Suchergebnisse

There is a rich debate in the innovation literature about to what extent innovation has become an international (or globalised) phenomenon, or, on the contrary, it maintains its local/regional character. As Koschatzky (2001) notes, given the fact that knowledge is commonly tied to personal capabilities; it has a clear geographical component. In the case of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) most of analyses come to the same conclusion: distance is particularly relevant when knowledge (mainly of a tacit type) is diffused. Starting from this premise, a burgeoning literature on the contribution of those knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) to regional innovation has emerged. Most of these papers adopt a national perspective, that is, analyse regions in a specific country. On the contrary, comparisons of regional features have been carried out in very few papers: Germany and the UK (Simmie and Strambach, 2006) or Germany and France (Muller and Zenker, 2001) are two examples. The objective of this paper is to take a step further and examine the distribution of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) in the European regions. For so doing we employ the data provided by the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) 2009. This database provides information on the innovation performance across 194 regions of the European Union and Norway. The methodology employed is known as spatial analysis and evaluates whether there are clusters in the location of KIS in the European regions, which involves three processes. First, to evaluate the existence of spatial autocorrelation by means of global statistics; the Moran's I and the Geary's C. Once verified the existence of positive spatial autocorrelation, it is possible to identify "clusters" of regions with high and low participations of KIS by using a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation (LISA). Finally, employing an econometric model, some potential explanatory factors for the concentration of KIS are examined. The results obtained support the hypothesis that KIS are spatially concentrated and confirm that spatial clusters are different in northern/central and southern/eastern regions. Moreover, a close relationship between location of KIS and regional innovation performance is found.

The paper deals with the dimensions of social capital in the Slovak Republic. The aim is to assess how social capital is distributed socially among the citizens of the Slovak Republic and geographically among the regions of the country. Social capital is evaluated on a basis of the three dimensions, where networks, trust and civism belong. The paper analyses the data from the European Values Study survey, especially the 2008 wave. The results of this study show that social capital has kept a decreasing tendency in the Slovak Republic throughout the period from the year 1991 to the year 2008. The reasons behind this may lie in the historical development of the country - the transformation of the economy and the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. With respect to a social distribution, social capital is generally higher among more educated, right-wing Slovaks with higher earnings. In the terms of a geographical distribution, the Trnava Region and the Trenčín Region appear to have less developed social capital compared to the other regions in Slovak Republic.

AbstractElectoral politics and regional variation in socio‐economic conditions of individuals receive huge interest in countries with sizable political tension. Even though Turkey has undergone a combination of periods of economic success and a period of economic and political turmoil, it has been governed by a single political party during the last two decades—Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP)— Justice and Development Party. This paper examines the determinants of the variation in regional vote shares of AKP between the 2002 and 2018 parliamentary elections using panel data estimation method—effects—which allows us to account for time invariant region‐specific unobserved fixed effects. Our findings demonstrate that inflation, unemployment, per capita GDP growth, provision of healthcare, industrial sector growth rates, change in the ageing of the population and rate of absenteeism (voter turnout) are essential factors in voters' decisions. Our additional results reveal that the effects of socio‐economic factors on the AKP vote shares were distinctly different for the AKP stronghold provinces and the eastern regions that are mostly populated with Kurdish, suggesting that ideological position of the voters also play an essential role in voters' response to the changes in socio‐economic conditions.

Zoning potential danger derived from earthquakes is crucial for the development of policies dealing with the future of the cities. Determination of the potential danger zones regarding earthquakes with the telecommunication infrastructure is crucial for the development of policies dealing with the future of the cities. By utilizing the cartogram mapping technique, this paper aims to display potential earthquake danger zones with the uneven distribution of the cell towers and cells on a population cartogram for Türkiye. This is crucial for the cities regarding the future potential communication crises after disasters. Policymakers should provide and develop well-functioning communication networks (GSM networks) for the organization of aid and search and rescue operations since the collapse of the communication infrastructure renders all post-disaster processes insoluble and dysfunctional.

This article sorts the various aspects of social capital (networks, trust, civism) theoretically and constructs an instrument for measuring its multifacetedness. The instrument is validated using data from the 1999/2000 wave of the European Values Study survey. Using the same data, the article describes how social capital, by its various aspects, is distributed geographically among European countries and regions (North, West, South, East), and socially among social categories of European citizens. As far as the geographical distribution of social capital is concerned, there are some particular differences, but, on the whole, European countries and regions, with the possible exception of Northern Europe, appear not to be substantially different in aggregate levels of social capital. In Scandinavia, social capital levels tend to be slightly higher, with the exception of family bonding. Some remarkable European patterns are found in regard to the social distribution of social capital. There is evidence of accumulation of human, economic and social capital; social capital is strongly gendered and is related to religious beliefs and behaviour, and to a political left–right stance.

AbstractBased on urban household survey data, the authors find that skill premia increased significantly across all regions of China between 1995 and 2002, but only in coastal regions between 2002 and 2007. By then, these regions also displayed much wider wage inequality and thus contributed more to overall urban wage inequality than non‐coastal regions. While privatization was the main driver of skill premia in 1995–2002, China's (regionally uneven) integration into the global economy became the dominant influence in 2002–07. Reducing skill premia and inequality, the authors argue, calls for reform of the Hukou registration system which impedes skilled labour mobility and possibly also growth.

Written by distinguished scholars from multiple perspectives, this account widens the interpretative scope on religious life among the pre-Christian Scandinavian people. The religion of the Viking Age is conventionally identified through its mythology: the ambiguous character Odin, the forceful Thor, and the end of the world approaching in Ragnarök. However, pre-Christian religion consisted of so much more than mythic imagery and legends, and has lingered for long in folk tradition. Exploring the religion of the North through an interdisciplinary approach, the book sheds new light on a number