Abstract: The I-district effect hypothesis establishes the existence of highly intense innovation... more Abstract: The I-district effect hypothesis establishes the existence of highly intense innovation in Marshallian industrial districts due to the presence of external localization economies. However, industrial districts are characterized by specific manufacturing specializations in such a way that this effect could be due to these dominant specializations. The objective of this research is to test whether the effect is explained by the conditions of the territory or by the industrial specialization and to provide additional evidence of the existence and causes of the highly intense innovation in industrial districts (I-district effect). The estimates for Spain of a fixed effects model interacting territory and industry suggest that the high innovative performance of industrial districts is maintained across sectors whereas the industrial specialization behaves differently depending on the type of local production system in which it is placed. The I-district effect is related to the ...
Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Urban Economies
In this timely Handbook, seventeen renowned contributors from Asia, the Americas and Europe provi... more In this timely Handbook, seventeen renowned contributors from Asia, the Americas and Europe provide chapters that deal with some of the most intriguing and important aspects of research methodologies on cities and urban economies.
The I-district effect establishes the existence of dynamic efficiency in Marshallian industrial d... more The I-district effect establishes the existence of dynamic efficiency in Marshallian industrial districts in the form of a positive innovative differential comparing to the average of the economy. The hypothesis has been empirically validated for the case of technological innovation using patent indicators. Empirical research has assumed that all types of patentable figures (utility models, national patents, EPO, WIPO) have the same weight regardless of its actual or expected market value, which may be questionable given the differences in coverage, protection and cost of each figure. In this article, we question the existence of the I-district effect when each patent is weighted by its expected potential value. As the I-district effect theory predicts, the relative differential effect is maintained even in the presence of the weighting, rejecting that the industrial district specializes only in low-quality patents. However, in this case, the primacy of industrial district as the mo...
This book analyses the economic development of cities from the ‘cultural economy’ and ‘creative i... more This book analyses the economic development of cities from the ‘cultural economy’ and ‘creative industry’ perspectives, examining and differentiating them as two related but distinct segments of contemporary city economies. The authors argue that although they are normally conflated, the first is largely subsidized while the second is highly entrepreneurial hence they actually make very different kinds of contribution to a city’s character, attractiveness and competitiveness.
Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal
Purpose This paper aims to test the existence of the so-called industrial district effect on inno... more Purpose This paper aims to test the existence of the so-called industrial district effect on innovation (iMID effect) in Spain and Italy and to compare the intensity of this effect between both countries. There is previous evidence of this effect for Spain, although, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it has never been measured for Italy. Design/methodology/approach Innovation intensity by local production system is measured using patents per million employees and analysed using the mean, the median, 3D maps and statistical tests. Findings Industrial districts generate between a third and a quarter of all technological innovations in Spain and Italy. The evidence about the district effect in innovation in Spain is consistent with previous studies. The novelty is that there is also evidence of this effect for Italy and its intensity is higher than for Spain. Almost one-half of the industrial districts fit in the most innovative quartile of local production systems, and they are l...
L’objectiu d’aquest article es proporcionar una panoramica de les bases de coneixement a les mega... more L’objectiu d’aquest article es proporcionar una panoramica de les bases de coneixement a les megaregions europees i fer una primera aproximacio de naturalesa exploratoria a la relacio entre les bases de coneixement i la generacio de riquesa en aquestes megaregions europees.
(ID) was introduced by Alfred Marshall in the Principles of Economics (1890) and reintroduced a h... more (ID) was introduced by Alfred Marshall in the Principles of Economics (1890) and reintroduced a hundred years later by Giacomo Becattini (1979) in the main body of scientific literature. Since the 1990s, the notion of the Marshallian Industrial District (MID) has diffused rapidly in the scientific economic literature in English (Figure 1). What is extraordinary, however, is the variety and dynamism of the topics that the literature of the ID has produced over the past 40 years. When Giacomo Becattini published the seminal article "Dal settore industriale al distretto industriale. Alcune considerazioni sull'unità d'indagine dell'economia industriale" (the English version can be found in Becattini, 2004), in 1979, articles referring to ID were very scarce and came mainly from English economic historians analyzing IDs. From that moment on, the ID acquired its own entity, and a wide variety of topics on IDs began to be discussed; in the 1980s, typically those such as understanding sectors vs districts, local organization of production, the role of small firms, entrepreneurship, labor markets, technical change, among many more (Figure 1 [1]). The year 1990 represents a milestone for the reintroduction of the ID with the publication by the International Labor Organization (ILO) of "Industrial districts and interfirm cooperation in Italy" (by Pyke et al., 1990). During the 1990s, works on IDs in the English language began to grow rapidly. The topics of the most cited works on IDs cover the very notion of the ID and the theory of the district, pathways to industrialization, flexibility, decentralized industrial creativity, economic policy, regeneration, decline, trust, district-effect, cooperation and competition, socio-identity regulation, development, economic changes, innovation, leading and anchor firms, specialization, organizational inertia and district versus milieu innovateur. During years 2000-2008, while papers on IDs grew rapidly, new social topics were consolidated: loyalty, dynamics of the community, social networks; economic: evolution of capitalism, exports, structure and behavior of the firms, differences between firms in the districts, districtualization processes, uncertainty, innovation, types of advantages, knowledge networks, tourism, and energy and emissions; also local institutions and governance. The year 2009 marks another milestone in the literature on the Marshallian ID with the publication of the Handbook of Industrial Districts (by Becattini et al., 2009). The Handbook summarizes the state of the art on IDs from Marshall's Principles of Economics (Marshall, 1890) to the first decade of the 21st century (Sforzi, 2015). It would be a few years later, in 2012, that the number of new works written in English would reach its maximum, with 718 citations. After 2012, there was a slight decline in the number of articles each year in English, especially after 2020 (see Figure 1). Since 2009, and during the Great Recession, the conversation introduces, as relevant topics in the most cited works, references to globalization, outsourcing, partner location, Chinese immigration in Prato and others. Starting during the 2019-2020 period, the notion of ID is reinvigorated through many different emerging sublines of inquiry that constitute
Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research, 2015
The aim of this paper is to critically consider how the concept of «industrial district» was born... more The aim of this paper is to critically consider how the concept of «industrial district» was born and evolved in the field of regional science. Despite the claim by Isard that the emergence of a spatial dimension in economics was being hampered by Marshall’s alleged prioritising of time over space (Isard, 1956), the concept of «localization economies» introduced into regional science by Ohlin, Hoover and Isard clearly is itself a legacy from Marshall. This contradiction in the work of Isard and others followed to a large extent from the way in which Marshallian concepts were historically situated in economic thought before Giacomo Becattini’s re-reading of Marshall and his ideas. This re-reading began in the 1960s, focussing on conceptual issues related to industry (Becattini, 1962), and then culminated in the following decades with work on the idea of the «industrial district»: considering it first as a unit of investigation of economic research (Becattini, 1979) and, later, as a w...
Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research, 2011
This contribution presents the revision of the maps of Marshallian industrial districts and manuf... more This contribution presents the revision of the maps of Marshallian industrial districts and manufacturing local production systems of large firms in Spain, following the new ISTAT 2006 methodology. The article presents the methodology for the identification of local labour markets, industrial districts, manufacturing local production systems of large firms, as well as the complete results of their application to Spain.
Since the late 80s, Barcelona has become an international metropolis where the international comp... more Since the late 80s, Barcelona has become an international metropolis where the international competitiveness of the Spanish economy has mainly been concentrated. Until now, the ways of understanding the reasons why Barcelonas economic performance has achieved such a remarkable situation are taken principally from an urban perspective. Different research programs have underlined the existence of specifically territorial competitiveness elements: closeness to European markets, broadening of the metropolitan area, and the existence of territorial-based external economies as localization, urbanization and network economies. This research points out another feature in Barcelonas new economic model that is also common to other of the most developed cities and economies of the world; changing their production foundations towards a fundamental issue: the boost for knowledge- based economy. The aim is to find out how far the changes detected in the ways of production and in the location of the economic activity are linked with the growing of high-densely knowledge-based activities; and whether the international success of the Barcelonas model could be partly explained by the growing up of higher technology and high-densely knowledge-based activities.
Abstract: The I-district effect hypothesis establishes the existence of highly intense innovation... more Abstract: The I-district effect hypothesis establishes the existence of highly intense innovation in Marshallian industrial districts due to the presence of external localization economies. However, industrial districts are characterized by specific manufacturing specializations in such a way that this effect could be due to these dominant specializations. The objective of this research is to test whether the effect is explained by the conditions of the territory or by the industrial specialization and to provide additional evidence of the existence and causes of the highly intense innovation in industrial districts (I-district effect). The estimates for Spain of a fixed effects model interacting territory and industry suggest that the high innovative performance of industrial districts is maintained across sectors whereas the industrial specialization behaves differently depending on the type of local production system in which it is placed. The I-district effect is related to the ...
Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Urban Economies
In this timely Handbook, seventeen renowned contributors from Asia, the Americas and Europe provi... more In this timely Handbook, seventeen renowned contributors from Asia, the Americas and Europe provide chapters that deal with some of the most intriguing and important aspects of research methodologies on cities and urban economies.
The I-district effect establishes the existence of dynamic efficiency in Marshallian industrial d... more The I-district effect establishes the existence of dynamic efficiency in Marshallian industrial districts in the form of a positive innovative differential comparing to the average of the economy. The hypothesis has been empirically validated for the case of technological innovation using patent indicators. Empirical research has assumed that all types of patentable figures (utility models, national patents, EPO, WIPO) have the same weight regardless of its actual or expected market value, which may be questionable given the differences in coverage, protection and cost of each figure. In this article, we question the existence of the I-district effect when each patent is weighted by its expected potential value. As the I-district effect theory predicts, the relative differential effect is maintained even in the presence of the weighting, rejecting that the industrial district specializes only in low-quality patents. However, in this case, the primacy of industrial district as the mo...
This book analyses the economic development of cities from the ‘cultural economy’ and ‘creative i... more This book analyses the economic development of cities from the ‘cultural economy’ and ‘creative industry’ perspectives, examining and differentiating them as two related but distinct segments of contemporary city economies. The authors argue that although they are normally conflated, the first is largely subsidized while the second is highly entrepreneurial hence they actually make very different kinds of contribution to a city’s character, attractiveness and competitiveness.
Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal
Purpose This paper aims to test the existence of the so-called industrial district effect on inno... more Purpose This paper aims to test the existence of the so-called industrial district effect on innovation (iMID effect) in Spain and Italy and to compare the intensity of this effect between both countries. There is previous evidence of this effect for Spain, although, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it has never been measured for Italy. Design/methodology/approach Innovation intensity by local production system is measured using patents per million employees and analysed using the mean, the median, 3D maps and statistical tests. Findings Industrial districts generate between a third and a quarter of all technological innovations in Spain and Italy. The evidence about the district effect in innovation in Spain is consistent with previous studies. The novelty is that there is also evidence of this effect for Italy and its intensity is higher than for Spain. Almost one-half of the industrial districts fit in the most innovative quartile of local production systems, and they are l...
L’objectiu d’aquest article es proporcionar una panoramica de les bases de coneixement a les mega... more L’objectiu d’aquest article es proporcionar una panoramica de les bases de coneixement a les megaregions europees i fer una primera aproximacio de naturalesa exploratoria a la relacio entre les bases de coneixement i la generacio de riquesa en aquestes megaregions europees.
(ID) was introduced by Alfred Marshall in the Principles of Economics (1890) and reintroduced a h... more (ID) was introduced by Alfred Marshall in the Principles of Economics (1890) and reintroduced a hundred years later by Giacomo Becattini (1979) in the main body of scientific literature. Since the 1990s, the notion of the Marshallian Industrial District (MID) has diffused rapidly in the scientific economic literature in English (Figure 1). What is extraordinary, however, is the variety and dynamism of the topics that the literature of the ID has produced over the past 40 years. When Giacomo Becattini published the seminal article "Dal settore industriale al distretto industriale. Alcune considerazioni sull'unità d'indagine dell'economia industriale" (the English version can be found in Becattini, 2004), in 1979, articles referring to ID were very scarce and came mainly from English economic historians analyzing IDs. From that moment on, the ID acquired its own entity, and a wide variety of topics on IDs began to be discussed; in the 1980s, typically those such as understanding sectors vs districts, local organization of production, the role of small firms, entrepreneurship, labor markets, technical change, among many more (Figure 1 [1]). The year 1990 represents a milestone for the reintroduction of the ID with the publication by the International Labor Organization (ILO) of "Industrial districts and interfirm cooperation in Italy" (by Pyke et al., 1990). During the 1990s, works on IDs in the English language began to grow rapidly. The topics of the most cited works on IDs cover the very notion of the ID and the theory of the district, pathways to industrialization, flexibility, decentralized industrial creativity, economic policy, regeneration, decline, trust, district-effect, cooperation and competition, socio-identity regulation, development, economic changes, innovation, leading and anchor firms, specialization, organizational inertia and district versus milieu innovateur. During years 2000-2008, while papers on IDs grew rapidly, new social topics were consolidated: loyalty, dynamics of the community, social networks; economic: evolution of capitalism, exports, structure and behavior of the firms, differences between firms in the districts, districtualization processes, uncertainty, innovation, types of advantages, knowledge networks, tourism, and energy and emissions; also local institutions and governance. The year 2009 marks another milestone in the literature on the Marshallian ID with the publication of the Handbook of Industrial Districts (by Becattini et al., 2009). The Handbook summarizes the state of the art on IDs from Marshall's Principles of Economics (Marshall, 1890) to the first decade of the 21st century (Sforzi, 2015). It would be a few years later, in 2012, that the number of new works written in English would reach its maximum, with 718 citations. After 2012, there was a slight decline in the number of articles each year in English, especially after 2020 (see Figure 1). Since 2009, and during the Great Recession, the conversation introduces, as relevant topics in the most cited works, references to globalization, outsourcing, partner location, Chinese immigration in Prato and others. Starting during the 2019-2020 period, the notion of ID is reinvigorated through many different emerging sublines of inquiry that constitute
Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research, 2015
The aim of this paper is to critically consider how the concept of «industrial district» was born... more The aim of this paper is to critically consider how the concept of «industrial district» was born and evolved in the field of regional science. Despite the claim by Isard that the emergence of a spatial dimension in economics was being hampered by Marshall’s alleged prioritising of time over space (Isard, 1956), the concept of «localization economies» introduced into regional science by Ohlin, Hoover and Isard clearly is itself a legacy from Marshall. This contradiction in the work of Isard and others followed to a large extent from the way in which Marshallian concepts were historically situated in economic thought before Giacomo Becattini’s re-reading of Marshall and his ideas. This re-reading began in the 1960s, focussing on conceptual issues related to industry (Becattini, 1962), and then culminated in the following decades with work on the idea of the «industrial district»: considering it first as a unit of investigation of economic research (Becattini, 1979) and, later, as a w...
Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research, 2011
This contribution presents the revision of the maps of Marshallian industrial districts and manuf... more This contribution presents the revision of the maps of Marshallian industrial districts and manufacturing local production systems of large firms in Spain, following the new ISTAT 2006 methodology. The article presents the methodology for the identification of local labour markets, industrial districts, manufacturing local production systems of large firms, as well as the complete results of their application to Spain.
Since the late 80s, Barcelona has become an international metropolis where the international comp... more Since the late 80s, Barcelona has become an international metropolis where the international competitiveness of the Spanish economy has mainly been concentrated. Until now, the ways of understanding the reasons why Barcelonas economic performance has achieved such a remarkable situation are taken principally from an urban perspective. Different research programs have underlined the existence of specifically territorial competitiveness elements: closeness to European markets, broadening of the metropolitan area, and the existence of territorial-based external economies as localization, urbanization and network economies. This research points out another feature in Barcelonas new economic model that is also common to other of the most developed cities and economies of the world; changing their production foundations towards a fundamental issue: the boost for knowledge- based economy. The aim is to find out how far the changes detected in the ways of production and in the location of the economic activity are linked with the growing of high-densely knowledge-based activities; and whether the international success of the Barcelonas model could be partly explained by the growing up of higher technology and high-densely knowledge-based activities.
Uploads
Papers