Suchergebnisse

Strong regional clusters are increasingly seen as a response to economic globalization by policy makers and regional development agencies. The reasoning of competitive advantages of countries and regions with enterprises organized in clusters has mainly been popularized by Porter (1990, 1998, 2000). As well-working clusters are associated with high productivity growth and innovation potential, the cluster approach has become appealing in different fields of economic policy. In particular cluster-based instruments are in integral part of EU regional policy (Christensen et al., 2011). In most EU countries cluster-oriented policy plays an important role at the national and regional level (Oxford Research, 2008). This also holds for Germany where diverse national and regional programmes were set up to promote cluster development (Török, 2012). Although the cluster approach is based on the agglomeration theory, a variety of definitions of a cluster exists (Martin/Sunley, 2003). The present paper aims at improving the strategy of regional cluster identification. First, at the national level, the dominant related sectors of R&D intensive industries are basically discovered by qualitative input-output analysis (QIOA). Yet it has to be allowed for the fact that usually not all enterprises of these sectors belong to the respective value added chains. Thus, QIOA has to be supplemented by quantitative input-output analysis in order to avoid distortion effects that arise from defining too heterogeneous clusters. Here downstream and upstream sectors are considered according to their involvement in the production activities of the key industry. Secondly, at the local level, it has to be settled whether and how spatial externalities and spillovers should be allowed for in locating regional clusters. Most applied cluster studies ignore the presence of spatial interaction between interrelated geographical units. If geographical units are considered to be spatially independent in the presence of spillover, however, spatial clustering tends to be underestimated (Guillain/Le Gallo, 2007). Feser/Koo/Renski/Sweeney (2001) and Feser/Sweeney (2002) were the first to explicitly accounting for spatial interaction between regions in an applied cluster study for the US state of Kentucky. In a follow-up study, Feser/Sweeney/Renski (2005) extended spatial analysis to the United States as a whole. Both studies make use of the Getis-Ord statistic to measure and test for local spatial clustering (Ord/Getis, 1995). Recently, Pires et al. (2013) utilize the local Moran test for localizing industrial clusters in Brazil. A major drawbacks of both local methods is the necessity of fixing the environments of the regions in advance. reach of the geographical extent of potential spillover effects in advance. To allow for varying reaches of the geographical extent of regional interaction, here the flexible approach of spatial scanning is adopted (Kulldorff, 1997). On the basis of Kulldorff's scan test, the variable extent of potential regional clusters is accurately captured.

This paper examines where European professional teams recruit new players in order to shed light on the functioning of global value added chains in world football. Most studies either point to the increasing internationalization of football's labor force to argue that European clubs recruit from peripheral but culturally or historically related countries or turn to the experiences of players with domestic transfers to suggest that most teams recruit within their country. This study directly examines the recruitment activities of teams active in the highest two leagues of Europe's top seven countries between the 2003/2004 season and the 2011/2012 season. Results indicate that even though Europe's football labor force looks internationalized at first sight, many international players hold dual nationality and might be more aptly characterized as domestic players who are members of the large immigrant communities who came to Europe after the de-colonization of former colonies or as part of the stream of labor migrants in the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, for most teams, domestic mobility forms the backbone of their recruitment activities, but some teams, especially in Portugal, buy football talent from teams in the global South and sell their best players to larger European teams. These results urge researchers to reconsider teams as more myopic and geographically bounded actors in global value added chains, incorporate domestic mobility into global value added chains, reconsider what counts as the core and the (semi-)periphery connected through the chains, and be wary of approaches taking countries or even leagues as the basic unit of analysis in global value added chains.

International trade is a powerful force of societal transformation. Trade agreements not only stimulated trade; they have improved the quality and integrity of domestic economic and political institutions. This view on trade as a force of institutional development and societal transformation has been reinforced in the recent decade when the routes to the world market for developing countries have been through global supply and value chains of multinational firms. In this paper, we examine whether the trade profile of fast-growing emerging economies reflects the broader theory that has underlined thinking about trade: when these countries grow, do they expand their import from developed countries in the direction of high value-added goods in order to get access to technology and knowledge that they cannot produce as efficiently at home? We find that the EU has seen strong growth in patent-intensive sector exports. Europe's aggregate trade performance with key emerging economies has confirmed the expectation about the composition trade between an advanced economy and an emerging economy. Accordingly, the EU has by a high degree of certainty been able to climb the value-added chain through trade with emerging economies. However, the pattern of trade is not always as expected, or predicted by theories of comparative advantage. Trade in the EU's major patent-intensive sectors - chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and motor vehicles - has generally evolved in a positive fashion in the period studied. However, recent years have witnessed a deterioration of EU exports in theses sectors. In many instances, these deteriorations are not the result of the EU's industrial mix. The under-performance in EU exports can be ascribed to local factors that artificially depress EU corporate competitiveness in those markets. In countries like Brazil, India and South Africa, these factors tend to be very strong and show a clear upward potential for the EU in improving the gains it can reap from trade in patent-intensive sectors. As a consequence, EU trade policy should focus on those sectors that show a strong potential export and import performance, but where other factors than economic competitiveness have caused trade under-performance in the past.

'Im Beitrag geht der Verfasser davon aus, dass die Kommunikation zwischen der akademisch verfassten Soziologie und der Gesellschaft gestört sei - oder wie es in der wissenssoziologischen Debatte beschrieben wird: soziologisches Wissen sei zurzeit nicht mehr 'sozial robust'. Im Gegensatz zu anderen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen gelingen der Soziologie die doppelten Prozesse der Validierung wissenschaftlicher Arbeit, also über das eigene peer review hinaus mit und durch den gesellschaftlichen Kontext nicht im ausreichenden Maße. Dadurch sei die soziale Relevanz soziologischen Wissens mangelhaft ausgebildet.' (Autorenreferat)

Clusters play an important role in driving competitiveness, innovation and jobs creation in the EU. Romania currently has successful clusters in various economic sectors and services, including 7 clusters in agro-food. Agriculture has been and remains the support of the human existence, which is an important pillar of the Romanian rural economy. The agro-food sector had oscillating evolutions in the post-accession period, mainly generated by the need to get in line with the EU requirements. Stimulating smart technology assimilation across all economic sectors including agro-food value chains, promoting enterprise growth and clusters 4.0 is critical to many EU Member States. Partnerships between countries, regions, cities and clusters are essential in the next industrial modernization process, based on innovation. Clusters 4.0 calls for development of a generation of advanced cluster policies to respond to these new industrial challenges by facilitating cross-sectoral value chains, fostering internationalization, stimulating inter-regional investment and accelerating entrepreneurship and skills in digital production, environmental production, circular economy, service innovation and creative economy. In order to be ready for the future, clusters must be geared towards creating a smart value chains, international cooperation and cross-sectoral partnerships. This research paper proposes a model as a tool for agro-clusters to become "smart", also this proposal providing information on the most important steps in the creation and development of smart agro-clusters. The used research methodology was based on analysis and synthesis of the information on the economic and social aspects of the development of the agro-food sector and of clusters in Romania. In conclusion, the authors of this paper wanted to emphasize the necessity of the development of smart agro-clusters for the future smart specialization of the regions.