Giedre Dzemydaite (p)

Recently, there is a growing need for regions to develop their innovative capacity and to be competitive in global markets. Cultural activities suppose to take significant part in regional policy. A lot of discussions in academic and policy level came after European Council conclusions (2010/C 135/05) on the contribution of culture to local and regional development stating there is an evident link between culture, creativity and innovation contributing to social and economic progress and that there is a need to encourage strategic investment in culture and cultural and creative industries at local and regional level, in order to foster creative and dynamic societies.
The aim of this research was to analyze intensity and impact of cultural activities on peripheral regions, taking into account public spending for cultural projects. 10 NUTS3 Lithuanian regions were involved, while taking a differentiated analysis of 3 mostly urbanized areas. We used data from Ministry of Culture, Lithuanian Council for Culture and National Statistics of 65 cultural (infrastructural, demand and supply sides), economic and social indicators which were involved in a hierarchical cluster analysis.
This paper supported the idea that there were two way relationships between entrepreneurship and the intensity of cultural activities in the regional level. The peripheral regions were lagging in both – cultural and entrepreneurial activities. It was seen that government programs was not sufficient enough to change this situation.
Government programs for cultural and art activities in Lithuania were organized in uniform way at the national level. These programs aimed to support various cultural activities that could contribute to growth of social capital, inclusion of various social groups in cultural activities, enhance entrepreneurial activities, etc. Although, actors from different regions had participated, the highest intensity of participation was from the most entrepreneurial areas. Lagging regions were less active. Regions that mostly needed financial support for cultural and art activities were lagging to participate. In peripheral regions cultural activities were implemented mostly by public enterprises. There was much small number of private initiatives that participated in calls for funding.
A vicious circle in peripheral regions was seen. A lower entrepreneurial level in peripheral regions supposed to lead to a lower number of cultural projects proposed that leaded to smaller number of cultural activities. Smaller intensity of cultural activities supposed to have a smaller impact for the society. A discussion question arose how to support more private initiative in smaller and lagging regions.

Mihaela-Nona Chilian (p), Marioara Iordan , Elena Pelinescu

The paramount importance of the ICT sector for the EU countries and regions economies and societies remained, on the whole, relatively stable over the last decade, but significant gaps persisted especially at regional and sub-regional level. Romania was no exception to the rule, so that despite the increasing overall share of the ICT in the national GDP, the regional and sub-regional differences maintained; however, with quite a wide range of dynamics and structural changes for different indicators.
Based on a very large array of EU and national indicators used to describe the place and role of ICT in economy and society at regional and, if possible, sub-regional levels, the paper presents a broader analysis of the evolutions and mutations of many types of ICT gaps and divides registered in the Romanian regions after the country’s accession to the EU. Whenever possible, different levels of analysis are used in parallel: individuals, households, companies, regional economies, and relevant comparisons with situations in other EU regions are provided. Conclusions and some policy recommendations are formulated, with a focus on the worrisome rifts between the levels of ICT usage for individual, societal and company purposes and relationships and the levels of usage for relations between the individuals and companies and the government and public administration authorities.

Filipe Batista E Silva, Andrius Kucas, Boyan Kavalov, Jean-Philippe Aurambout (p), Mert Kompil, Carlo Lavalle

According to a recent European Commission communication (“Boosting growth and cohesion in EU border regions”, COM(2017) 534), border regions are places where the European integration processes should be felt most positively – studying, training, working, receiving medical care and doing business across borders are activities that should be possible regardless of the existence of administrative national borders. Border regions are currently defined by the NUTS3 regions that share (or are sufficiently close to) an international land border. However, NUTS3’s heterogeneous size and shape make comparisons across borders inconsistent, and may be detrimental to targeted and effective policy action and funding.
In this presentation, we propose a new delineation of cross-border areas in Europe based on a functional approach rather than a purely administrative one. The proposed ‘functional cross-border areas’ are based on driving time to land border crossings computed from a high-resolution pan-European road network. While the approach is flexible to consider different driving time thresholds, the current analysis applied 30 and 60 min drive-time thresholds to identify areas included in the functional border regions. In addition, we combined the resulting cross-border areas with detailed population data at municipality and grid levels to characterize them according to their demographic situation and trends since 1960.
The results obtained reveal that demographic growth in border areas is significantly lower than the EU average, suggesting lower overall attractiveness and economic performance. Notwithstanding, the results also show a huge diversity of accessibility and demographic trends across the EU border regions and between the two sides of each border. These findings highlight the need for renewed and more targeted policy action and investment in border areas. We argue that the proposed method to delineate and characterize cross-border regions is useful to support this endeavour.

Carolina Guevara Rosero (p), Salomé Villacís , Andrea Bonilla

The aim of this study is to determining the role of amenities at the cantonal level in the subjective welfare of the population in Ecuador. In this developing country with an unequal distribution of amenities across its territory, the access to amenities can be crucial for the individual welfare improvement. To estimate the effect of different types of amenities in the level of welfare, a Generalized Ordered Logit model, after verifying the parallel lines assumption, is employed using pooled data for 2014 and 2015 at the individual and cantonal levels. The individual data is obtained from the Survey of Employment and Unemployment (ENEMDU, acronym in spanish) and the cantonal data of amenities is obtained from the Directory of firms and establishments (DIEE, acronym in spanish). Two binary logistic models contrasting categories low level of life satisfaction vs. medium level of life satisfaction and high level of life satisfaction and contrasting categories low level of life satisfaction vs. medium level of life satisfaction and high level of life saisfaction are estimated. For the interpretation, the sign and the magnitude of marginal effects are considered. A positive (negative) sign indicates that an increase in an independent continuous variable positively (negatively) influences in the probability of reporting a given result of satisfaction (high, medium or low level of life satisfaction). The analyzed amenities are recreation, accommodation, industrial trade, retail trade, basic education, higher education, ground and air transport and waste management. In general, the effects corresponding to the amenities are higher in terms of dimension than the effects of the individual characteristics of the people themselves. The positive amenities are those related to recreation, accommodation, industrial trade and basic education. For instance, an increase of 4.5 establishments dedicated to accommodation in an average canton leads to an increment of 49.2% in the likelihood of reporting a high level of satisfaction with life. The negative amenities are those related to retail trade and higher education. For instance, an increase of a one percentage point in the proportion of higher education establishments diminishes the probability of reporting a high level of life satisfaction in 25.8%. This result reflects the effect of inter-personal comparison, that is, as the opportunities of an individual increase at the same pace as those of others, the level of life satisfaction remains constant. Nevertheless, if the opportunities of others are higher than a given individual, his/her welfare level would be lower.