Multi-level governance of regional economic development in Norway and Sweden: too much or too little top-down control?

Regional level has been identified as the key institutional level for economic development policies. However, in Norway and Sweden regional economic development as a policy field is to a limited extent placed under the control of directly elected regional parliaments, whereas the most important instruments for stimulating regional economic development and innovation are controlled by national government and regional state offices. In this article we discuss the theoretical and normative arguments for centralizing or decentralizing instruments for enhancing regional economic development and the implications of the fact that strong instruments for enhancing regional economic development are controlled by national government in these countries.     

From suburbia to post-suburbia in the Netherlands: Potentials and threats for sustainable regional development

Deconcentration of both people and employmenthas been the major trend in most metropolitanareas in Northwest Europe since the 1960s. Withregard to policy goals of sustainable regionaldevelopment, deconcentration has so far mainlybeen seen as a counterproductive tendency.Compact city development, leading to newconcentrations of employment and housing areasin or close to the existing built-up areas, wasoften preferred because it was said tocontribute more to sustainable regionaldevelopment. Initially, the deconcentrationprocess mainly resulted in monofunctionalhousing, employment and consumption areas inlow densities, which generated increasing cartraffic and huge losses of open space. However,in recent years we can increasingly witness atendency towards new multifunctionalconcentrations in the area around the citiesformerly known as `suburbia'. The centralquestion of this paper is how this shift from`suburbia' to `post-suburbia' might contributeto a more sustainable regional development ofmetropolitan areas.Employment deconcentration might contribute toa more sustainable regional development by`bringing jobs to the people', especially whenit leads to new concentrations close to, oreven in, suburban housing areas. In addition,combinations of production and consumptioncould produce areas that are used moreintensively than the traditional monofunctionalindustry or office areas. The possibilities toproduce such mixed-use areas have improvedconsiderably since most present-day employmentconcentrations produce much less noise andpollution than the industrial complexes of thepast. However, a really constructivecontribution to sustainable regionaldevelopment is only reached when the new jobconcentrations meet various othersustainability criteria like promoting the useof public transport, applying forms ofintensive and multiple land use, or decreasingtransport distances to suppliers andcustomers.     

西安区域经济发展研究

针对西安地区区域经济发展的现状,从不同角度提出了西安区域经济发展的主要问题和矛盾,并针对问题提出了相应的若干建议和意见,促进中国西部地区与邻国之间的经济贸易发展。     

Household willingness-to-engage in water quality projects in western Newfoundland and Labrador: a demand-side management approach

This paper aims to measure household willingness-to-engage (WTE) in municipal water quality projects. A cross-sectional logit model is specified as a function of socio-demographic, socio-economic, water consumption and conservation, and public awareness in western Newfoundland and Labrador. WTE is a new provision of the demand-side management approach that incorporates an ecological economics dimension to water use. The results show that the levels of education and annual family income have positively affected households' decisions to get involved in the municipal water quality projects. In addition, the degree of public awareness has a significant impact on shaping the households' decisions.     

关于中心城市推动区域经济一体化发展的分析

以佩鲁的增长极理论为基础,分析了中国城市群中心城市对区域经济的推动作用,针对我国城市群的发展现状和存在的问题,提出了区域经济一体化发展的基本对策。     

议校企一体化合作办学对区域经济发展的作用

以沙洲职业工学院建筑工程技术专业与江苏德丰建设集团的深度合作为例,介绍了双方的合作模式以及取得的成果,并结合自身的经验给出了校企一体化合作办学的发展方向。     

From urban renewal to local development. New conceptions and governance practices in the Italian peripheries

This article explores the relationships between changes in the conception of urban peripheries and changes in urban renewal policies, mainly focusing on policy debates and theoretical discourses developed within Italy. The aim is to test the usefulness of a non‐conventional approach to urban peripheries, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. According to this approach, urban peripheries can be thought of as plural and complex places, which are considered to be a fundamental part of the city and as the builders of urban identity. The article initially explores the changes in describing and interpreting urban peripheries, showing how they must be related to actual changes in urban settlement dynamics, as well as to changes in the theoretical frameworks used to understand the phenomenon of the Italian ‘urban periphery’. The article then shows how changes in interpretation have redefined the objectives and methods of policy interventions in the Italian context. Finally, certain critical issues will be discussed, in particular the origins of urban renewal policies and their recent evolution; the redefinition of the local authority role, and the relationships between institutional and social projects and activities. In this view, institutional projects are considered to be the formal projects carried out by public actors, for example municipalities, in order to manage the change in urban peripheries while social projects are understood as the informal practices of inhabitants of peripheries that change their living neighbourhoods.     

长江三角洲区域经济发展合作分析

长三角地区是我国经济最发达的地区之一，特别是进入20世纪90年代以来，其发展速度一直处于领先地位。随着经济的不断发展，省与省、城市与城市之间难免会出现这样那样的矛盾．而这些矛盾产生的根源都无疑是经济发展和地区利益。文章从长三角地区发展中存在的问题出发．并结合以往城市、区域合作的经验．提出了长三角区域城市合作的一些建议。     

A labor market based theory of regional economic development

The Borts and Stein (1964) theory of regional economic growth and development has been widely accepted and discussed in regional economic development literature. Given their assumption that labor demand conditions are invariant between regions and that the labor demand is highly wage elastic, they conclude that regional growth is primarily supply driven and differences in growth among regions arise due to differences in the growth of labor supply assuming that wage elasticity of labor supply is the same across regions. Muth (1968, 1971) claims to have verified the Borts and Steins (BS) conclusion. We propose a regional labor market based model of economic development similar to BS with certain modifications in assumptions and show that the Borts-Stein-Muth (BSM) conclusion is based upon a narrow view of labor demand and supply elasticities. Our theory demonstrates that regional development is mainly labor demand driven once we adopt a broader view of elasticities. The broader view incorporates the direct effect of wages on labor supply and labor demand as well as the indirect effects of wages through changes in inmigration and firms' formations in a region. Received: March 1998/Accepted: August 1998     

我国未来区域的经济架构与西部基础设施发展战略

一 .我国未来区域经济的空间架构。 2 0世纪末 ,中国已经形成了”开”形的区域经济发展骨架和若干个经济增长核心区。沿海地带是中国经济发展的一级轴线 ,长江干线沿岸地带、京广铁路沿线、陇海一兰新沿线及黄河中上游地区是三条二级轴线。随着中国区域经济的不断发展 ,这些轴线也随之升级 ,与沿海地带一起构成全国性的一级轴线。长江沿岸干线地带包括东起上海、西至重庆的长江干流沿岸地区 ,是带动华中和西南地区经济开发和发展的重要轴线 :京广铁路是沟通中国中部地区南北交通运输的大动脉 ;陇海一兰新沿线及黄河中上游地区 ,也是带动中国…     

Demand for information and communication technology-based services and regional economic development

The relationship between the uptake of Information and Communication Technology-based services (ICT) and regional economic development is examined here; we address in particular the idea that ICT will promote regional economic convergence. We argue that ICT can generate contradictory trends of regional convergence and divergence and that, under conditions of non-regulated market supply, the effects leading to divergence can be dominant. The approach is based on the development of a regional demand model, which is the combination of two sub models, one dealing with the effects of network externalities and the other based on the concept of potential demand for ICT. The main conclusion is that less populous, more peripheral and poorer regions with weaker existing social and economic networking will encounter problems of insufficient demand. This in turn will delay the launch of new services and slow the rate of uptake. Negative dynamic effects of low ICT use on economic performance will generate a vicious circle of cumulative disadvantage. Received: 2 October 2000 / Accepted: 6 December 2001 RID="*" ID="*" Thanks are due to Miguel Jardim and Jo?o Marques for technical assistance with the graphics.     

The ‘entrepreneurial turn’ and regional economic development mission of universities

In the last 20 years many research universities in the US have added regional business and economic development as a core mission to the traditional ones of instruction and scholarly research. It has been claimed by many critics, however, that this ‘entrepreneurial turn’ presents conflicts with long established academic norms, procedures, and reward systems. This paper utilizes a national survey of faculty attitudes towards academic entrepreneurship to investigate the extent to which the ‘entrepreneurial turn’ has become accepted and taken-for-granted, to identify which academic entrepreneurial activities are deemed appropriate, or legitimate, and those that are widely regarded as inappropriate, and to identify the most salient dimensions by which faculty attitudes vary. The results provide evidence that the entrepreneurial turn within research universities in the US has not yet become ‘taken-for-granted’, that the norm of open science is still widely accepted and conflicts with some academic entrepreneurship activities. There seems to be a broad—though not consensual—agreement on the boundaries of what are deemed appropriate and legitimate entrepreneurial activities that spans disciplines and across prior levels of faculty experience in academic entrepreneurship.     

Explaining urban economic governance: The City of Macao

This paper traces the root causes of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government's inability to regulate the city's major economic issues. This regulatory deficiency can be partly attributed to the city's 500 years of Portuguese colonial rule, although some of the problems have been caused by the casino boom, which began with the liberalization of Macao's gaming industry, and the government's failure to cope with ensuing dramatic changes. From a historical and institutional perspective, the author illustrates and analyzes the dynamic relationship between economic regulation and urban politics on a rapidly growing urban island facing various governance challenges.     

Professionalism in China's building sector: an economic governance perspective

As the third force beside markets and governments, professionalism emerged to protect the interests of civil society, and it has played a unique role in the building sector. By conceptualizing professionalism as a community-based governance structure, an economic governance perspective is adopted to examine professionalism in China's building sector. The development of professionalism in China's building sector is reviewed, and both its achievements and its weaknesses are assessed. Root-cause analysis reveals that the primary impediment to building professionalism is the imbalanced relationship between markets, governments and professionals. It is argued that the success of professionalism in China's building sector is dependent ultimately on whether the government can change its overly dominant role in the economy. To address the concern of creating an independent, vibrant professional culture that contributes to the long-term public interest, the following are recommended: separating professional associations and relevant bodies from government agencies completely; improving the administrative system for both practice qualification and market access; and increasing the proportion of non-government investments to change the imbalanced relationship between professionals and public clients.