This title was first published in 2003. This work intends to make an important and interesting contribution to the wider debate on European regional development. It looks beyond the confines of the EU proper and combines interesting and relevant case studies from a broader pan-European perspective. Also, the approaches adopted are informed by a variety of theoretical positions. By addressing the changing roles of SMEs in different regions of Eastern Europe, readers should gain insights into the different dimensions of SME development and the link between SMEs and regional growth.

This book investigates the EU’s regional growth dynamics and, in particular, the reasons why peripheral and socio-economically disadvantaged areas have persistently failed to catch up with the rest of the Union. It shows that the capability of the knowledge-based growth model to deliver its expected benefits to these areas crucially depends on tackling a specific set of socio-institutional factors which prevents innovation from being effectively translated into economic growth. The book takes an eclectic approach to the territorial genesis of innovation and regional growth by combining different theoretical strands into one model of empirical analysis covering the whole EU-25. An in-depth comparative analysis with the United States is also included, providing significant insights into the distinctive features of the European process of innovation and its territorial determinants. The evidence produced in the book is extensively applied to the analysis of EU development policies.

European Regional Growth is the result of three major influences. First, the ongoing integration of the European regional economies and the need to understand what this means for European economic and social cohesion. Second, the development of geo-economic theories. Third, the development of techniques of spatial data analysis, simulation, data visualization and spatial econometrics. The outcome is a collection of chapters that apply these methods, motivated by a variety of theoretical positions. The book provides powerful and detailed analyses of the causes of income, productivity and employment variations across Europe's regions, and insights into their future prospects.

Human capital is of utmost importance for the future of our knowledge economies and societies. However, it is unequally distributed in Europe, contributing to marked spatial patterns of economic prosperity within and across countries. In many cases, these patterns have a long history. To understand them better, it requires to go back in time, when mass schooling was starting to become a reality across Europe. Taking a long-run perspective over more than 150 years, this book shows the development and the distribution of human capital in the regions of Europe and its connections with the economy. It provides insights into recent research findings in this area, including theoretical advances and the use of new empirical data.

After a description of the new forms of globalization currently shaping our world, and of their possible spatial effects, the book highlights which European regions have in the past succeeded in taking advantage of globalization trends and identifies the major reasons for their success. The book also offers a prospective analysis utilizing scenarios based on different assumptions of how globalization trends will develop, identifying the regional winners and losers for each scenario. The analysis greatly benefits from a unique database which contains, among others, data on FDI by sector and professions at the regional Nuts-2 level for all 27 EU countries. A time-span of more than 10 years is covered, and scenarios are developed for the future development up to 2020.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary issues of regional development. It places particular emphasis on its socio-economic and socio-political determinants which accompany the problem of existing and ever-widening differences in the level of regional development in various parts of Europe. In order to diagnose the scale of those differences and to indicate the main forces behind the divergence of development, the authors propose an original systematisation of regional development factors, drawing attention to the need to consider them within the framework of present-day socio-economic megatrends. The proposed approach to the development factors is also used for the author's operationalisation of the concept of territorial capital, which is at the centre of regional place-based policy. The wide spatial aspect of the analysis (national and local) and its extensive temporal scope (2004-2019) yields unique results and creates an important element of added value for this book, which shows the regularities of the process of regional development in Europe at three spatial levels - pan-European, national and intra-regional. Furthermore, it indicates the challenges faced by regionalists who attempt to carry out research on different territorial levels with a diverse number of units (205 EU regions, 16 Polish voivodeships, 2,478 Polish local units) and extended observation periods (2004-2017). The solutions proposed by the authors, who show the potential of overcoming the barriers resulting from limited access to complete and comparable statistical data series, should be inspiring for many researchers. The unique results of direct research carried out on a large sample of respondents and entrepreneurs via diverse field research techniques constitute a valuable source of information on local conditions that impact contemporary development processes in less developed regions. Their value is even greater because they were carried out in a unique laboratory created by the authors for testing the regularity of formation and impact of socio-economic development factors in various locally determined conditions of this process. It consists of purposefully selected test units (LAU2). Located in a less developed region, they represent all growth types and functional test units identified in the course of the research. Consequently, the results obtained may be generalised and applied to other areas showing similar features of territorial capital. The monograph is addressed primarily to a wide group of regionalists connected with economic and social sciences as well as to practitioners involved in the implementation of development policies at various levels.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary issues of regional development. It places particular emphasis on its socio-economic and socio-political determinants which accompany the problem of existing and ever-widening differences in the level of regional development in various parts of Europe. In order to diagnose the scale of those differences and to indicate the main forces behind the divergence of development, the authors propose an original systematisation of regional development factors, drawing attention to the need to consider them within the framework of present-day socio-economic megatrends. The proposed approach to the development factors is also used for the author's operationalisation of the concept of territorial capital, which is at the centre of regional place-based policy. The wide spatial aspect of the analysis (national and local) and its extensive temporal scope (2004-2019) yields unique results and creates an important element of added value for this book, which shows the regularities of the process of regional development in Europe at three spatial levels - pan-European, national and intra-regional. Furthermore, it indicates the challenges faced by regionalists who attempt to carry out research on different territorial levels with a diverse number of units (205 EU regions, 16 Polish voivodeships, 2,478 Polish local units) and extended observation periods (2004-2017). The solutions proposed by the authors, who show the potential of overcoming the barriers resulting from limited access to complete and comparable statistical data series, should be inspiring for many researchers. The unique results of direct research carried out on a large sample of respondents and entrepreneurs via diverse field research techniques constitute a valuable source of information on local conditions that impact contemporary development processes in less developed regions. Their value is even greater because they were carried out in a unique laboratory created by the authors for testing the regularity of formation and impact of socio-economic development factors in various locally determined conditions of this process. It consists of purposefully selected test units (LAU2). Located in a less developed region, they represent all growth types and functional test units identified in the course of the research. Consequently, the results obtained may be generalised and applied to other areas showing similar features of territorial capital. The monograph is addressed primarily to a wide group of regionalists connected with economic and social sciences as well as to practitioners involved in the implementation of development policies at various levels.