P ORTER M. E. (2003) The economic performance of regions, Reg. Studies 37 , 549-578. This paper examines the basic facts about the regional economic performance, the composition of regional economies and the role of clusters in the US economy over period of 1990 to 2000. The performance of regional economies varies markedly in terms of wage, wage growth, employment growth and patenting rate. Based on the distribution of economic activity across geography, we classify US industries into traded, local and resource-dependent. Traded industries account for only about one-third of employment but register much higher wages, far higher rates of innovation and influence local wages. We delineate clusters of traded industries using co-location patterns across US regions. The mix of clusters differs markedly across regions. The performance of regional economies is strongly influenced by the strength of local clusters and the vitality and plurality of innovation. Regional wage differences are dominated by the relati...

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The Economic Performance of Regions

This Paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatial variations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into a productivity effect and an occupational composition effect. For the former (but not the latter) we find a robust relationship with proximity to economic mass, suggesting that doubling the population of working age proximate to an area is associated with a 3.5% increase in productivity in the area. We measure proximity by travel time, and show that effects decline steeply with time, ceasing to be important beyond approximately 80 minutes.

Spatial determinants of productivity: analysis for the regions of Great Britain

https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/58227/1/Regional%20convergence%20in%20Europe.pdf

Edgar S. Dunn

Papers

A statistical and analytical technique for regional analysis