Ingmar Pastak

This study offers an exploration of the spatial distribution and intensity of creative economic activities across the prefectures of Japan. These industries are not only defined by their innovative and digital production processes but also by their shift from traditional, large-scale manufacturing to smaller to more personalized consumer-oriented units. Despite the continued dominance of conventional mass production in Japan's economy, these nascent creative sectors may represent a significant shift.
Utilizing a rich dataset from the Economic Census for Business Activities for the years 2014 and 2021, the study maps out the employment trends across diverse industrial categories. It recognizes and addresses the challenges inherent in aligning the theoretical constructs of creative economies with the more rigid structure of national economic accounts. Through the calculation of location quotients for each Japanese prefecture, the study measures the relative concentration and specialization of creative industries within these regions. This approach culminates in an aggregated creative sector score for each area.
The study employs spatial analysis tools, including local and global indicators of spatial association, adhering to a broad definition of creative activities and considering two distinct temporal moments, providing a dynamic perspective on the evolution of these sectors.
The findings of this analysis align with a global trend, highlighting a pronounced agglomeration of creative industries in major metropolitan areas. This trend is evident in Japan, with a strong concentration of creative activities around Tokyo and Kanazawa, and, to a lesser extent, in Osaka and Kyoto. The comparative analysis of data from 2014 and 2021 reveals that the emergence of the creative economy is part of a slow, yet steady, structural transformation. This is evidenced by the remarkable consistency in spatial distribution patterns across both timeframes.
The study reveals the difficulty faced by Japan's peripheral regions in attracting and nurturing creative industries. This finding is crucial for understanding the geographical inequalities in the distribution of creative economic activities and has significant implications for regional development and policy-making. In this sense, refining the territorial level of analysis (municipalities instead of Prefectures) and adding new questions related to the determinants and agents of these spatial agglomerations may help to support the development of new development strategies to address these spatial inequalities.

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (p), Zhouying You

João Romão

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are revolutionising production, yet their potential to stimulate innovation and change innovation patterns remains underexplored. This paper examines whether AI and robotics can spearhead technological innovation, with a particular focus on their capacity to deliver where other policies have mostly failed: less developed cities and regions. We resort to OLS and IV-2SLS methods to probe the direct and moderating influences of AI and robotics on technological innovation across 270 Chinese cities. We further employ quantile regression analysis to assess their impacts on innovation in more and less innovative cities. The findings reveal that AI and robotics significantly promote technological innovation, with a pronounced impact in cities at or below the technological frontier. Additionally, the use of AI and robotics improves the returns of investment in science and technology (S&T) on technological innovation. AI and robotics moderating effects are often more pronounced in less innovative cities, meaning that AI and robotics are not just powerful instruments for the promotion of innovation but also effective mechanisms to reduce the yawning gap in regional innovation between Chinese innovation hubs and the rest of the country.

Fernanda Sperotto (p), Iván Tartaruga, Marcelo Torres, Teresa Sá Marques

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

The literature on green innovations has shown that the development and diffusion of these innovations capable of reducing environmental impact generate significant positive regional impacts. The geographic concentration of companies using eco-innovations can lead other nearby businesses to adopt similar means and thus help disseminate these innovations more rapidly. Even in less privileged regions, eco-innovations can be an opportunity, allowing for a reduction in regional inequalities. As some research points out, in countries with intermediate income levels, such as Portugal, reducing inequality improves the necessary conditions for promoting the creation of more complex green technologies. In summary, the production and diffusion of green innovations can enhance socioeconomic growth and consequently create favourable conditions for regional development. Thus, the research aimed to explore Portugal's Geography of Eco-innovation (GEI) through indicators and statistical data. In particular, the study presents the indicator of Productive Structure with Eco-innovation Potential (EPPI-eco). EPPI-eco is a synthetic indicator computed from the microdata of the latest Community Innovation Survey (a benchmark database in innovation studies that, in its last edition, reserved a particular block for green innovations) and establishment data (INE). In addition to these data, we selected indicators from the field of Science and Technology to compose the framework of Portuguese potential in green innovations. We structured the database according to the NUTS-3 division. The results indicated that half of the innovative Portuguese companies engaged in eco-innovation, and their territorial conformation is the same as that verified in innovators in general. The main eco-innovative centres in the country are the Metropolitan regions of Lisbon and Porto. Nevertheless, there is a group of regions with exciting prospects, such as the Cávado and Ave regions further north, the regions of Aveiro, Coimbra, Leiria, and Oeste in the centre, and the Algarve in the south. In addition to these results, the research aims to draw attention to the prospects for developing green innovations in less privileged regions, suggesting a portfolio of indicators that better fit the reality of these territories. The novelty of this text lies mainly in the elaboration of this portfolio. Although the use of green patent databases has contributed significantly to understanding the dynamics of the development of more radical eco-innovations in countries like Portugal (with a low number of patents), it is essential to seek other indicators, especially to capture the potential of more incremental eco-innovations and preferably with social impacts, such as inclusive eco-innovations.

Ingmar Pastak (p), Kadri Leetmaa, Mariia Bochkova

Fernanda Sperotto