0000000000060517
AUTHOR
Rafael Boix
Pathways of Innovation: The I-District Effect Revisited
The I-district effect establishes the existence of dynamic efficiency in Marshallian industrial districts in the form of a positive innovative differential comparing to the average of the economy. The hypothesis has been empirically validated for the case of technological innovation using patent indicators. Empirical research has assumed that all types of patentable figures (utility models, national patents, EPO, WIPO) have the same weight regardless of its actual or expected market value, which may be questionable given the differences in coverage, protection and cost of each figure. In this article, we question the existence of the I-district effect when each patent is weighted by its exp…
Reasons for Clustering of Creative Industries in Italy and Spain
Creative industries and creative employment tend to concentrate around medium and large cities, forming creative local systems. We follow a multidisciplinary approach, based on cultural and creative economics, evolutionary geography and urban economics, in order to analyse the forces behind the clustering of employment in creative industries in a comparative analysis of Italy and Spain. The results show different patterns of clustering of creative employment in both countries. The historical and cultural endowments, the average size of creative industries, the size of the place, the productive diversity, and the concentration of human capital and creative class have been determined to be co…
Facing globalization and increased trade: Catalonia's evolution from industrial region to knowledge and creative economy
Catalonia is experiencing a crucial transformation of its productive model. The main changes are exemplified by an intense process of substitution of the traditional aspects (low-technology manufacturing base and orientation towards internal markets) for a model of development characterized by the combined importance of creative industries and high-tech manufacturing activities, and oriented to external markets. The new competitive bases of the regional economy rely on three factors: urbanization and network economies, changes in the productive structure and the generation of innovations linked with export capacity. Resumen. Cataluna esta experimentando una transformacion crucial de su mode…
Modelling urban networks at mega-regional scale: Are increasingly complex urban systems sustainable?
Are the dynamics of mega-regions sustainable or not? We explore the hypothesis that increasing complexity in mega-regions implies less demands on resources needed to generate organized information, thereby making the systems more efficient and stable. This article aims to identify structural indicators for measuring urban networks at the mega-regional scale. We use night-time light data from the broad band near-visible infrared channel of the DMSP-OLS to monitor the dynamics of urbanization. We study the urban networks as graphs, where nodes are cities, and the main road and railway infrastructures represent the edges. We propose four indicators for measuring the complexity, polycentricity,…
Beautiful Innovation: Understanding Management Innovation in the Spanish Arts, Heritage and Recreation Industries
The objective of this paper is to gain an insight into the types of innovation that Spanish firms in arts, heritage and recreation undertook during the period 2006–2011. To achieve this aim we have examined which types of innovation –product, process, marketing and organizational–, have the highest share of the total, and how important organizational innovation is for these firms. The study is based on a sample of firms in the arts, heritage and recreation industries, based on a survey drawn up by the Spanish National Statistics Institute. Three important conclusions can be inferred from the results obtained in this paper for the Spanish case. The first is that, although these sectors are l…
The Calatrava model: reflections on resilience and urban plasticity
ABSTRACTThe article introduces a critical reflection on the effects that the version of cultural capitalism based on large events and architectural symbols has on the resilience of cities when used as an engine, and not as a complement to the policies of urban transformation. The article introduces as a case of study the so-called ‘Calatrava model’ of the city of Valencia. The model of a cultural bubble of Valencia, designed to enable a new space, is developed and contrasted with other two examples of urban transformation designed to revitalize spaces: Bilbao – symbolically represented by Frank Gehry's Guggenheim museum – and the Barcelona 22@ – symbolically represented by Jean Nouvel's Agb…
Modelling urban networks sustainable progress
In this paper, we analyse the relations between thermodynamics and city networks: an increase in the complexity and the organized information in such urban systems leads to less demand for resources and less social entropy, which overall makes them more efficient and stable. The goal of this study is to propose a method to measuring city networks sustainable progress based on statistical models, derived from Eurostat databases and NASA satellite images, and capable of analyzing different conceptual scenarios of urban development in Europe. The obtained probability-based indices enable us to evaluate the dynamics of city networks in terms of three components of sustainable progress – economi…
Polycentric Metropolitan Areas in Europe: Towards a Unified Proposal of Delimitation
Metropolitan areas concentrate the main share of population, production, and consumption in developed countries. They are likely to be the most important units for economic, social, and environmental analysis as well as for the development of policy strategies.
The geography of creative industries in Europe: comparing France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain
The creative economy is a holistic and multidisciplinary concept that deals with the interaction between economics, culture and technology, and centred on the production of creative contents in goods and services. One of the most relevant dimensions of creativity is the territorial one. Despite the emphasis put on the theoretical definition of creativity, the measurement of creative industries and the use of these concepts in macro units as well as in isolated case studies, it is necessary to strengthen comparative research for the identification and analysis of the kind of creativity embedded in the territory, its determinants and its patterns of concentration. This compared research relie…
The importance of creative industry agglomerations in explaining the wealth of European Regions
[EN] This paper examines the existence of regional agglomerations of manufacturing, service and creative industries, the relationship between these industries and the wealth of regions and their industrial structure. Through an analysis of 250 European regions, three important conclusions can be inferred from the results obtained in this paper. The first is that creative industries play an important role in the wealth of a region. The second is that the most creative regions are characterized by having more high-tech manufacturing industries than the rest of the regions although the number of low-tech manufacturing firms is similar. Lastly, the industrial structure of each region has a grea…
The Importance of Creative Services Firms in Explaining the Wealth of European Regions
This chapter shows the important impact that a specific set of services, those belonging to the creative industries, have on regional economic development and wealth generation. Creative industries are a set of knowledge-based activities focused on the generation of meaning, contents and aesthetic attributes through the use of creativity, skill and talent, and have the potential to create wealth from trade and intellectual property rights. A key hypothesis in this paper is that creative services firms are a “growth driver” that promotes wealth in the regions where they are located. This is due to the fact that firms in creative industries introduce new ideas that are subsequently transferre…
Micro-geographies of creative industries clusters in Europe: From hot spots to assemblages
The aim of this paper is to provide basic stylized facts about the spatial patterns of location and co-location of clusters of creative industries in Europe. The research proposes a novel methodology for detailing the spatial delimitation of clusters, based on a geo-statistical algorithm and firm-based micro-data. The procedure is applied to a continuous space of 16 European countries and 15 creative industries in 2009. The investigation reveals that creative firms are highly clustered, and that clusters are concentrated in a ‘creative belt’ stretching from the South of England to the South-east of Germany. These clusters are predominantly metropolitan, heterogeneous, cross borders, and may…
Territorial servitization in Marshallian industrial districts: the industrial district as a place-based form of servitization
This paper is the first general study of territorial servitization in Marshallian industrial districts (MIDs). It introduces the novel idea of place-based servitization as a form of territorial servitization, which is then used conceptually to reframe the traditional perspective on MIDs, manufacturing places par excellence. Drawing on comparable quantitative data from Italy and Spain for 1991, 2001 and 2011, the paper then provides generalizable empirical evidence about the stylized facts of servitization in MIDs, casting a light on the transition to services of the MID as one model of place-based servitization.
Creative Regions in Europe
This chapter examines the existence of regional agglomerations of manufacturing, service and creative industries, and the relationship between these industries and the wealth of regions. Through an analysis of 250 European regions, three important conclusions can be inferred from the results obtained in this chapter. The first is that creative industries play an important role in the wealth of the regions. The second is that the most creative regions are characterized by having more high-tech manufacturing industries than the rest of the regions, although the number of low-tech manufacturing firms is similar. Lastly, in the richest regions, a greater share of high-tech manufacturing industr…
Comparing creative industries in Europe
Creative industries are increasingly understood to contribute to localised innovation and dynamism. This paper provides a methodologically consistent comparison of creative industries across France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. We map spatial agglomerations of creative activities showing evidence of urban concentration, which for Britain and France coincides with the dominance of capital cities, whilst for Spain and Italy, significant concentrations can also be found in secondary cities. The four countries also differ in the specialisation profiles and in the role played by policy makers. A lack of dove-tailing with the European Union smart agenda is argued to be a cause of concern.
Kinetics of ascorbic acid degradation in fruit-based infant foods during storage
The kinetics of ascorbic acid (AA) degradation in a fruit-based beikost product added with AA were determined after storage at 4, 25, 37 and 50 °C during 4, 8, 12, 16 and 32 weeks in plastic polypropylene/ethylenevinyl alcohol vacuum packaging. It was confirmed that AA degradation followed an Arrhenius first-order kinetics, with an activation energy of 20.11 ± 0.33 kcal mol−1. No AA losses at 4 °C were recorded during the entire storage period. In contrast, a time - and temperature - dependent decrease (p the degradation rate decreasing from 50 °C to 25 °C, as expected. AA percentage retention at the end of storage ranged between 6.4% (50 °C/16 weeks) and 100.9% (4 °C/32 weeks).