After years of near ‘disrepute’ in official circles, Industrial Policy has made something of a comeback over the last few years and is now very much back on the agenda at national and EU levels, driven by concerns over globalisation, deindustrialisation, unemployment and perceived poor growth in the EU. Simultaneously, the European Commission’s Fourth Report on Economic and Social Cohesion has kicked off the debate over challenges to cohesion, the shape of EU Cohesion policy beyond 2013, and how resources should be managed. This debate will find added momentum with the imminent ‘mid-term’ review being launched by the Commission. Discussions over the success or not of the Lisbon Agenda, on-going debates over cluster policies, and recent developments in policy evaluation have also contributed to a burgeoning academic literature over the last eighteen months. This edited volume is especially pertinent given such developments and pulls together a diverse range of contributions from leading authorities in the field to add to these debates and to illustrate connections between them. This book was published as a special issue of Policy Studies.

The political and economic geography of Europe is changing - the European Community is expanding its boundaries towards EFTA and is resuming a closer association with Central and Eastern European regions engaged in radical restructuring. As EC integration accelerates there is the prospect of intensified inter-regional competition. This book, divided into five parts, examines in detail the changes and the challenge for policy makers. The introduction draws out the central themes of the book, addressing EC regional performance and future indicators, the enlargement and changing map of Europe and the implications for the EC of Eastern European changes. The second part deals with EC issues, particularly focusing on the economic and spatial impact of European integration. Part 3 addresses Eastern European issues, and Part 4 covers the Peripheral Regions. The final part is devoted to a policy debate, concluding with a policy agenda for the forthcoming decade.

The last twenty years have seen an increase in European integration and the emergence of the technological revolution. Although tighter integration coupled with technological innovation should facilitate cross-regional convergence, some European regions have managed to jump ahead while others have been left behind. This book examines the regional characteristics that favour growth and analyses the relevance of innovation, socio-economic and structural factors in shaping regional economic disparities. In this book, particular attention is devoted to the EU enlargement towards the East, to its consequences on Europe’s traditional North-South divide, and to the increasing regional disparities in new member states after the transition. It demonstrates the growing importance of innovation and human capital in explaining the increase in income and employment disparities in old EU members, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis. It also shows that for newcomers, regional disparities are essentially linked to socio-economic factors as capital regions approach Western standards, while others - mainly old industrial regions and peripheral ones - lag behind. This book integrates theoretical discussion with empirical evidence and will appeal to regional scientists interested in regional inequalities, and to policy makers concerned with devising effective strategies to tackle regional disparities in Europe.

Twenty-five years into transformation, Central and Eastern European regions have undergone substantial socio-economic restructuring, integrating into European and global networks and producing new patterns of regional differentiation and development. Yet post-socialist modernisation has not been without its contradictions, manifesting in increasing social and territorial inequalities. Recent studies also suggest there are apparent limits to post-socialist growth models, accompanying a new set of challenges within an increasingly uncertain world. Aiming to deliver a new synthesis of regional development issues at the crossroads between ‘post-socialism’ and ‘post-transition’, this book identifies the main driving forces of spatial restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe, and charts the different regional development paths which take shape against the backdrop of post-crisis Europe. A comparative approach is used to highlight common development challenges and the underlying patterns of socio-economic differentiation alike. The issues investigated within the Handbook extend to a discussion of the varied economic consequences of transition, the social structures and institutional systems which underpin development processes, and the broadly understood sustainability of Central and Eastern Europe’s current development model. This book will be of interest to academics and policymakers working in the fields of regional studies, economic geography, development studies and policy.

Tackling the question of what the European territory will look like over the next fifteen years, this volume provides quali-quantitative territorial scenarios for the enlarged Europe, under different assumptions on future globalisation strategies of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and East and West European countries. The approach is as neutral as possible vis-à-vis the results, leading to a new forecasting model, the MASST model, built by the authors.

First published in 1999, this volume combines the theory and practice of regional economic policy in Europe. Six main topics are covered as follows: theory of regional economic development and policy; Regional policy at the national level; Regional disparities in the EU – past and present; Impact of the integration on regions; Regional policy in the EU 1975-1999; The structural funds 2000-2006 and openness to Eastern European countries. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography on the topic covered.

"In this era of ongoing globalization a coherent vision on Europe's changing geo-economy is more important than ever before. Drawing on the work of Schumpeter, Fourasti'e and Perroux, the book at hand offers a new and policy-oriented perspective on regional economic change in Europe. Conceptually, it develops a middle-range theory by extending Schumpeter's vision with a sectoral and spatial dimension. This neo-Schumpeterian framework is concretized by exploring fifty years of structural change in Sardinia, the Ruhrgebiet and the Öresund. "

Increasingly, policies and laws commonly agreed within the EU shape the political and economic scenarios of nation states in Europe. However, the same European context is radically changing, essentially due to three major recent developments: the adoption of the Euro, EU enlargement to the east and the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy of structural reforms for growth and competitiveness. The book presents a thorough economic analysis of these three events and of their implications for both existing and potential EU policies and objectives. Carlo Altomonte and Mario Nava have written a very rigorous text in an accessible and jargon-free style, ensuring easy acquisition of invaluable insights into the European economic set-up and the possible evolution of EU policies, including an update on the reform of the Growth and Stability Pact and of the 2007 13 Financial Perspectives. The accessibility of economic concepts combined with the methodological rigour of this up-to-date text will be of great interest to both policy makers and students.

The book provides conceptual and empirical insights into the complex relationship between knowledge flows and regional growth in the EU. The author critically scrutinizes and enhances the RIS (Regional Innovation System) approach, discussing innovation as a technological, institutional and evolutionary process. Moreover, she advances the ongoing discourse on the role of space and technological proximity in the process of innovation and technological externalities. The book closes with an investigation of the role of technological change and knowledge spillovers in the dynamic growth and “catching-up” of EU regions. ​

In context with the Eastern enlargement of the European Union, this research deals with the effects of pre- and post-enlargement integration policies on industry concentration and regional development in Hungary. Economic processes are analysed empirically and by means of regression analyses with a spatial perspective and in the framework of the new economic geography over a time span of almost two decades. The results for the manufacturing industries and for regional specialization show which economic centres played a role for the economic development of the country over time. The roles which agglomerations and regional specialization can play are discussed with a view to the problems of cohesion in Hungary, the enlarged EU and future EU accession countries. The conclusions also take into account the current political and academic debate regarding European regional policy.