Skill Composition and Regional Entrepreneurship: A Comparative Study between Germany and Portugal (original) (raw)

Entrepreneurship, Regional Development and Job Creation: the Case of Portugal

Small Business Economics, 2008

This paper investigates whether a high level of new business formation in a region stimulates employment in that region. The study looks at the lag structure of these effects, using a data set covering a fairly large time span . The indirect supply-side effects of new firm births, whether due to greater competition, efficiency or innovation, seem to be at least as important as the direct effects associated with employment creation by the new entrants. However, such supply-side effects only occur after a time lag of about eight years, leading to a pattern of lagged effects that is somewhat u-shaped. This finding suggests that new entrants bring about improvements to overall regional competitiveness, but that such improvements only become significant after some time.

Entrepreneurship: The Role of Clusters Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Evidence from Germany

Small Business Economics, 2005

This paper is about the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship at the regional level. Defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new organisations and clusters as a geographically proximate group of interconnected firms and associated institutions in related industries, this paper aims to answer three research questions : first, do clusters matter to entrepreneurship at the regional level? Second, if clusters are associated with different levels of entrepreneurship, what explains those differences? Third, what do the answers to the previous questions imply for academics and policy makers? To answer these questions, this paper distinguishes between clusters and industrial agglomerations and advances a theoretical model and empirical research to explain the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship at the regional level. This paper uses the 97 German planning regions as units of analysis to test the hypotheses. Using hypotheses testing and OLS fixed-effects model, this paper finds that clusters do have an impact on entrepreneurship at the regional level, but industrial agglomerations do not. Implications for academics and policy makers and suggestions for future research are given in the concluding section.

Entrepreneurship, Agglomeration and Technological Change

Small Business Economics, 2005

Technological change is a central element in macroeconomic growth explanation. Endogenous growth models take a revolutionary step towards better understanding the economic growth process by deriving technological change from profit-motivated individual behavior. In endogenous growth theory knowledge spillovers play a fundamental role in the determination of the rate of technological progress. As such the efficiency of transmitting knowledge into economic applications is a crucial factor in explaining macroeconomic growth. Endogenous growth models take this factor exogenous. We argue that variations across countries in entrepreneurship and the spatial structure of economic activities could potentially be the source of different efficiencies in knowledge spillovers and ultimately in economic growth. We develop an empirical model to test both the entrepreneurship and the geography effects on knowledge spillovers. To date the only international data that are collected on the basis of exactly the same principles in each country are the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data. We use the 2001 GEM cross-country data to measure the level of entrepreneurship in each particular economy. For this purpose we apply the TEA index developed within the framework of the GEM project and calculated for each country participating in this international research.

Specialization, R&D and productivity growth: evidence from EU regions

Annals of Regional Science, 2012

The present paper analyzes the effect of regional specialization and R&D expenditures on labor productivity growth. Following Fingleton [Environ Plan 32:1481–1498 2000], we assume positive externalities in labor productivity growth and technological spillovers depend on interregional distances and economy size. Regional specialization and R&D expenditures are assumed to enhance growth by affecting the level of technology. Although it may seem natural that specialization and R&D expenditures can convey great advantages on economic growth, evidence varies across sectors. We conduct an empirical analysis for two economic sectors and the economy as a whole. Recently developed spatial econometric methods are adopted to control for potential heteroscedasticity in the growth equation.

Entrepreneurial Policy: The Case of Regional Specialization vs. Spontaneous Industrial Diversity

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2008

Regional economic development policy is recognized as a key tool governments use to foster economic prosperity. Whether specialization (or diversity) of economic activities should be a regional development policy goal is often debated. We address this question in a local-diversity context, by reviewing traditional arguments in its favor, supplemented with evidence for more entrepreneurial concepts like industrial symbiosis and Jacobs externalities. We show that the context of entrepreneurship matters more to policy than the type and form of resulting industries. Policies enabling entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities in a context of spontaneously evolved industrial diversity are better facilitators of regional development.

Does related variety foster regional entrepreneurship? Evidence from European regions

Regional Studies, 2019

Several studies have identified positive effects of related variety among a region's economic sectors on employment growth. However, the exact mechanisms through which knowledge spillovers between related sectors translate into employment growth are yet to be demonstrated. Entrepreneurship may be a possible transmission mechanism via which spillovers lead to the creation of new jobs. In this paper, we analyze novel pan-European regional survey data that distinguishes between opportunity-and necessity-driven entrepreneurs and we find that related variety has a positive effect on opportunity-driven entrepreneurship. In addition, we also find that different 'varieties of capitalism' influence regional entrepreneurship.

Determinants of Convergence and Disparities in Europe: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Processes of Clustering

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2012

Innovation and entrepreneurship are key factors in current regional development initiatives, derived from the concepts of new economic growth theory. The aim of this paper is to combine an assessment of innovative and entrepreneurial performance with the spatial distribution and functional linkages of certain types of economic clusters. The hypothesis is that clustered regions with high entrepreneurial and innovative performance have higher growth than noninnovative/entrepreneurial regions or regions with a more scattered economic structure. The clustering and in some cases even the polarization of economic activities in metropolitan regions can lead to excess growth, and contribute to a process of convergence between nations, but will also turn regional economic divergence back on the national economic development agenda. The purpose of this paper is to provide in deep information on these processes in an international and perspective based on European empirical evidence. The first part of the paper addresses the development and growth issue in a theoretical development policy perspective. The impact of innovation (measured by innovation scoreboard data) and entrepreneurship (GEM data etc.) on regional growth is estimated individual and combined as well as dummies for various levels of industrial clustering and agglomeration etc. are introduced. Within these groups we study the process of convergence by use of the traditional measures of convergence. The findings are compared with traditional geographical convergence results, enabling an analysis based both on traditional geographical adjacent regions, often characterized by a common institutional framework, and regions characterized by common features in economic performance terms. Based on the empirical results and the findings of the literature survey in the first part of the paper the final section provides an assessment of the overall trends in economic convergence and disparities and the drivers behind this process.

Why does the effect of new business formation differ across regions?

Small Business Economics, 2011

We investigate regional differences of the effect of new business formation on employment growth in West Germany. We find an inverse 'u'-shaped relationship between the level of start-up activity and employment change. The main variables that shape the employment effects of new businesses in a region are population density, the share of medium level skilled workers, the proportion of Research and Development conducted in small businesses (entrepreneurial technological regime), the unemployment rate as well as the degree of specialization of the regional economy. However, indicators for education and innovation activity in the region proved not to be statistically significant. Conducting our analysis for manufacturing and services separately confirmed the pattern of our previous results only for manufacturing but not for services.