Regional development and knowledge

Abstract

This paper focuses on the concept of knowledge and examines models depicting and explaining the role of knowledge in regional development and provides an assessment of empirical studies of how knowledge affects growth and development in functional regions. For this paper it is crucial to understand those factors that make knowledge spatially sticky and knowledge-production capacity trapped. It is equally important to explain the conditions for knowledge flows and diffusion. The presentation also widens the view by extending the analysis of knowledge creation to include aspects of creativity. Since location advantages and especially the knowledge-based advantages have the feature of moving in slowly path-dependent processes the regional policy needs to focus on structural adjustments of tangible and non-tangible infrastructure to succeed.JEL classifications: D 80, R 11, R 12

Innovation in Malmö after the Öresund Bridge

“…While the role of accessibility had been investigated for matters related to productivity and commuting (e.g., Johansson & Forslund, 1995;Ohlsson, 2002), in the 2000s only, this concept was used to improve our understanding of the importance of proximity to knowledge. The findings of this literature largely confirm an important role of proximity to R&D and human capital for patent production (e.g., Andersson & Ejermo, 2005;Gråsjö, 2006;Johansson & Karlsson, 2019). While this prior literature aimed at understanding the effects of proximity it did not focus on changes in accessibility, e.g., through changes in road travel times.…”

Big Data and its potential role in regional growth: evidence from Great Britain

“…Knowledge is the newest form of capital asset and the ability to access and use knowledge can be measured as the access to knowledge-intensive labour that the region offers firms that locate to the region. This requires that the region is capable of attracting households that can supply this labour (Johansson & Karlsson, 2019). Maximizing value from Big Data value requires several factors, including the concentration of knowledge-based workers.…”

“…Research on the production and use of industrial data in the United States' power-generation sector found that the location of industrial data activities (and the firms that emerge to participate in that production process) is highly sensitive to (Clark & Sudharsan, 2019): the underlying and existing sectoral geographies; connectivity (to internet-enabled devices and data transmission); and specialized labour markets and institutions and institutional capacity. Regions vary considerably in their resource endowments, infrastructure, institutional make-up and labour market characteristics (Bishop & Shilcof, 2017;Johansson & Karlsson, 2019). Many of these factors are either fixed or 'sticky', and they evolve slowly over time.…”

“…The 'digital revolution' that began in the late 1960s has transformed product markets and production processes (Hermelin, 2020). Advanced economies have transitioned from a predominately industrial economy, based on the manufacturing of industrial goods by production workers, to an economy based on informational goods and services generated through service workers (Hermelin, 2020;Johansson & Karlsson, 2019;Thelen, 2019). While easy to assume that this new practice of production is just another way of producing goods and services, this is only part of the story.…”