clusters

This report attempts to define the innovative capacity of regions within prospective member states of the European Union.

This paper examines the link between cluster development and inward foreign direct investment. The conventional policy approach has been to assume that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) can stimulate significant clustering activity, thus generating significant spillovers. This paper investigates if clusters can generate significant productivity spillovers from FDI, this only occurs in pre-existing clusters.

The author formulates an endogenous model of cluster-based industrial development, based on case studies in Japan, Taiwan, and China, where the initiation phase is followed by the quantity expansion phase through imitation and subsequently by the quality improvement phase through innovation.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the importance of the structure of agglomeration on productivity and growth. The authors include the degree of co-agglomeration of similar industries as an explanatory variable in the empirical analysis, while simultaneously controlling for the degree of industry-specific agglomeration. The empirical analysis confirms a positive statistical relationship between interdependent and co-located industries on labour productivity.

Based on the analysis of two clusters in nanotechnologies (MESA+ in the Netherlands and Minatec in Grenoble in France), the paper examines the emergence and effects of technological agglomeration: The social and technical arrangements of a regional centres for nanotechnology both enable and constrain the ongoing activities and research lines that can be followed. Technology platforms and their co-location are a pre-requisite for

This paper pools together evidence to explore reasons why Bangalore emerged as a high-tech cluster and the nature of advantages that has contributed to its growth.

This paper explores the relationship existing among the heterogeneous nature of firms in industrial clusters, their structural position in knowledge networks and their performance. Following the rising interest for spatially agglomerated industrial firms and their learning and innovative potential, the paper shows empirically that the performance of firms in clusters is related with firm-level knowledge endowments and their position in the knowledge network using firm-level data on three wine clusters.

This discussion paper reviews the academic literature on industry clusters. It explains what clusters are, why they matter for regional economic development policy, and how to use cluster analysis as a guide to policy and practice.

In this study, the authors focus on the Russian energy, ICT, logistics and construction clusters, referred to as infrastructure clusters. They introduce the structure of these clusters, their products and services, the main firms operating in them, their geographical locations and business perspectives. This is a pre-study that will be followed by four cluster studies later on.

The authors develop a framework to explain the differential benefits accruing to firms that locate in or near a relevant cluster. The results indicate that distance from a relevant cluster is negatively related to growth for all firms in the sample, but clustering has a greater impact on firms that rely heavily on tacit knowledge spillovers.