Which types of relatedness matter in regional growth? Industry, occupation and education

ABSTRACT

Which types of relatedness matter in regional growth? Industry, occupation and education. Regional Studies. This paper provides a conceptual discussion of relatedness, which suggests a focus on individuals as a complement to firms and industries. The empirical relevance of the main arguments is tested by estimating the effects of related and unrelated variety in education and occupation among employees, as well as in industries, on regional growth. The results show that occupational and educational related variety are positively correlated with productivity growth, which supports the conceptual discussion put forth in the paper. In addition, related variety in industries is found to be negative for productivity growth, but positive for employment growth.

摘要

何种类型的相关性与区域成长有关？产业、职业与教育，区域研究。本文提供相关性的概念探讨，并主张聚焦个人作为对企业与产业的补充。本文主要论点的经验相关性，透过评估职员的教育、职业及产业的相关和非相关多样性对区域成长的影响进行评估。研究结果显示，与职业及教育相关的多样性，和生产力成长呈现正相关，因而支持本文所提出的概念探讨。此外，研究发现，产业中的相关多样性，对生产力而言是负面的，但对就业成长而言则是正面的。

RÉSUMÉ

Quels genres de connexité importent dans le cadre de la croissance régionale? L'industrie, les professions et l’éducation. Regional Studies. Cet article cherche à fournir une base conceptuelle sur laquelle on peut discuter de la connexité, ce qui laisse supposer que l'on met l'accent sur les individus ainsi que sur les entreprises et les industries. On évalue la pertinence empirique des principaux arguments en estimant les effets sur la croissance régionale de la variété connexe et de la variété non-apparentée des salariés dans l’éducation et dans les professions, ainsi que dans les entreprises. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe une corrélation étroite entre la variété connexe dans les professions et l’éducation et la croissance de la productivité, ce qui soutient le débat conceptuel que propose cet article. En plus, la variété connexe dans les industries s'avère négative pour la croissance de la productivité, mais positive quant à la croissance de l'emploi.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Welche Arten von Verbundenheit sind für das Regionalwachstum wichtig? Branchen, Beschäftigungsniveau und Bildung. Regional Studies. Dieser Beitrag enthält eine konzeptuelle Erörterung der Verbundenheit, in der eine Konzentration auf Einzelpersonen als Ergänzung von Firmen und Branchen vorgeschlagen wird. Zur Überprüfung der empirischen Relevanz der Hauptargumente wird geschätzt, wie sich verbundene und unverbundene Vielfalt in den Bereichen der Bildung und des Beschäftigungsniveaus von Arbeitnehmern sowie im Bereich der Branchen auf das Regionalwachstum auswirkt. Aus den Ergebnissen geht hervor, dass verbundene Vielfalt in den Bereichen des Beschäftigungsniveaus und der Bildung in einem positiven Zusammenhang mit dem Produktivitätswachstum steht, was die konzeptuelle Erörterung dieses Beitrags unterstützt. Darüber hinaus wirkt sich verbundene Vielfalt im Bereich der Branchen negativ auf das Produktivitätswachstum, aber positiv auf das Beschäftigungswachstum aus.

RESUMEN

¿Qué tipos de vínculos son importantes para el crecimiento regional? Industria, ocupación y educación. Regional Studies. En este artículo aportamos un debate conceptual sobre los vínculos proponiendo un enfoque en las personas como un complemento para las empresas y las industrias. Para comprobar la relevancia empírica de los principales argumentos, calculamos los efectos de la variedad relacionada y no relacionada en educación y ocupación entre los empleados, así como en las industrias, para el crecimiento regional. Los resultados indican que la variedad relacionada de ocupación y educación está positivamente vinculada al crecimiento de la productividad, lo que respalda el debate conceptual presentado en este artículo. Asimismo observamos que la variedad relacionada en las industrias es negativa para el crecimiento de la productividad, pero positiva para el crecimiento del empleo.

KEYWORDS:

• relatedness
• variety
• occupation
• education
• regional growth

关键词:

• 相关性
• 多样性
• 职业
• 教育
• 区域成长

MOTS-CLÉS:

• connexité
• variété
• profession
• éducation
• croissance régionale

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER:

• verbundenheit
• vielfalt
• beschäftigung
• bildung
• regionalwachstum

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• vínculos
• variedad
• ocupación
• educación
• crecimiento regional

JEL:

• J24
• R12
• R23

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper has greatly benefited from comments and suggestions received at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association, the first joint workshop of Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics (CEnSE) and Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE), as well as internal seminars at Jönköping International Business School. The authors would also like to thank two anonymous referees for providing valuable comments and suggestions for improvements.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://10.1080/00343404.2015.1112369

ORCiD

Sofia Wixe http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5722-2016

Notes

1. For example, Frenken et al. (2007, p. 696) conclude: ‘Regional policies based on supporting related variety reduce the risk of selecting wrong activities because one takes existing regional competences as building blocks to broaden the economic base of the region.' Picking the ‘right’ activity obviously necessitates knowledge and understanding of what constitutes relatedness.

2. Because this characterization of relatedness is derived from actual flows of labour, it is sensitive to changes in labour flows between years and differences in labour flows between regions. In addition, if employees in certain occupations are more likely to switch jobs than employees in other occupations, there is a risk that relatedness between industries is not properly captured by labour flows. When instead focusing on the educational background and current occupation of employees, regardless of the industry boundaries, the definition of relatedness is time invariant and insensitive to changes in the market.

3. In fact, it has also been argued that productivity growth may be used as an innovation indicator (Hall, 2011).

4. For an illustration of the shift–share procedure, see Van Stel and Storey (2004, appx 1).

5. The year 2011 is the last year available in the dataset. Due to changes in the SICs, it is not possible to construct industry-adjusted growth rates for the longer time period.

6. An example: industries 15111 and 15120 are sub-industries of industry 15.

7. The same patterns are found when conducting the analysis at the level of functional regions. However, due to few observations at this level, as well as recent research showing that agglomeration economies, in particular concerning knowledge spillovers, attenuate sharply with distance (cf. Baldwin et al., 2008; Andersson, Klaesson, & Larsson, 2014b), municipalities are chosen as the level of analysis.

Additional information

Funding

Sofia Wixe acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 2009-1192], the European Union/European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) [grant number 162 888], the Regional Development Council of Jönköping County and the County Administrative Board in Jönköping. Martin Andersson acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 2011-80], as well as the Swedish Research Council [Linnaeus grant number 349200680] and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, VINNOVA [grant agreement number 2010-07370].