Deciphering the effects of agglomeration economies on firms’ productive efficiency

The present work assess the effects of MAR and Jacob’s type agglomeration economies on a sample of firms in the machineries and textiles industries in Greece for the periods 1989-91 and 1999-01. The analysis employs a stochastic production frontier function and allows agglomeration economies to enter as inputs and/or as factors reducing inefficiency. Results re-confirm that the effects of agglomeration economies are industry specific. In our study, the machineries industry benefits from MAR type agglomeration economies and the textiles industry benefits from Jacob’s type agglomeration economies. Agglomeration economies may exercise a twin effect on firms’ productive efficiency. First, as in the case of the machineries industry in our study, MAR agglomeration economies may act as a new input and affect the kernel of the production frontier. Second, agglomeration economies may act as a factor reducing technical inefficiency with non-neutral effects with labour and capital as in the case of both the machineries and the textiles industries in our study. Finally, it is indicated that agglomeration economies establish a type of “path dependence†for firms. Firms that make significant use of agglomeration economies survive to the next period at higher percentages in comparison to other firms in the same industry. At the same time, entrants are favoured by MAR type agglomeration economies while incumbents are favoured by Jacob’s type agglomeration economies.

Business Networks and Performance: A Spatial Approach

Business networks are associated to increased business performance and are regarded as a major factor influencing the development of rural and lagging areas. It is assumed that businesses access many networks in order to pursue their short and long term entrepreneurial objectives. The most important spatial features of this business-network relationship are firstly the spatial coverage of the network and secondly the location of the business in relation to its markets. As concerns the spatial coverage of the networks we distinguish between vertical and horizontal business networks. Vertical networks allow local enterprises to forge alliances with externally located consumers, suppliers, distributors, retailers and institutions, while horizontal networks provide relationships with locally based producers, institutions, and consumers. As concerns the location of the business in relation to its markets we distinguish between firms located in accessible locations and firms located in less accessible and peripheral locations in relation to their output markets. A survey of 160 businesses in the manufacturing and services sectors in two areas of Greece (one remote and one more accessible) is used to test empirically the effects of the spatial features of the business-network relationship on firm performance. Business performance is approximated through a series of measures capturing conventional firm growth and other less conventional managerial objectives. The analysis demonstrates that a significantly high proportion of successful businesses located in the remote area simultaneously access vertical and horizontal networks while in the less remote area successful businesses access mainly vertical networks. It is argued that policy initiatives towards the support of business networks as a tool of regional development policies should have a strong territorial and spatial perspective.

Financial incentives and the location of tourism facilities in Greece

The development of tourism activities in Greece has met a significant growth rate over the last two decades. At the same time, tourism facilities were developed in regions, which did not constitute traditional tourism destinations, thus changing the pattern of the regional allocation of tourism facilities. This occurred due to two reasons. First, the changing pattern of tourism arrivals which clearly moved out of the Greater Athens area to the Aegean and Ionian islands and Crete. Second, regional development policy provided financial incentives and assisted investments in the tourism sector of certain Greek regions. A database concerning 4,603 assisted investments realized in the tourism sector from 1982 onwards, has been assembled. The present paper examines the factors influencing the regional location of these investments. Among the factors researched are the effects of the size of financial assistance and the suitability of the region for the development of tourism facilities. Furthermore, the paper attempts to evaluate the regional policy's effects on the location of the tourism sector in Greece.

Consumer´s appreciation of regional image and the perceived quality of rural tourism

Tourists' perception of regional image is critical as regards the degree of satisfaction obtained from the overall tourism experience. The present paper analyses the ways in which a region's image is incorporated into the tourist products and the overall tourism experience. Regional image is acknowledged to entail elements of the socio-cultural, environmental and historical heritage of a region. The latter affect the quality of the tourist product as perceived by the tourists. Consequently, they also affect the tourist's subjective judgement of satisfaction based on the quality of the tourism experience they have 'consumed'. The present paper utilizes data drawn from an EU Research Project (SPRITE QLK5-CT-2000-01211) survey conducted in two regional sites of rural tourism in Greece. Analysis and results focus especially on comparisons between the two study regions. Further, policy implications as regards the development of the rural tourism product, are also discussed.

The geography of transaction linkages in twelve European case study regions

Small and medium sized enterprises operate within a complex web of links of various kinds. These may be distinguished in terms of their content (transactional, advisory, regulatory, social), "object" (other SMEs, third sector organisations, business services, local and national government), geography (local,regional, global), and durability (transient, permanent, frequent, irregular). A simpler categorisation might be between "hard" linkages involving a recorded transaction of some kind, and "soft" informal interation involving only information. Several schools of thought on local economic development emphasise either or both these types of interaction as important factors in local development dynamics. This is a particularily important group of concepts in relation to peripheral regions, where local opportunities for interaction are constrained, and longer distance relationships are more difficult and expensive. This paper begins with a review of recent research relating to business networks,focusing as far as possible on work relating to rural and peripheral areas, and including relevant aspects of the concepts of social capital, governance and "institutional thickness". This will be drawn together in the form of a number of hypotheses regarding the role of different forms of interaction in determining the degree of economic vitality in peripheral regions. The validity of these hypotheses will then be examined in the light of case-study data relating to twelve regions (six peripheral, six more accessible) in Scotland, Finland, Germany, Spain and Greece. Drawing predominantly on a survey of 600 SMEs, the discussion is structured into the following four themes: The geography of transactional linkages Other aspects of transactional linkages Links with third sector organisactions Links with local, regional and national government agencies. The paper will conclude with a review of the hypotheses and an integrated assessment of the impact of all kinds of networks on regional economic performance. The information presented in this paper has been derived from research funded by the EU Fifth Framework, as part of project QLK5-2000-00783 - Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy (AsPIRE).

Case Study - Greece, Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo Project)

This Technical Note 'Case Study ¿ Greece' is part of a series of case studies within the ¿Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation¿ (SoCo) project. Ten case studies were carried out in Belgium, Bul-garia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom between spring and summer 2008. The selection of case study areas was designed to capture differ-ences in soil degradation processes, soil types, climatic conditions, farm structures and farming prac-tices, institutional settings and policy priorities. A harmonised methodological approach was pursued in order to gather insights from a range of contrasting conditions over a geographically diverse area. The case studies were carried out by local experts to reflect the specificities of the selected case stud-ies.JRC.DDG.J.5-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Data Sparseness and Variance in Accounting Profitability

__Abstract__ A central question in strategic management is why some firms perform better than others. One approach to addressing this question empirically is to decompose the variance in firm-level profitability into firm, industry, location, and year components. Although it is well established that data sparseness in variance decomposition studies can lead to overestimating particular variance components, little attention has been paid to sample size requirements in strategic management studies that have examined the nature of differences in firm profitability. We conduct a meta-regression and variance decomposition study and conclude that the variatio