Smart Specialisation: insights from the North American periphery

ABSTRACT

Smart Specialisation (S3) has been the driving force behind the European Union's regional innovation strategy for the last seven years. However, criticism has been levelled at the policy as lacking an evidence base. This paper tackles this gap in the literature by providing an empirical assessment of a strategy remarkably similar to S3: the Maine Economic Improvement Fund (MEIF). The paper finds that the MEIF has succeeded in increasing employment, but is less successful in increasing productivity. Given the similarity between the MEIF and S3, the paper provides important lessons for European practitioners and policy-makers implementing the strategy.

KEYWORDS:

• regional policy
• shift-share
• employment
• growth
• Smart Specialisation

JEL:

• E24
• O2
• O10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the editors and two referees for constructive suggestions and comments. The manuscript also benefited from discussions with Todd Gabe, Kathleen Bell and Amanda Rector. The authors also thank Betsy Spear for helping with data gathering.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the State of Maine government or the University of Maine.

Notes

1. Data are obtained from the American Community Survey (ACS).

2. Data are obtained from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

3. Data are obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), QCEW (2018).

4. See https://maineforest.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Economic-Impact-report-1.pdf/.

5. A more detailed list has been collected and is available from the authors upon request, but it is omitted here for reasons of space.

6. See https://umaine.edu/meif/background/.

7. See https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/107/.

8. See https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/2277/.

9. See https://www.maine.gov/legis/opega/GOC/GOC_meetings/Current_handouts/4-12-13/MEIF%20Summary%20for%20GOC%203-8-13.pdf/.

10. Using a combination of three-, four- and five-digit NAICS codes. See Table A5 in Appendix A in the supplemental data online.

11. See http://www.mainetechnology.org/docs/colgan_cluster_report_2008_full_report_final_040908.pdf/. For a breakdown of the relationship between the NAICS and the priority sectors, see Table A1 in Appendix A in the supplemental data online.

12. A full list of sectors is available from the authors upon request.

13. Accessed from the Maine Government Report; see https://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/publications/pdf/CEFC_March_2017.pdf/.

14. For full details for all sectors, see Tables A2 and A3 in Appendix A in the supplemental data online.

Additional information

Funding

Andrew Crawley's research programme was supported by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station and by the Hatch Project [grant number 1016274] of the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food & Agriculture.