Arts and cultural activity may play an important role in regional economic development. But to what end and by what means? Traditional economic development theory identifies export expansion and import substitution as the means by which an industrial sector may add to a region’s economic base. Recorded and visual arts may produce exports in some regions, but live performing arts are incapable of exportation. Instead, they must generate tourism to capture extra-regional dollars. Contemporary research argues two additional means by which the arts may encourage growth. First, the presence of a great many artists and arts institutions may increase firm productivity and efficiency by reducing the cost of arts services, increasing the quality of and accessibility to arts services, and promoting innovation. Second, an abundance of arts and cultural activity may attract a highly skilled, competitive workforce, which then attracts firm relocation. This report presents original research designed to test this last hypothesis as applied to Austin, Texas. Results indicate that while the arts in Austin may not attract a competitive workforce, they do appear to have at least some significance in retaining creative professionals. / text

This research inquiry asked, "How can the District of Mission involve leaders in private industry in creating strategies to develop the local workforce and economy?" An action research approach was used to engage local employers and employment service providers in an inquiry in the District of Mission. This study drew upon literature on entrepreneurial leadership, job creation, social capital, and knowledge transfer. Two qualitative methods, in-depth interviews and a conversation café, were used to uncover the essential factors and conditions that facilitate entrepreneurial leadership and workforce development on a regional basis. These findings were triangulated against the experiences of exemplar entrepreneurs. The findings revealed that effective leaders cultivate a culture of high performance and that systems integration and personal relationships are key to entrepreneurial leadership and workforce development. The recommendations enable people from diverse backgrounds to identify shared concerns and common interests to support community economic development.

Regional economic disparities are a widely noted characteristic of the Canadian economy. This thesis examines regional disparities in terms of wages and labour productivity in the manufacturing sector. Regional disparities are analysed along three dimensions: provinces, rural/urban areas and industrial structure. Various competing theories are discussed and compared to the findings. Shift-share based decomposition analyses the magnitude and pattern of disparity and controls for industrial structure. Weighted regression is used to combine provincial and rural/urban effects. The findings support theories that emphasize provinces as units of analysis. The rural/urban results gave qualified support to urban theory. Accounting for industrial structure impacted both the rural/urban and provincial results. The regression analysis found the rural/urban dimension was significant; however, industrial structure and provincial effects were more significant. These results suggest industrial location and provincial economic policies can influence regional economic disparities in Canada.

The present study investigated whether cluster potentials could be identified in the geographical area within the boundaries of Samsun province, and if identified, how such a potential could be promoted through corresponding support measures. Development of policy recommendations for promotion of identified cluster potential was the principal goal of the study. The course of the study was characterized by a cluster-based policy-making process in the policy environment, i.e. Samsun province. The process includes a descriptive part, i.e. cluster analysis, and a prescriptive part, i.e. determining policy goals and designing policy instruments. In the literature review, a guide to the field study was developed by review of various approaches to cluster concept / common features of clusters and the competitive advantages these give rise to / various practices in cluster-based policy development, and various cluster analysis methods. The field study starts with the initial identification of need for policy intervention, at which stage the rationale for pursuing a cluster-based policy in the specific conditions of Samsun and Turkey was discussed. The &ldquo / clusters as sectors&rdquo / approach was utilized in the identification of region&rsquo / s (potential) clusters and selection of the cluster as the subject of analysis and policy development. The analysis of industrial sectors in Samsun&rsquo / s economy was followed by selection of the target sector via employing various criteria assessing the importance of these sectors in terms of value added to the regional economy, and the clustering potential. Accordingly, furniture sector was selected, and the agglomeration of furniture sector enterprises in Kutlukent locality was identified as the potential cluster to be the subject of analysis and policy development. Following the identification of the potential cluster, the descriptive part was completed by second-stage micro-level analysis of the identified potential cluster, by which detailed information about the potential cluster was presented. At that phase, cluster potential of the structure was assessed by examining the elements in cluster value and production chain / public and private business support infrastructure / the flow of materials and goods in the chain / untraded relationships between the elements / characteristics of enterprises and workforce / and innovation performance. This comprehensive in-depth analysis of the cluster provided the required information to identify the specific needs of the cluster for cluster-based policy intervention. In the last part of the thesis, i.e. prescriptive part, cluster-oriented policy recommendations were developed including the determination of policy goal and the design/selection of policy instruments. The necessary information was collected by two-stage expert interviews, and by overall scan of the enterprises involved in the cluster via enterprise survey, which was realized in interviews with all of the enterprises. Six experts and 283 enterprises participated in the study. The results of the analysis showed that, while Kutlukent furniture cluster had some features, which are common in effective cluster models, the cluster lacks some critical features, which are crucial for effective functioning of a successful cluster. Hence, Kutlukent furniture cluster was defined as a &ldquo / potential&rdquo / cluster, which should be promoted by utilizing the existing potentials and strengths, and by addressing the weaknesses and obstacles identified in the analysis of the cluster, via appropriate cluster-oriented policy measures, which were proposed in the prescriptive part of the policy-making process. By these measures, the elements of Kutlukent potential cluster would be able to realize competitive advantages associated with clustering as in successful cluster models.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-154).

This thesis presents an examination of the importance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for economic growth and examines how sensitive employment in SMEs is to business cycle fluctuations in Brazil. The thesis uses different empirical techniques to investigate the role of SMEs in the Brazilian regional economic growth, using a panel dataset from 1980 to 2004 for 508 Brazilian micro-regions. It first uses standard panel data estimators (OLS, LSDV, system and first differenced GMM) to analyse the (augmented) Solow growth model encompassing the importance of the relative size of the SME sector measured by the share of the SME employment in total formal employment and the level of human capital in SMEs measured by the average years of schooling of SME employees. The results show that the size of the SME sector is not significantly important for regional economic growth, but that human capital embodied in SMEs is more important in this process.

La région andine est un territoire constitué par quatre pays d'Amérique Latine : la Bolivie, la Colombie, l'Equateur et le Pérou, regroupés au sein d'une même association régionale, le Pacte Andin, depuis 1969. Ce Pacte porte l'appellation de Communauté Andine des Nations (CAN), depuis 1996. L'objectif de la thèse est de qualifier le processus régional actuellement à l´œuvre dans la CAN, en utilisant comme point de départ la typologie des processus régionaux établie par Figuière et Guilhot (2006, 2007, 2009) qui permet de distinguer et de qualifier les deux piliers de l'intégration économique régionale : l'intensification des flux économiques intra régionaux et l'institutionnalisation des relations interétatiques, soit, la régionalisation et le régionalisme. L'analyse va permettre de montrer que, si des nombreuses institutions aux vocations très variées ont vu le jour dans la CAN au fil de quatre décennies, la part des échanges intra régionaux n'est quant à elle pas parvenue à franchir le seuil des 10% sur cette période. Ces résultats témoignent d'une part, de la mise en place progressive d'un régionalisme en profondeur, dans la mesure où les réglementations qui sont élaborées par les institutions régionales provoquent l'harmonisation de pratiques à l'intérieur des Etats-nations, et d'autre part, de l'absence d'une véritable régionalisation. Le processus actuellement à l'œuvre au sein de la CAN ne peut donc être qualifié d'intégration économique régionale (IER). L´attraction exercée par l´économie américaine constitue l´un des facteurs explicatifs de ce décalage entre le processus institutionnel régionale plus sophistiqué et une régionalisation qui ne démarre pas. / Andean region consists of four Latin American countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru unified within a regional association, Andean Pact, in 1969, that became the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) in 1996. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the regional process that is actually being implemented within CAN. In this aim, we use the typology of regional processes established by Figuière and Guilhot (2006, 2007, and 2009) as the starting point of analysis. This analytical framework leads to identify two distinct pillars in regional economic integration: intensification of intra-regional economic flows and institutionalization of interstate relations, namely regionalism and regionalization. This analysis will show that, even though numerous institutions with various purposes emerged within CAN during the last four decades, the proportion of intra-regional trade did not exceed 10% during this period. These results reflect on the one hand, the phase-in of regionalism in depth, insofar as the regulations that are developed by regional institutions cause the harmonization of practices within nation States, and on the other hand, the absence of a genuine regionalization.. On the other hand, they point to a lack of a sound regionalization. Therefore the ongoing CAN process cannot be qualified as a regional economic integration (IER). This discrepancy between a more sophisticated regional institutional framework and a regionalization that does not take off may partially be explained by the significant economic attractiveness of the US economy.

This paper documents macro-economic change in Swedish regional labor markets during the last great recession (2008). This is made by using Swedish macro-data and analyzing employment flows over the period 2003-2013. The findings point to the fact that there is great disparity in the geography both when it comes to how the regions resist crises and recoup in the aftermath (Resilience) and how the crisis effect the labor market and its momentum in the recovery phase (polarization). The findings indicate that the 2008 financial crisis affected the Swedish regional labor market in a polarized development. Regions that showed patterns of this behavior before the recession managed to go through the crisis and recoup well, whereas the regions that didn’t show a polarized pattern before 2008 had a much harder time recuperating after the crises. With these findings we can generate a more sophisticated knowledge how regional economies can resist and recoup after financial recessions and use this to reduce the impact of future recessions.

Na literatura econômica, há um grande interesse no estudo sobre a dinâmica do crescimento das cidades e os fatores que a influenciam. A motivação principal dos pesquisadores é verificar por que algumas cidades crescem enquanto outras permanecem estagnadas, e quais são os fatores que contribuem para o fluxo de migração de fatores de produção para os grandes centros urbanos. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho procura avaliar o impacto da infraestrutura pública sobre o crescimento econômico das cidades brasileiras - mensurado por meio do crescimento populacional e salarial. O acesso à infraestrutura é um dos principais fatores que determinam o desenvolvimento econômico e é considerado um dos maiores entraves para a o crescimento econômico do Brasil. Boa infraestrutura pode garantir serviços básicos, bem como externalidades positivas sobre a saúde, meio ambiente, produtividade e possibilidades de investimento. Os dados dos Censos Demográficos, utilizados nesta dissertação, mostraram que o país experimentou um forte crescimento no acesso à infraestrutura no período de 1970 a 2010. O acesso ao bastecimento de água, a coleta de esgoto, energia elétrica e a telefonia mais do que dobrou no período analisado. Tendo em vista que os municípios brasileiros são suscetíveis a diversas formas de interações entre si, é de se esperar que existam efeitos espaciais entre estes. Portanto, para analisar os impactos da infraestrutura sobre o crescimento econômico regional, foi utilizada a metodologia econométrica de dados em painel com dependência espacial. Como esperado, os resultados mostram que as variáveis de infraestrutura afetam positivamente o crescimento econômico regional, sendo o acesso à energia elétrica e a telefonia as variáveis com maior impacto. / In the economic literature there is a great interest in the study of the dynamics of the growth of cities and the factors that influence it. The main attraction of the researchers is to check why some cities grow while others remain stagnant, and what are the factors that contribute to the migration flow of production factors to the major urban centers. In this sense, this paper seeks to assess the impact of public infrastructure on economic growth of Brazilian cities - measured by population and wage growth. Since the access to infrastructure is one of the main factors determining economic development and is considered one of the greatest barriers to the economic growth in Brazil. Good infrastructure can guarantee basic services, as well as positive externalities in health, environment, productivity and possibilities for investment. Data from Demographic Censuses, used in this paper, showed that the country experienced strong growth in the access to infrastructure in the period of 1970-2010. The access to water supply, the sewage collection, electricity and telecommunications more than doubled during the period analyzed. In order to measure the effects of infrastructure on regional economic growth, we used the econometric analysis of panel data with spatial dependence, since the Brazilians\' municipalities are susceptible to diverse forms of interactions among them, is to be expected that exist spatial effects between them. As expected, the results show that the infrastructure variables positively affect the variation of income, being the access to electricity and telecommunications the variables with the greatest impact.

A integração comercial entre países vem ocorrendo através de negociações multilaterais e acordos regionais. As teorias de comércio internacional dizem que as primeiras provocam aumento de bem-estar. Entretanto, não há consenso sobre os efeitos dos segundos. O papel deste trabalho é justamente avaliar os impactos de dois acordos comerciais, o Mercosul e o Nafta, sobre dois critérios de bem-estar, a criação e o desvio de comércio. Isso é feito através da estimação de equações gravitacionais para dados em painel, com a inclusão de variáveis dummy para captar a relação intra e extra-bloco, conforme metodologia apresentada por Endoh (1999). Os resultados apontaram que não ocorreu criação de comércio em ambos os acordos. O Nafta foi seguido por desvio de comércio e o Mercosul apresentou dificuldades na mensuração do mesmo. / The commercial integration between countries has been taking place through multilateral negotiations and regional agreements. Economic theories of international trade say that the first one improves welfare. However, there is no consensus about the second one. The aim of this dissertation is just to evaluate the effects of two agreements, Mercosur and Nafta, on two concepts of welfare, trade creation and trade diversion. This is done through the estimation of gravity equations by panel data methods, with dummy variables to detect intra-bloc and extra-bloc relations, according to the methodology of Endoh (1999). The results suggested that trade creation has not occurred in both agreements. Nafta was followed by trade diversion and Mercosur presented difficulties in measuring this component.