Kateryna Zabarina (p)

Francesco Ferrante

Agglomeration, traditionally understood as the concentration of economic activity and population in urban centers, has long been a cornerstone of urban planning and economic theory. It is still a popular research subject – all the time new methods and approaches appear, which is related of course to availability of data. Agglomeration phenomenon seems to be totally explained, however due to its nature there are still some unsolved questions left. Only recently, it became possible to measure knowledge spillovers between firms (Sweeney & Gómez‐Antonio, 2021), so we may expect further studies on the topic.
This article focuses on agglomeration and its scientific context. It overviews definitions of this term and connected terms such as concentration, specialisation, cluster, economies of density, agglomeration economies and agglomeration externalities by analysing their similarities and differences. It presents economic theories studying and using agglomeration in their design. Finally, it also describes the determinants of firms’ location and analyses their connection with above-described terms.
Article contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban development and economic geography by emphasizing the importance of rethinking agglomeration as a dynamic and evolving phenomenon in an ever-transforming world.

Martin Andersson (p), Davide Castellani, Claudio Fassio, Viroj Jienwatcharamongkol, Riccardo Marzano

Kateryna Zabarina

The role of incumbent firms as ‘parents’ of employee spinoffs is established, but less is known about the characteristics of incumbent firms that provide employees with better opportunities to acquire and develop knowledge, skills, and experiences of relevance for founding new successful business ventures. Building on a conceptual framework that links work-experience to initial startup quality and post-entry performance through a selection and treatment effect, we posit that having individuals with work-experience in Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) as a part of the initial startup team, either as founders and/or early joiners, is a specific asset that has positive influence on the quality and post-entry performance of new firms. We use detailed Swedish data on over 13,000 new firms over the period 2000-2014, and show that the presence of individuals with MNE work-experience in the initial startup team has a positive effect on start-up size, as well as employment growth in the short (3 years subsequent entry), medium (5 years) and long run (10 years). The effect of MNE experience on post-entry growth yet depends on the position they had in the MNE. It is primarily experiences from having a high-level position in the MNE that matters for the post-entry employment growth, particularly a position as manager. Our results highlight that MNEs are a specific type of firm that serve as breeding grounds and play a role as local ‘anchor’ firms that can support the development of start-ups by indirectly ‘feeding’ the local economy with relevant experiences and skills.

Francesco Ferrante (p), Piero Esposito, Sergio Scicchitano

Martin Andersson

The main drivers of innovation and productivity growth are new knowledge and people’s skills.
HEIs play a pivotal role in this context being a positive determinant of innovation also through
entrepreneurship (Wennekers et al. 2005; Iyigun and Owen 1999) especially as a result of
technological and institutional changes. Michelacci and Schivardi (2017) show that entrepreneurs
benefited from the increase in the technology-induced skill premium more than employees and
that post-graduated entrepreneurs received the highest share of the premium.
Entrepreneurship among students and graduates received increasing attention (Arranz et al. 2017;
Perkmann et al. 2015) and results show that start-ups founded by university students and graduates
play a substantial role in bringing new knowledge to the market (Roberts et al., 2015; Astebro et
al., 2012).
The links between knowledge and human capital of the entrepreneur has been a popular area of
entrepreneurship study (Shane and Venkataraman 2000; Shane 2006; Mitchell et al., 2007). The
entrepreneurial orientation of university students (Fini et al. 2012; Ferrante et al. 2018; Huang et
al., 2021) has been also investigated extensively.
In this paper, we explore the link between the supply of new knowledge and skills by young
university graduates, and innovative entrepreneurship at the local level in Italy. The country is an
interesting case study being characterized by large variations in the rate of entrepreneurship across
regions (Del Monte and Pennacchio, 2020) and by a prevalence of low-skilled entrepreneurs.
The empirical analysis aims to assess the link between local supply of entrepreneurial skills and
entrepreneurial outcomes in terms of start-up activity between 2014 and 2022. We use a novel
provincial level dataset obtained by merging individual and firm level information stemming from
different sources. First, the Almalaurea population-based survey, providing information on the
socioeconomic and educational background of university graduates and about their insertion in the
labour market. Second, data provided by Camera di Commercio on new firms (start ups and
innovative SMEs) and their technological content. Third, the Italian Labour Force Survey (ILFS)
to control for socio-economic characteristics of territories. Fourth, the INAPP Rilevazione Imprese e lavoro (RIL) which provides information on entrepreneurs’ educational attainment, a factor
affecting spillover effects on business creation and innovative performance.
As sources of heterogeneity, we take into account the quality of formal and informal institutions
which can influence both the effectiveness of policy action and the entrepreneurial vocation of a
territory. The former is measured by the index developed by the European Commission (Fazekas
et al, 2017). Informal institutions are measured through proxies assessing cultural characteristics
of the provinces, namely the diffusion of trust in others and the importance of tertiary education
(Ferrante et al., 2022). We use a spatial econometrics approach to estimate spillover effects arising
from skill supply and entrepreneurial activity in neighboring areas. To our knowledge, this is the
first paper focusing on the role of skill supply in determining entrepreneurship activity from a
spatial perspective. Regional level studies focus on the role of universities in technology diffusion
(Del Monte and Pennacchio, 2020).