the peak of oil production timings and market recognition abstract energy is essential for present societies in particular transportation systems depend on petroleum based fuels that world oil production is set to pass a peak is now a reasonably accepted concept although its date is far from consensual in this work we analyze the true expectations of the oil market participants about the future availability of this fundamental energy source we study the evolution through time of the curves of crude oil futures prices and we conclude that the market participants among them the crude oil producers already expect a near term peak of oil production this agrees with many technical predictions for the date of peak production including our own that point to peak dates around the end of the present decade if this scenario is confirmed it can cause serious social and economical problems because societies will have little time to perform the necessary adjustments

local labour control regimes uneven development and the social regulation of production jonas a e g 1996 local labour control regimes uneven development and the social regulation of production reg studies 30 323 338 the apparent demise of fordist consensus seeking institutions of labour regulation raises questions concerning which if any forms of labour market governance will dominate localities in the future without providing the answers for these questions this paper addresses at a theoretical level the social need for capital to foster reciprocities between places of production and sites of consumption and labour reproduction in local labour markets this need emerges from a contradiction between on the one hand capital s abstract interest in the global exchange of labour power and on the other hand the concrete interest of particular capitals in the local context of that exchange a local labour control regime amounts to a stable local institutional framework for accumulation and labour regulation constructed around local labour market reciprocities different factions

energy conservation more effective with rebound policy this article sketches the problem of indirect energy use effects also known as rebound of energy conservation there is widespread support for energy conservation especially when it is voluntary as this seems a cheap way to realize environmental and energy climate goals however this overlooks the phenomenon of rebound the topic of energy rebound has mainly attracted attention from energy analysts but has been surprisingly neglected in environmental economics even though economists generally are concerned with indirect or economy wide impacts of technical change and policies this paper presents definitions and interpretations of energy and environmental rebound as well as four fundamental reasons for the existence of the rebound phenomenon it further offers the most complete list of rebound pathways or mechanisms available in the literature in addition it discusses empirical estimates of rebound and addresses the implications of uncertainties and difficulties in assessing rebound suggestions are offered for strategies and public policies to contain rebound it is advised that rebound evaluation is an essential part of environmental policy and project assessments as opposed to earlier studies this paper stresses the relevance of the distinction between energy conservation resulting from autonomous demand changes and from efficiency improvements in technology equipment in addition it argues that rebound is especially relevant for developing countries

marshallian factor market externalities and the dynamics of industrial localization abstract when an industry has thus chosen a locality for itself it is likely to stay there long so great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighborhood to one another a localized industry gains a great advantage from the fact that it offers a constant market for skill employers are apt to resort to any place where they are likely to find a good choice of workers while men seeking employment naturally go to places where there are many employers who need such skill as theirs the advantages of variety of employment are combined with those of localized industries in some of our manufacturing towns and this is a chief cause of their continued growth alfred marshall principles of economics 8th ed pp 271 272 1920

germany s solar cell promotion dark clouds on the horizon abstract this article demonstrates that the large feed in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of german hard coal production a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention yet as a consequence of the coexistence of the german renewable energy sources act eeg and the eu emissions trading scheme ets the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ets alone similarly disappointing is the net employment balance which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic pv support along the lines of the international energy agency iea 2007 energy policies of iea countries germany 2007 review international energy agency oecd paris p 77 we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed in tariffs granted for solar based electricity ultimately producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options

uneven reserves geographies of banking trade unionism wills j 1996 uneven reserves geographies of banking trade unionism reg studies 30 359 372 this paper explores the geography of trade union organization in the retail banking sector spatial variations in union membership and the reasons for these differences are excavated using empirical material collected in two high street banks in welwyn garden city hertfordshire and warrington cheshire during 1993 despite the fact that workers in both locations were employed in the same institutions with the same nationally negotiated terms and conditions the banking insurance and finance union bifu was found to be more strongly implanted in the northern than in the southern location moreover contrary to the expectations of some commentators and scholars the enormous changes which are occurring in retail banking employment did not appear to be undermining these geographical variations workplace trade union cultures were found to persist reflecting different local histories of union organization

industrial districts old wine in new bottles harrison b 1992 industrial districts old wine in new bottles reg studies 26 469 483 according to the theory of industrial districts a new wave of economic growth is being led in a number of regions in europe north america and east asia by spatially concentrated networks of mostly small and medium sized enterprises often using flexible production technology and characterized by extensive local interfirm linkages does this amount to a re emergence of the dominance of what urban and regional economists call agglomeration economies over the well known pressures on business to spatially disperse its operations neoclassical economic theorizing from marshall to perroux provides one perspective on the contemporary industrial district phenomenon another is afforded by granovetter s more recent elaboration of the ideas of embedding under and over socialization confronting each of these theoretical approaches with the other leads me to conclude that the industrial district prototypes involv

clusters dispersion and the spaces in between for an economic geography of the banal while the geographical clustering of economic activities remains an enduring feature of the industrial landscape and a perennial source of theoretical and empirical interest the geographical scale at which external economies and agglomerative effects are now claimed to operate is on the increase such changes in the spatial form and potential causes of agglomeration over time pose important questions how should we analyse changes in the spatial extent of external economies and agglomerative effects ought we to pay more attention to the sorts of banal economic spaces thrown up as part of increasingly diffuse forms of agglomeration to answer the first of these questions it is noted how economists and geographers have explained agglomerations often in the rather singular and invariant categories of pecuniary and marshallian externalities respectively this paper considers the relevance of neo marshallian analysis and the concept of borrowed size as variations on these classical principles to an analysis of the mobility and fixity of external economies and contemporary diffuse forms of agglomeration whilst reflecting important changes in the spatial extent of industrial agglomerations they are insufficiently sensitive to the interaction of different types of external economies with different scale dependencies in answering the second question it is noted that part of the value of analysing the economic basis of largely overlooked banal intermediate places lies in what they may reveal about the functioning of diffuse forms of agglomeration

is tourism firm competitiveness driven by different internal or external specific factors new empirical evidence from spain abstract the quest to understand the multilevel antecedents of competitiveness has led to a separation of approaches on one side of the question are the environment theories that analyze the structural characteristics of the general and competitive environment on the other side are the resource based view and its extensions that highlight firm specific resources and capabilities as the main basis of firms competitiveness however in recent years the nature of competition and shifting economic conditions have given rise to new theoretical approaches that complement the assumptions underlying both environmental and firm theories specifically this study contributes by examining the regional environment effect the district effect and the strategic group effect through a study of 364 spanish tourism firms this research explores the relative importance of distinct external forces such as the general environment or country effect the regional effect the competitive environment or industry effect the district effect and internal factors such as the firm s tangible resources capabilities and strategy selection the results demonstrate that firms capabilities are more important than environment effects and tangible resources

regional worlds from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks this annual lecture paper bridges two influential but parallel literature strands on evolutionary economic geography eeg and global production networks gpn it argues that both strands are prem

who s afraid of atmospheric stabilisation making the link between energy resources and climate change abstract the distribution of fossil fuel reserves and resources between different regions and deposits has strong implications for climate change economics and policy the task of stabilising the atmosphere is intimately linked to the question of long term energy supplies as conventional petroleum reserves deplete notwithstanding debates about the scope for reserve extension through continued exploration and development it suggests a supply side component to complement the consumption orientation of existing climate policies the task is to ensure that investment and innovation moves towards the low carbon frontier instead of the high carbon frontier this also implies that the opec countries have little to fear about the long run impact of climate change policy the priority is to deter development of more carbon intensive unconventional petroleum deposits and technologies and to ensure that the existing trends to diversify power generation sources continue and extend more widely over time supply side constraints will not solve the climate problem in themselves but they make the task a lot easier if the opportunities are taken

industrial districts and regional economic development a regulation approach digiovanna s 1996 industrial districts and regional economic developoment a regulation approach reg studies 30 373 386 this paper examines the regulatory underpinnings of industrial districts as many regional governments have been forced to accept greater responsibility for their own economic futures the industrial district model has been presented as an attractive path to economic development the underlying assumption among many policy makers is that all industrial districts are based on similar models of production organization and labour relations nevertheless the comparative approach illustrates that districts which appear similar on the surface are often quite distinct particularly when the experience of workers is considered by applying the concepts of regulation theory to the experiences of emilia romagna baden wurttemberg and silicon valley this paper illustrates that flexibly specialized districts can result in a variety of social outcomes this paper concludes that the success o

the simultaneous use of rival models in policy optimisation an important problem in macroeconomic policy design that has hitherto received little attention is the uncertainty of model structure by that we mean that more than one model fits the data reasonably well however each model is based on a different school of economic thought and thus has a different structure hence our analysis is based on non nested models when statistical inference cannot reject one model in favour of the other in this paper we discuss a way in which policy optimisation can be used to derive policies that are compatible with more than one model structure this is accomplished by extending an optimisation algorithm for a single nonlinear model of the economy to handle simultaneously more than one model and objective function the algorithm is designed to be efficient and relatively modest in its storage requirements a minimax extension is also considered for optimal policies robust to model choice when any one of the models turns out to represent the real economy two large scale nonlinear models of the uk economy are used simultaneously to obtain policies which are optimal with respect to a combined cost function this cost function is a combination of the cost functions associated with the individual models the models used are the h m treasury model and the model of the national institute of economic and social research

jevons paradox revisited the evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed

stochastic control for economic models past present and the paths ahead abstract on the 30th anniversary of a meeting between engineers and economists at princeton university to discuss the potential application of stochastic control methods to economics this paper provides a review of past present and paths ahead the events surrounding some of the key developments of the past are described along with a discussion of the present state of the research and of paths for future research the paper is structured around the primary methods for solving quadratic linear economic stochastic control models namely open loop classical control handcrafted feedback rules optimal feedback min max control optimal feedback rules with parameter uncertainty and dual control the paper also includes a discussion of software developments in economic stochastic control modeling

stages of the recruitment process and the referrer s performance effect although the existing theory predicts that a referral s chances of being hired increase with the job performance of the referrer no empirical evidence is available to support this claim to address this discrepancy we decompose the recruitment process into objective selection subjective selection and self selection and theorize that the likelihood of passing a particular recruitment stage increases with the performance of the referrer under objective selection and self selection but remains undetermined at a stage of subjective selection our analysis of unique comprehensive data on online recruitment of sales agents in a virtual call center supports these arguments the effectiveness of personnel as a recruitment channel varies with the type of the recruitment stage and performance of the referrer when the firm evaluates candidates by an objective criterion the advantage of a referral increases with the performance of his or her referrer those referred by relatively high performing workers are significantly better than the applicants who learned about the job from internet ads when job candidates self select into the next stage of the online application process the referral of any agent is more likely to continue than a nonreferral and this likelihood increases with the performance of the referrer on a subjective stage the outcome is contingent on the intricacies of the recruitment process in our case an applicant s chances of being hired increase with the performance of his or her referrer because the firm rejects the referrals of low performing workers at a higher rate than it does nonreferrals while it treats equally the referrals of high performing workers and nonreferrals the study s contributions to the literature on social networks in labor markets are discussed

regional social capital why it matters malecki e j regional social capital why it matters regional studies social capital refers to a culture of interaction among people with productive economic outcomes social capital promotes regional learning both within a region and beyond as it reinforces openness to the ideas of others regional cultures vary in the degree to which people individually and within their organizations trust and interact with one another which is why regional outcomes vary innovation learning and entrepreneurship key processes of regional development take place largely within and among people as members of companies and territorial organizations innovative milieus industrial districts and knowledge economies are among the regions with extraordinary pools of social capital malecki e j

robust monetary policy with competing reference models abstract the existing literature on robust monetary policy rules has largely focused on the case in which the policymaker has a single reference model while the true economy lies within a specified neighborhood of the reference model in this paper we show that such rules may perform very poorly in the more general case in which non nested models represent competing perspectives about controversial issues such as expectations formation and inflation persistence using bayesian and minimax strategies we then consider whether any simple rule can provide robust performance across such divergent representations of the economy we find that a robust outcome is attainable only in cases where the objective function places substantial weight on stabilizing both output and inflation in contrast we are unable to find a robust policy rule when the sole policy objective is to stabilize inflation we analyze these results using a new diagnostic approach namely by quantifying the fault tolerance of each model economy with respect to deviations from optimal policy

views on peak oil and its relation to climate change policy abstract definitions of fossil fuel reserves and resources and assessed stock data are reviewed and clarified semantics explain a large stake of conflict between advocate and critical voices on peak oil from a holistic sources sinks perspective limited carrying capacity of atmospheric sinks not absolute scarcity in oil resources will impose tight constraints on oil use eventually observed peaks in oil production in nearby years will result from politically imposed limits on carbon emissions and not be caused by physical lack of oil resources peak oil belief induces passive climate policy attitudes when suggesting carbon dioxide emissions will peak naturally linked to dwindling oil supplies active policies for reducing emissions and use of fossil fuels will also encompass higher energy end use prices revenues obtained from higher levies on oil use can support financing energy efficiency and renewable energy options but when oil producers charge the higher prices they can pump new oil for many decades postponing peak oil to occur while extending carbon lock in

growth pole strategies in regional economic planning a retrospective view part 2 implementation and outcome the paper continues from part 1 which appeared in the previous issue of the journal the primary concern is with neglected aspects of the growth pole strategy particularly as these relate to its i

collective efficiency growth path for small scale industry this study is concerned with the growth of small local industry in developing countries and explores one particular route for understanding and fostering such growth it focuses on the clustering of firms and the competitive advantage which they derive from local external economies and joint action captured in the concept of collective efficiency following a conceptual discussion the article explores the economic and institutional conditions which enhance or hinder collective efficiency this includes a case study which suggests that responding to opportunity and crisis requires shifting from mere reliance on external economies to joint action and from ascribed to earned trust

global oil depletion a review of the evidence within the polarised and contentious debate over future oil supply a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near term peak and subsequent decline in production but although liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies the growing debate on peak oil has relatively little influence on energy and climate policy with this in mind the uk energy research centre ukerc has conducted an independent thorough and systematic review of the evidence with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge identifying key uncertainties and improving consensus the study focuses upon the physical depletion of conventional oil in the period to 2030 and includes an in depth literature review analysis of industry databases and a detailed comparison of global supply forecasts this communication summarises the main findings of the ukerc study a key conclusion is that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020

small differences that still matter cross border regions and work place governance in the southern ontario and us great lakes automotive industry rutherford t d and holmes j small differences that still matter cross border regions and work place governance in the southern ontario and us great lakes automotive industry regional studies workplace governance is a critical element in determining regional competitiveness while contemporary rescaling of economic and social relations has produced new territorial configurations including cross border regions cbrs there is little research on the reshaping of workplace governance within such regions it is argued that changes in cbr workplace governance are contingent upon 1 firms ability to transfer corporate employment practices across national borders 2 labour law and other employment regulatory institutions and 3 the response of labour organizations using this framework workplace governance change in the automotive industry in the southern ontario and us great lakes states cbr is examined rutherford t d and holmes j

why do some occupations pay more than others social closure and earnings inequality in the united states1 this article elaborates and evaluates the neo weberian notion of social closure to investigate positional inequality in the united states it argues that social and legal barriers around occupations raise the rewards of their members by restricting the labor supply enhancing diffuse demand channeling demand or signaling a particular quality of service hypotheses derived from the closure perspective are evaluated using new data that map five institutionalized closure devices licensing educational credentialing voluntary certification association representation and unionization onto 488 occupations results from multilevel models demonstrate that closure practices particularly those that generate tangible restrictions on the labor supply shape the contemporary structure of occupational earnings returns to these strategies vary across occupations but are not tightly linked to the complexity of the occupation s knowledge base if suitably elaborated closure theory thus offers a promising complemen

the impact of r d on innovation for wind energy in denmark germany and the united kingdom this paper examines the impact of public research and development r d support on cost reducing innovation for wind turbine farms in denmark germany and the united kingdom uk first we survey the literature in this field the literature indicates that in denmark r d policy has been more successful than in germany or the uk in promoting innovation of wind turbines furthermore such studies point out that subsidy induced capacity expansions were more effective in the uk and denmark in promoting cost reducing innovation than in germany the second part of the paper describes the quantitative analysis of the impact of r d and capacity expansion on innovation this is calculated using the two factor learning curve 2flc model in which investment cost reductions are explained by cumulative capacity and the r d based knowledge stock time series data were collected for the three countries and organized as a panel data set the parameters of the 2flc model were estimated focusing on the homogeneity and heterogeneity of the parameters across countries we arrived at robust estimations of a learning by doing rate of 5 4 and a learning by searching rate of 12 6 the analysis underlines the homogeneity of the learning parameters enhancing the validity of the 2flc formulation

employment decentralisation polycentricity or scatteration the case of barcelona at the present time most large cities in the world are polycentric and at the same time they are undergoing processes of employment decentralisation and deconcentration it has been argued that polycentricity is just an intermediate stage between monocentricity and a more unstructured chaotic and amorphous location model scatteration for the case of the polycentric barcelona the aims of this study are to test whether its employment is moving from polycentricity to scatteration and whether its employment location model is increasingly random and unstructured the results show that in spite of the decentralisation and deconcentration processes employment concentrated in centres still represents a significant percentage of total employment and new sub centres have emerged in the periphery what is more the results also show an increasing influence of employment sub centres on employment location and density conditions as a result polycentricity has been reinforced

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california scott a j 1992 the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california reg studies 26 265 275 a generalized concept of industrial districts is proposed the concept hinges on the intertwined notions of the social division of labour external economies and locational agglomeration it is argued that large production units often play an important part in sustaining the growth and development of industrial districts and that such districts need not be composed solely of small production units the argument is illustrated by means of a case study of the role of large systems houses within the high technology industrial districts of southern california it is concluded that neither large establishments nor the internationalization of the economy necessarily threaten the continued viability of industrial districts it is also suggested that industrial districts represent a very widely developed phenomenon in time and space scott a j

a low carbon industrial revolution insights and challenges from past technological and economic transformations recent efforts to promote a transition to a low carbon economy have been influenced by suggestions that a low carbon transition offers challenges and might yield economic benefits comparable to those of the previous industrial revolutions this paper examines these arguments and the challenges facing a low carbon transition by drawing on recent thinking on the technological economic and institutional factors that enabled and sustained the first british industrial revolution and the role of general purpose technologies in stimulating and sustaining this and subsequent industrial transformation processes that have contributed to significant macroeconomic gains these revolutions involved profound long drawn out changes in economy technology and society and although their energy transitions led to long run economic benefits they took many decades to develop to reap significant long run economic benefits from a low carbon transition sooner rather than later would require systemic efforts and incentives for low carbon innovation and substitution of high carbon technologies we conclude that while achieving a low carbon transition may require societal changes on a scale comparable with those of previous industrial revolutions this transition does not yet resemble previous industrial revolutions a successful low carbon transition would however amount to a different kind of industrial revolution

optimally derived fixed rules and indicators abstract monetary targets have come to be regarded as inadequate for the conduct of short term monetary policy both among theoreticians and practitioners of policy in this paper two approaches are put forward analysed and evaluated for improving the performance of monetary targets according to the first approach simple rules for monetary targets are derived within an optimisation framework these rules related to ultimate targets are simple so that they can be announced and are flexible so that they are subject to revision when the economy drifts away from its course due to unexpected shocks the second approach is based on indicators and complements monetary targets with exchange rate targets through a simple feedback law for determining interest rate policy the advantage of this feedback law is that it provides the mechanism through which policy is to be revised in response to shocks if such a feedback law is announced private economic agents have the means of distinguishing discretionary and arbitrary changes of policy from those which are needed to bring the economy back to the announced and committed course this approach is used to analyse and extend the suggestions in the house of commons report on international monetary arrangements the common ground between the two approaches is an optimisation framework with respect to the parameters of either the fixed simple rules or the simple feedback laws this is discussed in section 1 the approach of deriving simple fixed rules is illustrated in a monetarist model in which there is a link between private sector expectations and the credible announcement of monetary targets the model is explained in section 2 and simple fixed rules are discussed in section 3 the performance of simple rules for monetary targets is evaluated in terms of a minimax strategy with model uncertainty between the monetarist model and a keynesian model without the assumption of announcement effects this is discussed in section 4 optimal feedback laws are derived and analysed in section 5 the parameter sensitivity of these feedback laws with respect to the model and the objective function as well as their behaviour under shocks is also examined

small firms borrowed size and the urban rural shift in this paper we suggest that some elements of the observed urban rural shift in firm formation and growth may centre on the phenomenon of borrowed size in doing so we make a link between literature on the geography of small firm formation and growth the theory of agglomeration and the relations among settlements within urban systems spatial externality fields have expanded over time so that small firms can locate in smaller settlements and yet access specialized labour and informational external economies of nearby larger urban areas we examine the relevance of aspects of borrowed size in the relationship of small firms in leighton linslade and lichfield to the local economy and nearby larger urban centres in particular we question the contribution of local institutional support to the growth of rural enterprise stressed in recent analysis we conclude by briefly noting the implications of borrowed size for conceptions of the local economy and local economic policy cet article cherche a avancer

on optimality and time consistency when expectations are rational abstract this paper explores the implications of time inconsistency for optimal economic policy making it is found that if policy makers determine policy on the assumption that expectations are adaptive when in fact they are rational economic policy can be destabilising this adds support to reservations which kydland and prescott 1977 have raised about the appropriateness of standard optimal control methods a method is proposed which is a modification of standard optimal control techniques and which allows for the endogeneity of expectations when this method is used to determine policy there is no indication that policy is destabilising

revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster potter a and watts h d revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster regional studies according to alfred marshall firms receive increasing returns from a trinity of agglomeration economies a local pool of skilled labour local supplier linkages and local knowledge spillovers this article re examines the mechanisms underlying marshall s agglomeration economies in the sheffield metals cluster wherein marshall discovered them despite the cluster s decline empirical evidence is found that the mechanisms underlying marshallian agglomeration economies continue to occur within the surviving metals industry however upon closer examination marshallian agglomeration economies have evolved to become more prevalent amongst plants that use related metals technology the results highlight the importance of technological relatedness to cluster survival

the textile and clothing industries under the fifth kondratieff wave some insights from the case of hong kong abstract this paper proposes that the world s textile and clothing industries have become increasing vertically disintegrated with a few flexible production regions the cream portion engaging in creative innovative dynamic and high value added activities and an expanding number and spatial extent of regions the cake portion taking part in low value added activities in between is an artificial layer protected by the international regulatory framework this layer has characteristics of both the cream and cake layers on the one hand the labor force in this layer suffers from low job mobility and low paid blue collar work of the cake portion and is dominated by female semi skilled workers on the other hand industrialists and governments in this layer enjoy the profits and high export values of the cream portion under the fifth kondratieff wave the textile and clothing industries have become increasingly coordinated and controlled by a thinner cream layer over time regions in the cake portion will find it increasingly difficult to transform themselves into cream because of deep seated structural and geographic differences

reasons for the development of islands of innovation evidence from hertfordshire this paper analyses why innovations often cluster in a few metropolitan islands of innovation the reason for this interest is that a growing body of neo schumpeterian economic theory argues that economic recovery after periods of economic recession and depression such as we have seen during the 1980s and early 1990s is driven by innovations these do not spring up all over the country but are spatially concentrated in a small number of metropolitan regions it is therefore important to know why this is so in order to evaluate the effectiveness of various uk and eu public policies whose specific objectives are to stimulate local and regional economic development agglomeration theory is used in order to understand the driving forces behind the spatial clustering of new innovations this leads to four explanatory hypotheses these are that innovation is facilitated by agglomeration in order to reduce distance transaction costs between firms in different spaces or by local factor conditions which provide

institutional conditions and innovation systems on the impact of regional policy on firms in different sectors moodysson j and zukauskaite e institutional conditions and innovation systems on the impact of regional policy on firms in different sectors regional studies this paper deals with institutional conditions in regional innovation systems how institutions affect the organization of innovation activities among firms and in what ways regional policy initiatives can be supportive the analysis draws on data on innovation networks activities and regional policies targeting the life science media and food industries in scania sweden the study takes account of the ways in which regional policies can impact individuals and organizations action in relation to each other by being internalized it is argued that such ability is decisive for the success or failure of the policy initiative

effective climate energy solutions escape routes and peak oil abstract many well intended climate energy strategies are ineffective in the absence of serious environmental regulation this holds among others for direct support of clean energy voluntary energy conservation technical standards on a limited set of products unilateral stringent carbon pricing and awaiting peak oil as a climate strategy all of these suffer from escape routes that indirectly increase co2 emissions and thus make the original strategy ineffective on the other hand environmental regulation alone may lead to a myopia bias stimulating early dominance of cost effective technologies and a focus on incremental innovations associated with such technologies rather than on radical innovations although adopting a partial viewpoint keeps the analysis simple we urgently need a more inclusive systems perspective on climate solutions this will allow the formulation of an effective climate policy package that addresses the various escape routes

global energy crunch how different parts of the world would react to a peak oil scenario peak oil theory predicts that oil production will soon start a terminal decline most authors imply that no adequate alternate resource and technology will be available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society this article uses historical cases from countries that have gone through a similar experience as the best available analytical strategy to understand what will happen if the predictions of peak oil theorists are right the author is not committed to a particular version of peak oil theory but deems the issue important enough to explore how various parts of the world should be expected to react from the historical record he is able to identify predatory militarism totalitarian retrenchment and socioeconomic adaptation as three possible trajectories

the superiority of contingent rules over fixed rules in models with rational expectations the paper investigates the robustness of the proposition that in stochastic models contingent or feddback rules dominate fiped or openloop rules four arguments in favour of fixed rules are considere 1 the presence of an incompetent op malevolent policy maker 2 a trade off between flexibility and simplicity or credibility 3 the new classical proposition that only unanticipated stabilization policy has real effects 4 the time inconsistency of optimal plans in non causal models that is models in which the current state of the economy depends on expectations of future states the main conclusion is that the rational expectations revolution represented by arguments 3 and 4 does not affect the potential superiority of time inconsistent closed loop policies over time inconsistent open loop policies the case against conditionality in the design of policy must therefore rest on argument 1 or 2 which predate the new classical macroeconomics

wage polarisation in the us and the flexibility debate the proportion of workers earning low wages in the american economy declined from 1963 through 1979 since 1979 both the low wage and the high wage shares of employment have increased leading to wage polarization analysis of current population survey data indicates that this occurred for both men and women for men this condition has been exacerbated by a secular stagnation in real median wages these empirical developments in the distribution of labor income are analyzed in detail and discussed in light of theoretical debates about employers attempts to increase labor flexibility under the pressure of declining profits copyright 1990 by oxford university press

tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors angel d p 1994 tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors reg studies 28 187 200 this paper examines changing linkage relations between high technology firms and their semiconductor suppliers in an effort to improve manufacturing performance and accelerate the pace of technology development high technology firms are establishing closer ties with semiconductor suppliers to date the restructuring of supplier relations has focused primarily upon increasing the flow of information among firms stronger forms of collaboration such as the co development of manufacturing and technological capability are less common the locational effects of tight supplier linkages are weaker than anticipated differing markedly from the intensified regionalization of manufacturing associated with just in time production in the automobile industry angel d p 1994 s agit il des liens plus etroits les relations client fournisseur dans l industrie des semi conducteurs reg studies 28 187 200 c

are labour markets necessarily local spatiality segmentation and scale this paper draws on recent debates about scale to approach the geography of labour markets from a dynamic perspective sensitive to the spatiality and scale of labour market restructuring its explo

labour underutilisation in metropolitan labour markets in australia individual characteristics personal circumstances and local labour markets there has been a growing awareness that the issue of labour market disadvantage is substantially greater than merely considering unemployment and the ability to find a job there is an increasing l

disparities in employment productivity and output in the eu the roles of labour market governance and welfare regimes dunford m 1996 disparities in employment productivity and output in the eu the roles of labour market governance and welfare regimes reg studies 30 339 357 the aim of this paper is to develop a set of empirical and theoretical connections between geographies of inequality on the one hand and geographies of productivity and of the mobilization of human potential on the other to this end it presents a brief account of the current map of regional inequality in the eu disparities in gross domestic product per head are shown to depend on two elements differences in productivity and differences in the employment rate which it is argued reflects the capacity of an area to mobilize its human potential an analysis of data for nuts 1 regions in the eu and for neighbouring countries shows that the respective roles of productivity and employment rate differentials in explaining variations in output per head vary quite markedly from one region to another to interpret these empirical results it is argue

spatial proximity and firm survival in a declining industrial district the case of knitwear firms in baden wu rttemberg the literature on small firm networks in industrial districts postulates the importance of territorial proximity for business innovation and regional development but empirical research to test this proposition is sparse while there is some research on the extent of interfirm co operation little is known about the performance outcomes of co operation i develop competing hypotheses from institutional ecological and random action theories concerning the survival chances of firms located in geographic proximity and test them with data on the complete population of knitwear firms in baden wurttemberg germany for the period from 1960 to 1998 proportional hazard estimates show that location in clusters of firms in the same industry increased business failure rates and location in diversified clusters of firms operating in complementary industries reduced failure rates the empirical results are most consistent with the ecological model of localized competition in resource environments la documentation

firm level knowledge accumulation and regional dynamics two bodies of literature have contributed significantly to our insight into the forces driving competitiveness and economic growth regional agglomeration studies emphasise the favourable impact of geographical proximity on regional economic performance particularly through knowledge spillovers however the firms that constitute those agglomerations largely remain black boxes in contrast studies dealing with technological learning explain economic performance at firm level without systematically taking account of the effects of geographical proximity the aim of the paper is to propose a possible way to bridge this gap this contributes to our understanding of the determinants of economic growth in industrial clusters an empirical illustration of a capital goods cluster is elaborated

supply chains material linkage and regional development the importance of economic linkage to regional development has been implicit in the variety of approaches that have been taken to analysing the development process despite this no mechanism exists which allows a general assessment of regional supply networks the paper provides one approach to this type of evaluation in uk regions focusing on the north west of england and taking uk input output tables as the basis of analysis sectoral linkages with supply potential are identified and their magnitude estimated the paper reveals both the scope for extending material linkages and generating employment in this region of the uk as well as confirming the important role played by manufacturing industries in intermediate supply chains

innovation and industrial districts a first approach to the measurement and determinants of the i district effect boix r and galletto v innovation and industrial districts a first approach to the measurement and determinants of the i district effect regional studies the paper analyses an exhaustive database of patents granted in spain between 2001 and 2006 aggregated in a panel of 806 local labour markets classified by seven typologies of local production systems the analysis shows that marshallian industrial districts generate 30 of spanish patents and an innovative output per capita that is 47 above the national average and 31 larger than the manufacturing production systems of large firms the econometric estimates of a fixed effects model confirm the existence of an innovation district i district effect and its size the i district effect is mainly related to the presence of marshallian localization economies boix r et galletto v innovation et districts industriels une premiere approche de la mesure et des determinants des effets des districts d innovation regional studies nous analysons une base

the performance of forecast based monetary policy rules under model uncertainty we investigate the performance of forecast based monetary policy rules using five macroeconomic models that reflect a wide range of views on aggregate dynamics we identify the key characteristics of rules that are robust to model uncertainty such rules respond to the one year ahead inflation forecast and to the current output gap and incorporate a substantial degree of policy inertia in contrast rules with longer forecast horizons are less robust and are prone to generating indeterminacy in light of these results we identify a robust benchmark rule that performs very well in all five models over a wide range of policy preferences