Knowledge Spillovers as a Central Element in Theories about Knowledge-Based Regional Development: Advancement in Theory and Obstacles for Empirical Research

As scientists and policymakers tend to interpret changes in the economy as a trend towards an increasingly knowledge-based economy, their recommendations and strategies for regional economic development frequently contain elements how to intensify the knowledge flows in the region concerned. Knowledge flows come into existence from intentional action, but also in an unintended way as externalities or knowledge spillovers. This paper reviews the ways regional and urban economics has dealt with the concept of knowledge spillovers. Knowledge spillovers are defined within a conceptual framework that points out different uses of knowledge in economics. The concept’s operationalisations in diverse empirical studies are systematised and discussed. After a critical review of the current state of research, policy strategies aiming to intensify knowledge spillovers are classified. The paper concludes with an outlook on promising new approaches to research knowledge spillovers and on the elaboration of more efficient policy strategies.knowledge spillovers, tacit knowledge, codified knowledge, transfer mechanisms, related variety

Knowability Relative to Information

We present a formal semantics for epistemic logic, capturing the notion of knowability relative to information (KRI). Like Dretske, we move from the platitude that what an agent can know depends on her (empirical) information. We treat operators of the form K_AB (‘B is knowable on the basis of information A’) as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a topic- or aboutness- preservation constraint. Variable strictness models the non-monotonicity of knowledge acquisition while allowing knowledge to be intrinsically stable. Aboutness-preservation models the topic-sensitivity of information, allowing us to invalidate controversial forms of epistemic closure while validating less controversial ones. Thus, unlike the standard modal framework for epistemic logic, KRI accommodates plausible approaches to the Kripke-Harman dogmatism paradox, which bear on non-monotonicity, or on topic-sensitivity. KRI also strikes a better balance between agent idealization and a non-trivial logic of knowledge ascriptions

Uniform approximation of sgn(x) by rational functions with prescribed poles

For $a\in (0,1)$ let $L^k_m(a)$ be the error of the best approximation of the function \sgn(x) on the two symmetric intervals $[-1,-a]\cup[a,1]$ by rational functions with the only possible poles of degree $2k-1$ at the origin and of $2m-1$ at infinity. Then the following limit exists \begin{equation} \lim_{m\to \infty}L^k_m(a)(\frac{1+a}{1-a})^{m-{1/2}} (2m-1)^{k+{1/2}}=\frac 2 \pi(\frac{1-a^2}{2a})^{k+{1/2}} \Gamma(k+\frac 1 2). \end{equation

Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’

The rising attention of politicians as well as scientists in the EU to the large urban agglomerations as centres of economic growth is accompanied by political efforts to identify and to demarcate such agglomerations under the label ‘metropolitan regions’. This study develops a theoretical framework broaching the issue of cooperation between municipalities from the perspective of regional economics as well as political science. The framework is applied to the empirical case of the polycentric metropolitan region ‘Saxony Triangle’ in East Germany. The results show that various intervening factors prevent intense cooperation between the actors in the region. Policy implications and con- clusions for future research are discussed.polycentric urban regions, metropolitan regions, saxony triangle, cooperation agglomeration, correspondence analysis