Keynote Lecturers
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Chair: André Torre, Paris-Saclay Université, France
Riccardo Crescenzi, Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Global Value Chains, Foreign Investment and Regional Development
This talk will discuss why global value chains (GVCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) matter for regional development and how regions can leverage them for upgrading, innovation, and economic development. Specifically, the discussion will focus on how regions can build, embed, and reshape GVCs to their local enhancement in a changing geo-political and economic landscape.
This talk will propose a new generation of GVC-sensitive regional development policies that target specific segments of selected GVCs, employing them as stepping-stones for local upgrading, innovation, and development. This is about gradual change on the strengths that are already present in local economies, shifting the focus of regional policies from specific sectors and technologies towards tasks and local value generation. Some reflections on how GVCs can support regions in the digital and green transitions will conclude the talk.
Chair: Rosella Nicolini, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Spatial patterns and economic impacts of short-term rentals
The talk focuses on short-term rentals (STR), their evolving spatial distributions and their economics impacts on the housing market. The increase of tourism in the last decade has been accompanied by a strong development of peer to peer platforms and short term rentals. As an illustration, in 2019, Airbnb, the world's largest peer to peer STR provider, had more than 7 million listings in over 1000,000 cities and 191 countries. However, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly caused a collapse in tourism with a severe drop in bookings and revenues. This affected not only the number of STR listings but also their spatial distributions. While STR are typically located in districts rich in point of interest, coastal areas and cities centers, they are also located in areas that are less or not typically covered by hotels and their locations might also to react to modifications in travel demand and consumer's preferences for STR observed during the pandemic and expected in a context of climate change. This has strong consequences on the spatial structure of the regional and urban economies. Many studies also point to the mixed economic impacts of STR. While the increasing demand for STR might increase revenues of owners and generate tax revenues, they might also lead to a decrease in the supply of long-term rental housing, drive up rental prices and make it difficult for locals to find affordable housing. These impacts are highly spatially heterogeneous given the structure of the local economies. The talk will consider all these questions and illustrate them with a series of empirical analyses carried for the case of France, analyzing the determinants of the supply of STR rentals and the impact of the pandemic crise, assessing the evolving spatial distributions of STR in Paris and examining their impact and the rental and the housing market.
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Albert Saiz, Associate Professor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Different perspectives on culture and local development
The lecture will explore the relationship between different approaches about culture and local development, according to a territorial perspective. The importance of culture for the well-being of cities and regions has been widely highlighted, both at the institutional and at the academic level. However, the word “culture” has been associated with many different meanings, all interesting and valuable. Material cultural heritage, intangible culture (including history, folklore, traditions…), cultural participation, and identity and sense of belonging have all been related to this vast and fascinating field. Specific cultural dimensions have been associated with local economic performance,, but also with disparate social and environmental positive outcomes. In addition, the territorial effects of culture are likely to work through different channels, including tourism, local creativity, identity, and - of course - favorable context conditions. In this sense, the lecture will provide an overview of the various mechanisms linking specific types of culture with local development,, in order to conceptually better frame the overall topic and to identify the most promising lines for future research within this engaging domain.
Regional Science Policy and Practice/REGION Keynote Lecture by Philip McCann
Chair: Fernando Rubiera Morollón, University of Oviedo, Spain
-- Phillip McCann will discuss the impact of private investment capital and public finances or regional development --
Keynote Lecture by Marte Cecile Wilhelmsen Solheim
Chair: Luisa Alamá Sabater, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
Barriers to diversity in regional innovation systems
The global megatrends shaping the world today, requires tapping into diversity in a broad sense. Gender Equality and Diversity are linked to innovation, financial performance, and providing sustainable solutions. Moreover, diversity is crucial for policymaking, as it allows for a wider range of perspectives fostering more effective decision-making.
Nevertheless, extant research has highlighted barriers for tapping into diverse potential, such as barriers for obtaining venture capital for females and ethnic minorities. The geographic dimension is coloring mechanisms of inclusion such as typical barriers in specialized innovation systems being strong networks between a fixed set of local actors, which might hamper alternative ideas and competence, whilst diversified innovation systems are colored by fragmentation potentially hindering knowledge exchange between actors.
In her talk, Solheim reflects upon some of the barriers of including a diverse set of actors in innovation, and the contextual factors affecting this, as well as highlighting broader inclusion practices.
Chair: Luisa Alamá Sabater, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap
While many regions have flourished in recent decades, many other are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in development traps. Such regions experience relative decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past economic trajectories. Many of these regions have been in development traps for lengthy periods of time and this condition is breeding increasing political discontent and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the ballot box. In this paper we study the link between the risk, intensity, and length of regional development traps and the rise of discontent in the European Union (EU) —proxied by the support for Eurosceptic parties in national elections between 2014 and 2022— using an econometric analysis at a regional level. The results highlight the strong connection between being stuck in a development trap and support for Eurosceptic parties. They also suggest that the longer the period of stagnation, the stronger the support for parties that oppose European integration. This relationship is also robust to considering only the most extreme Eurosceptic parties or to including parties that display more moderate levels of Euroscepticism.