Development patterns and their sources of competitiveness in the EUSALP macro-region

ABSTRACT

The European Union has been adopting so-called macro-regional strategies since 2009. Its final goal is to develop an integrated framework to address common challenges and opportunities of particular transnational areas. This paper aims to identify such growth opportunities in the most recently established macro-area: the European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP). It does so by identifying how to increase efficiency in the exploitation of growth assets, taking into consideration that EUSALP is characterized by a wide productive diversity. This is defined in terms of regional development patterns, conceptualized and empirically detected making use of an original database. The results show that EUSALP can gain greater competitiveness through a better use of existing resources, especially in the touristic development pattern. Further research on cooperation and integration policies for a more effective exploitation of existing abundant resources is suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• macro-regions
• European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP)
• development patterns
• strategic resources

JEL:

• O18

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions from Professor Roberto Camagni (Politecnico di Milano).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A vast literature exists on the ‘milieu innovateur’ theory, for example, Aydalot (1986), Aydalot and Keeble (1988), Camagni (1991, 1995), Maillat, Quévit, and Senn (1993), Revue d’Economie Régionale et Urbaine (1999), Camagni and Capello (2002) and Camagni and Maillat (2006).

2. According to McCann and Ortega-Argilés (2015, p. 1296), ‘existing industrial structure is the best indicator of the medium-term regional industrial structure. The reason for this is that very few regions make fundamental structural or sectoral shifts in the short – to medium – term’.

3. Coming mainly from the Business Registers and/or the Industry Services Census, data refer to 2011, with the exception of France, for which data are gathered for 2015. The gathering of such a database was indeed quite complex, mainly because most data on the employment by industry and size class had to be requested directly from national statistical offices and, in a few cases, they were not provided for free. The reference year should not generate any particular concern since the production specialization represents a structural characteristic of an area, given that a substantial change in the sectoral specialization is in fact rather unlikely and would, in any case, take an extremely long time, certainly longer than the one considered within the present analysis.

4. The distinction between traditional and high-tech manufacturing sectors is that of the OECD (2011). Traditional manufacturing sectors include: textiles, textile products, leather and footwear; food products, beverages and tobacco; wood, pulp, paper products, printing and publishing; manufacturing n.e.c.; recycling (low-technology industries); basic metals and fabricated metal products; coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel; other non-metallic mineral products; rubber and plastic products; and building and repairing of ships and boats (medium to low-technology industries). High-tech manufacturing sectors include: electrical machinery and apparatus; motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, chemicals excluding pharmaceuticals; railroad equipment and transport equipment n.e.c.; machinery and equipment n.e.c. (medium to high-technology industries); aircraft and spacecraft; pharmaceuticals; office, accounting and computing machinery; radio, television and communications equipment; and medical, precision and optical instruments (high-technology industries).

5. In a few cases, the urban (large city) pattern based on a relative specialization in services seemed to prevail, although anecdotal knowledge suggested a relevant touristic activity. In those cases, a more accurate control on the share of employment in ‘Accommodation and Catering’ allowed these few observations to be moved to the touristic development pattern.

6. Owing to data availability, for France ‘large firms’are considered above the threshold of 200 employees.

7. Reference years were selected taking into account (1) the fact that development patterns were empirically identified based on 2011 data; and (2) the period considered for the dependent variable, that is, annual average productivity growth between 2012 and 2015, in order to be able to assure the appropriate temporal sequence.

8. Artisans are unfortunately included in ‘craft and related trades workers’.

9. For the results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA), see Table A1 in Appendix A in the supplemental data online.

10. This is the famous ‘3 NOs’ perspective put forward by the European Commission, which did not envisage the establishment of any new legislative, financial or institutional mechanisms (Schymik, 2011). Such a strict initial approach has in fact been partially relaxed over time through the allocation of some technical assistance (‘funds’); the establishment of dedicated offices, for example, the Danube Strategy Point (DSP) (‘institutions’); and the formal recognition of the macro-regional strategies (‘laws’).

Additional information

Funding

This work is partially based on a research project carried out by the authors and supported by the Directorate Directorate-General for Regional Policy [expert contract number 2017CE160AT118].