There has been a long debate about the role of industry structure in the literature on why some regions successfully achieve economic growth, while other regions stagnate or decline. This paper provides an empirical analysis in which we, based on a cluster analysis, develop a taxonomy for regional growth. In a second part of the study, we explore how specialization and entrepreneurship are meaningful to discriminate between the different types of regions. Our results suggest that regional entrepreneurship and industry diversity characterized by relatedness are key elements in understanding why some regions are leading while others lag behind. The suggested taxonomy is argued to contribute with a nuanced perspective that can enhance discussions about improvements of regional development policies and to further empirical analysis on the topic.

The notion of related variety has proved to be an important contribution to the literature on innovation-enhancing regional knowledge externalities in different industry structures. Related variety provides a disentangled view of diversification based on the technological and cognitive proximity of different industries. The core hypothesis of this concept, which states that related variety fosters innovation and employment growth by facilitating knowledge spillovers, has gained increasing empirical support. To date, a relatively modest number of empirical studies have explicitly linked related variety to enhanced regional innovative output. The role of entrepreneurship has also received little attention in the literature, even though economic theory emphasizes that entrepreneurs have an important role in transforming spillovers of knowledge into innovation and growth. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the extant literature on regional innovation with an analysis that probes deeper into the mechanism by which related variety fosters innovation, and to examine how knowledge appropriation mechanisms affects the entrepreneurial opportunities that external knowledge presents. Our empirical analysis employs a moderated and mediated model with non-linear knowledge spillover effects of related variety. We use panel data on 60 Swedish functional analysis regions for the years 2008-2016 and estimate fixed effects models to examine the relationships between related variety, regional innovation and entrepreneurship. Conceptually, our results disentangle the effects of regional knowledge stocks and related variety on the rate at which new ideas are commercialized through entrepreneurship. We find a substantial direct effect of knowledge stocks, and an important indirect effect via knowledge spillovers between cognitively similar firms. A key contribution of this paper is that we show that this effect is conditional on the extent to which knowledge appropriation mechanisms are implemented, which has not been adressed in the literature on knowledge spillover effects of related variety before. Another novel contribution of this paper is that we find evidence of diminishing marginal returns to related variety with respect to innovation and entrepreneurship.

Smart specialisation at the edge of Europe : Case study of sparesly populated areas in the Arctic

Related variety, regional innovation, and knowledge spillover entrepreneurship : Empirical evidence from Sweden

Smart specialisation at the edge of Europe : Case study of sparesly populated areas in the Arctic

In order to achieve legitimacy, reality must match expectations. Resource development projects, such as mining, often force small communities to make difficult decisions regarding which projects to support or reject based on whether their expectations regarding the development of a mine manifest in reality. To make this assessment, this study looks at the factors that contributed to the legitimacy of a mine in northern Sweden, focusing on the community of Pajala, where a new mine opened in 2012. We conducted interviews with local residents representing different interests that aimed to draw out what legitimized or delegitimized the mine. From these interviews, we determined that economic factors weighed most heavily in generating support for the mine. Subsequently, in order to determine if these economic expectations matched reality, we examined economic performance data on the municipality. We found that many of the factors identified in the interviews related to local outcomes and that these matched closely with economic changes associated with the mine. Given the largely positive perceptions of the mine, the congruence between economic expectations and reality validate this support from the community. Thus, our results provide insight into the factors that affect legitimacy at the local level.

Towards Sustainability in Nordic MiningCompanies have a relationship with the communities in which they operate.This relationship should ideally be based on community involvement and contribute to community development.This means participation in and support for civil institutions, involvement in networks of groups and individuals in society and taking responsibility for the impact of the mining operations on society and the environment.The last core subject is the environment, which generates a variety of aspects and results in a number of sustainability criteria in the suggested guidelines.Important sustainability criteria are the sustainable resources of materials, energy and water, sustainable land use, emissions, effluents and waste, sustainable transport, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adoption, the restoration of natural habitats and the recycling of metals.Compared to the Finnish Towards Sustainability Mining standard, the guidelines presented in this report has a more comprehensive approach.

The way in which mining contributes to job opportunities in the region where it takes place has become increasingly important for the industry’s relations to the local community. The employment impacts of mining are however far from straightforward to assess. Considering these uncertainties about real-life job impacts, it is vital that there are sound assessments of these employment effects. The purpose of this paper is to apply a novel econometric approach to assess mining-induced job multipliers in the empirical context of northern Sweden. This analysis employs data on the number of employees in selected non-mining sectors and in the mining sector, respectively, and covering the relatively recent mining boom period (2003–2013). We also highlight differences across the two main mining counties in northern Sweden. The results show a positive statistical relationship between increases in the number of employees in the mining sector and changes in the number of employees in other sectors. The private services’ sector is particularly affected, while the industrial sector also benefits in the specific case of mining municipalities. The results also indicate relatively large inter-county differences, in turn highlighting the importance of addressing the context-specific circumstances when estimating the employment effects of mining.

Denna rapport har tagits fram inom ramen for projektet Grona energiinvesteringar som finan-sieras av Europeiska regionala utvecklingsfonden, Region Norrbotten, Lansstyrelsen i Norr-bottens lan och ...

Mining is a global business with international networks of production and consumption, but mineral deposits are place specific and the impacts of mining projects are mostly experienced locally. Hence, mining is an example of a glocal phenomenon par excellence: global processes are realized in local communities and environments. This paper discusses the social impacts of mining in eight communities situated in Northern Europe. The data consist of 85 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2013 and 2014. Using a qualitative approach and starting from the bottom-up, the analyses identified three impact frames that combined individual experiences and meanings expressed in the interviews. The first impact frame focuses on environmental justice. Environmental impacts are corporeal, cognitive, and emotional, as they affect the real life of people living in the vicinity of the mine. The main finding is that environmental “bads” are experienced locally in the North, whereas the economic “goods” go to mining companies and consumers in the “South.” The second impact frame looks at the loss of livelihoods and the cultural way of life. Mining is seen as a threat, especially to reindeer herding and nature-based practices. In the areas where mining is a new industry, the activity is seen as antithetical to those small-scale activities of a local economy. The third impact frame centers on experiences and concerns about the dependency of a community on a single industry. When the fortunes of local communities are dependent on international business and the fluctuations of global markets, the residents feel that they have no power to influence the developments and can thus only adapt.

Kestava kaivannaistoiminta – pohjoinen osaaminen ja tietotaito eli Sus-MinNor-projekti (Sustainable mining in the Northernmost Europe – Lessonslearned and practices developed) on Lapin liiton, Lapi ...

The SusMinNor project is a collaboration between the Regional Council of Lapland, the University of Lapland, and Lulea University of Technology. The project’s duration spans 2015-2016 and is funded ...

Social sustainability, one of the three pillars of the sustainable development framework, presents a challenging theoretical and empirical concept to investigate. Many of the prominent debates on sustainable development focus on the challenge of managing economic and environmental issues, leaving the social side of the equation less well-defined. The article expands on the concept of social sustain ability through a qualitative study of mining projects in the European North and Northwest Russia, utilizing over 80 thematic interviews in local communities.In our approach social sustainability is understood two dimensional: procedural and contextual. Procedural social sustainability refers to the planning and decision-making of the mining process during mining operations. Contextual social sustainability covers the specific features of the locality including historical experiences of extractive industries and future visions of the community. From the procedural perspective there were two general themes important for the local communities: knowledge and understanding of environmental changes caused by mining and second, the ability to be heard and have an impact on decisions about mining operation. From contextual dimension of social sustainability the main dilemma in Northern communities is between the fear and even anxiety of negative environmental impacts and viability of Northern localities generated by mining providing e.g. employment opportunities, prosperity and better service-structure. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Foreliggande rapport utgor en framatriktad analys av de regionala forutsattningar som rapporterats inom projektet Regional fornyelse, som finansierats av Lansstyrelsen i Norrbottens lan och Lulea t ...