Industries, skills and human capital : how does regional size affect uneven development?

• This paper addresses how the composition of industry structures, skills and human capital is related to regional development in peripheral and central locations. We do this by means of OLS models to analyse the relationship between purchase power growth and employment growth between 2001 and 2008 as well as a selection of variables constructed via register data of the total population in Sweden. The analysis demonstrates an evident spatial division of post-industrial development that larger regions benefit relatively more from than smaller regions do. The empirical findings indicate that a transition towards more knowledge intensive sectors and a higher educated labour force has the strongest impact on development in the largest Swedish regions, while a transition from manual skills towards more creative skills shows only a positive relationship with development in medium size regions. Consequently, the paper argues that the recent appraisal of the knowledge based economy mainly benefits the largest urban regions, meaning that regional size is an important parameter when discussing trajectories of regional development and the adaption to contemporary economic development paths.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

industries

skills

human capital

regional development

regional size

Social and Economic Geography

kulturgeografi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)