In this paper the importance of neighbourhood related diversity and firm human capital for firms' propensity to innovate is tested. Neighbourhood diversity is treated as a source of localized knowledge spillovers, that is, Jacobs' externalities, where diversity is measured in terms of industries and employee education. The results show that firms in metropolitan regions benefit from related industry diversity while service sector firms in rural regions are more innovative in neighbourhoods with more related diversity in education. Firm characteristics such as education and skills among the employees provide to be strong determinants of firm innovativeness, especially for firms outside metropolitan regions.

This paper applies unique survey data on innovation and external interaction of small food producers in Sweden.The overall purpose is to test if firms that are more engaged in external interaction are more innovative. To disentangle innovativeness beyond new goods and services, innovation is measured as new processes, new markets, new suppliers, new ways of organization, and new distributors. Findings point to a positive relationship between firm innovation and external interaction, both in terms of collaboration, external knowledge and support from regional actors. In particular, collaboration regarding transports and sales is shown to enhance most types of innovation. Product and process innovation benefit from external knowledge from extra-regional firms as well as regional support from the largest firm. Findings suggest that current innovation policies can improve their efficiency by increasing their flexibility to enable tailor-made innovation policies at the local level.

This paper provides a conceptual discussion of relatedness, which suggests a focus on individuals as a complement to firms and industries. The empirical relevance of the main arguments is tested by estimating the effects of related and unrelated variety in education and occupation among employees, as well as in industries, on regional growth. The results show that occupational and educational related variety are positively correlated with productivity growth, which supports the conceptual discussion put forth in the paper. In addition, related variety in industries is found to be negative for productivity growth, but positive for employment growth.

Cet article cherche à fournir une base conceptuelle sur laquelle on peut discuter de la connexité, ce qui laisse supposer que l'on met l'accent sur les individus ainsi que sur les entreprises et les industries. On évalue la pertinence empirique des principaux arguments en estimant les effets sur la croissance régionale de la variété connexe et de la variété non-apparentée des salariés dans l’éducation et dans les professions, ainsi que dans les entreprises. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe une corrélation étroite entre la variété connexe dans les professions et l’éducation et la croissance de la productivité, ce qui soutient le débat conceptuel que propose cet article. En plus, la variété connexe dans les industries s'avère négative pour la croissance de la productivité, mais positive quant à la croissance de l'emploi.

Dieser Beitrag enthält eine konzeptuelle Erörterung der Verbundenheit, in der eine Konzentration auf Einzelpersonen als Ergänzung von Firmen und Branchen vorgeschlagen wird. Zur Überprüfung der empirischen Relevanz der Hauptargumente wird geschätzt, wie sich verbundene und unverbundene Vielfalt in den Bereichen der Bildung und des Beschäftigungsniveaus von Arbeitnehmern sowie im Bereich der Branchen auf das Regionalwachstum auswirkt. Aus den Ergebnissen geht hervor, dass verbundene Vielfalt in den Bereichen des Beschäftigungsniveaus und der Bildung in einem positiven Zusammenhang mit dem Produktivitätswachstum steht, was die konzeptuelle Erörterung dieses Beitrags unterstützt. Darüber hinaus wirkt sich verbundene Vielfalt im Bereich der Branchen negativ auf das Produktivitätswachstum, aber positiv auf das Beschäftigungswachstum aus.

En este artículo aportamos un debate conceptual sobre los vínculos proponiendo un enfoque en las personas como un complemento para las empresas y las industrias. Para comprobar la relevancia empírica de los principales argumentos, calculamos los efectos de la variedad relacionada y no relacionada en educación y ocupación entre los empleados, así como en las industrias, para el crecimiento regional. Los resultados indican que la variedad relacionada de ocupación y educación está positivamente vinculada al crecimiento de la productividad, lo que respalda el debate conceptual presentado en este artículo. Asimismo observamos que la variedad relacionada en las industrias es negativa para el crecimiento de la productividad, pero positiva para el crecimiento del empleo.

This thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four individual papers. In each paper the relationship between some form of spatial diversity and economic performance is analyzed. Diversity is treated as a potential source of externality effects, mainly in the form of knowledge spillovers.

The first paper studies the impact of a broad range of spatial externalities on the productivity of manufacturing plants. While finding positive effects of specialization and competition, there is no support for positive spillovers of either related or unrelated industry diversity. The second paper argues that relatedness should be framed at the level of individuals and consequently should be measured in terms of, for example, education and occupation rather than industry belonging. The results show that educational- and occupational related diversity matter for regional productivity growth, while related industry diversity is positively related to employment growth.

The third paper analyzes the importance of neighborhood related diversity, in terms of both industries and education, and internal human capital for firms’ propensity to innovate. The findings support that education and skills are strongly related to firm innovation. Additionally, firms in metropolitan regions are more innovative in neighborhoods with more related diversity in industries, while firms in rural regions seem to benefit more from related diversity in education. In the fourth paper, the location factor of interest is segregation, which may be regarded as inverse diversity. The results show that neighborhood segregation has a negative effect on individual employment. However, it is not the spatial separation of individuals with different backgrounds that causes lower employment but rather the distress of segregated neighborhoods.

In this paper, we test whether individuals who live in more-segregated neighborhoods have a lower propensity to be employed. We apply an individual fixed effects strategy in order to reduce issues of self-selection and individual heterogeneity. This is possible due to access to full population micro-data, which allows us to follow the same group of individuals between 1990 and 2011. The results show that individuals who live in segregated neighborhoods are less likely to be employed, primarily in metropolitan regions. This effect is mainly driven by males with foreign background. However, it is not spatial separation per se that causes the negative effect on employment but rather the distress of segregated neighborhoods. This indicates that these neighborhoods provide fewer opportunities for labor market integration, which is particularly challenging for already disadvantaged individuals. The results thus have a strong bearing on policy concerning both integration and urban planning.

In recent decades we have been able to witness a veritable revolution in the world economy, with dramatic changes in the competitiveness of nations, regions and companies. The most commonly used term to describe this revolution has been ‘globalization’, even if there is no common definition of this term in the literature. In fact, all definitions of globalization are elusive and elicit criticism (Thurik et al., 2013). Generally, the term is connected with the rapid increase in the free movement of goods, capital, people, ideas, information and knowledge around the globe. The shift of economic activities between regions in different national spheres ranks among the most vigorous changes shaping the economic landscape of today (Dreher et al., 2008). Much of the discussion about globalization has been held at a rather superficial macroeconomic level. Discussions at the meso- and microeconomic level, that is, the level of regions and companies, have been much less common, and many have also been biased in the sense that they have only given a partial picture. One obvious example is that discussions on the role of innovation and entrepreneurship have tended to use a narrow definition of entrepreneurship as the start-up of new companies; as a result they have ignored the high degree of innovation and entrepreneurship within many incumbent companies. This is problematic, since innovation and entrepreneurship, generating new technologies, new products and new production processes, are at the core of economic development and growth (Hall, 1999).

This paper analyses the role of a broad range of spatial externalities in explaining average labour productivity of Swedish manufacturing plants. The main findings show positive effects from general urbanization economies and labour market matching, as well as a negative effect from within-industry diversity. These results confirm previous research despite methodological differences,which implies wider generalizability. Additionally, the empirical findings support Marshall–Arrow–Romer (MAR) and Porter externalities, i.e. positive effects from specialization and competition. No evidence is found of Jacobs externalities, neither when measured as between-industry diversity nor as within-industry diversity. Finally, plant-specific characteristics play a key role in explaining plant-level productivity.