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This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and per capita income growth in the European Union. We model and identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into higher income levels. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions in the period 1990-2002, we show that higher innovation performance is conducive to per capita income growth and that social capital affects this growth indirectly by fostering innovation. Our estimates suggest that there is no direct role for social capital to foster per capita income growth in our sample of European Union countries. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In a knowledge economy, it is interesting to see that the concept of knowledge cohesion is a fertile soil for research. Despite the ongoing interest in investigating whether economic cohesion has been achieved in Europe there is no work that looks at knowledge cohesion. Though it is difficult to investigate such an abstract concept one can look at a more concrete concept such as convergence. Using the European Union Framework Programme data from 1984 to 2016 we show that there are signs of knowledge convergence within the NUTS2 regions. Despite the fact, the top performers persist over the years the convergence is much stronger among the less developed regions. The results also show that Turkey enhanced its position in knowledge exchange considerably where some of its developed regions are emergent knowledge hubs. These results indicate that Turkish knowledge system is tied strongly to the European Research Area which reduces the probability of conflict scenario. ; Bilgi uyumu konusunun içinde yaşadığımız bilgi çağında bu kadar az çalışılıyor olması ilginçtir. Avrupa'da ekonomik uyum ve yakınlaşma konusunda pek çok araştırma yapılırken bilgi uyumu konusunda hemen hiç bir çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Her ne kadar bilgi uyumu konusu soyut bir kavram gibi dursa da daha somut bir kavram olan bilgi yakınlaşması kavramına bakılabilir. Bu çalışmada 1984-2016 arasında Avrupa Çerçeve Programı verisi kullanarak, Avrupa NUTS2 bölgelerinde bilgi yakınlaşması olduğunu gösteriyoruz. En iyi performans sağlayan bölgeler yıllar içinde pek değişmese de, daha az gelişmiş bölgeler arasında bir bilgi yakınlaşmasından söz edilebilir. Sonuçlar aynı zamanda Türkiye'nin bilgi paylaşımındaki pozisyonunu zaman içinde geliştirdiğini gösteriyor, öyle ki bazı bölgeleri yeni doğan ve gelişen bilgi merkezleri arasında yer alıyor. Bu sonuçlar Türkiye bilgi sisteminin Avrupa Bilgi Alanına güçlü bir şekilde bağlı olduğunu göstermesi nedeniyle çatışma senaryosunun olasılığını düşürmektedir ; Publisher's Version

This research provides an explanation for high literacy, economic growth and societal developments in the Netherlands in the period before the Dutch Republic. We establish a link between the Brethren of the Common Life (BCL), a religious community founded by Geert Groote in the city of Deventer in the late fourteenth century, and the early development of the Netherlands. The BCL stimulated human capital accumulation by educating Dutch citizens without inducing animosity from the dominant Roman Catholic Church or other political rulers. Human capital had an impact on the structure of economic development in the period immediately after 1400. The educated workforce put pressure on the Habsburg monarchy leading to economic and religious resentment and eventually to the Revolt in 1572. The analyses show that the BCL contributed to the high rates of literacy in the Netherlands. In addition, there are positive effects of the BCL on book production and on city growth in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Finally, we find that cities with BCL-roots were more likely to join the Dutch Revolt. These findings are supported by regressions that use distance to Deventer as an instrument for the presence of BCL. The results are robust to a number of alternative explanations.