explore how Development Agencies perform regional plan in terms of institutional infrastructure. To achieve this aim, the research was formed into two stages. Firstly / factors, affecting the institutional performance were determined. Secondly / IZKA was assessed over these factors. Qualitative research method through in-depth interviews was conducted in order to assess IZKA&rsquo / s institutional performance in operationalizing Izmir Regional Plan 2010-2013. In addition, documented texts were incorporated as the secondary data.

Between 1999 and 2007, a series of infrastructure improvements were completed at the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, in order to increase cargo capacity at the port. This paper looks at the port for indications of economic development generated through this infrastructure investment. Infrastructure improvements impact Georgia's economy by making additional cargo throughput possible through the Port of Brunswick by enabling larger cargo vessels to access the port. Additional cargo traffic generates economic opportunity by creating jobs to handle, move, sell and produce this new cargo volume. This analysis investigates what the infrastructure improvements accomplished in terms of improved port operations, what measurable impact they have had on throughput at the port, and associates these changes with economic gains for the State of Georgia. Primary research is used to determine exactly what infrastructure projects were undertaken and how each impacted the port in terms of operations, actual new business and potential growth. This data on increased cargo volumes, realized and potential, is translated into statewide economic impact through existing data on how port traffic affects economic indicators such as output, gross state product, income and employment. The infrastructure improvements created measurable gains at the Port of Brunswick in terms of increased cargo volumes and new business contracts. The effect through the State of Georgia is much greater when economic multipliers are considered.

The thesis seeks to study through a qualitative text analysis how strategic policy concepts from three different policy documents concerning the use of the European Regional Development Fund can be said to align with two theoretical concepts from the field of regional development. Furthermore this paper aims to analyse how the theoretical- and policy-concepts are operationalized in the project that received funding in accordance with the policy concepts in one of the policy documents.

This Master Thesis hinges on the concept of Innovation and its association with regional development as a phenomenon that has attracted both researchers and policy makers’ attention.  The thesis presents two different innovation perspectives on regional development – Innovation Systems and Complex Systems of Innovation, and applies them into the case-study of the Life Sciences Cluster in Lund. In order to do so, the key aspects of each of the perspectives are highlighted within the part devoted to the Framework of this thesis. Within these, the networks between organizations in the Innovation Systems and the actors and their interrelations in the Complex Systems perspective have been analyzed. The analysis of these aspects brings up similar outcomes in both perspectives applied, i.e. the creation of various organizations within the Cluster. Both of the perspectives account for the importance of Lund University for the creation of these organizations and subsequent development of the Life Sciences cluster.

This dissertation consists of three papers that explore the intersection between geography and housing markets. The research examines both how geographic context shapes housing prices and how house prices influence geography through household location decisions.The first paper explores the spatial structure of housing prices within Tucson, Arizona. Hedonic house-price studies typically assume that housing attribute prices are constant over space. The research tests this assumption and compares two methods of incorporating spatial-varying parameters into house-price models: geographically weighted regression and the spatial expansion method. The results provide evidence that housing attribute prices do indeed vary with geographic context and suggest that more reliable parameter estimates and better house-price estimation accuracy can be achieved through the use of these techniques.The second paper builds upon the first by examining how more realistic conceptions of housing market spatial structure influence the hedonic price estimates of location-specific externalities. The empirical analysis examines how two key spatial effects, spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, impact the marginal price estimates for proximity to the Rillito River, within Tucson, Arizona. Both spatial effects are found to influence the resulting estimates, but spatial heterogeneity is of greater practical importance as the price estimates vary widely with geographic context. This research highlights the importance of considering both spatial effects in hedonic externality valuations.The final paper explores how housing prices influence interregional migration patterns, and more specifically, how their influence varies with both stage in the life course and educational attainment. The research models metropolitan migration within the United States during the period 1995 to 2000. The results indicate that housing prices play an important role in driving regional demographic change, as their influence varies with both demographic characteristics. High housing prices deter individuals in their late twenties and early thirties, but their influence wanes during middle age. House prices become more important as individuals near retirement. The results also provide evidence that college graduates respond more to house price differentials than do persons with lower levels of educational attainment.