Simona Iammarino

• Professor
• Professor at University of Cagliari

This paper explores the factors affecting firms’ perception on how important barriers to innovation are in the case of Cambodia. In particular, the study aims to bring the characteristics of Cambodian enterprises to the fore, shedding light on two issues: what the characteristics associated with firm’s perceptions of barriers to their economic and...

Small businesses within the digital sector are spread across the USA. However, a significant number of promising small businesses concentrate in major technology hubs, either initially or through relocation. This phenomenon can be attributed to the influential role played by localized markets for financing and acquisition, which is, in turn, driven...

Despite the rising interest for backshoring strategies by mass media, policy makers and public debates, academic research on the topic is relatively recent and still characterised by significant research gaps. Empirical evidence is scarce and often anecdotal, with a lack of studies focusing on specific industries and small-sized firms. Theoretical...

This paper studies the extent to which the international location patterns of Chinese MNEs privilege economies with environmentally sustainable practices. We develop a theoretical framework confronting the traditional race-to-the-bottom arguments with the Chinese MNEs' need to gain legitimacy abroad and signal their global citizenship. We also exam...

The concept of regional development trap refers to regions that face significant structural challenges in retrieving past dynamism or improving prosperity for their residents. This article introduces and measures the concept of the regional development trap for regions in Europe. The concept draws inspiration from the middle-income trap in internat...

Critical and conflict materials (CCMs) are providing an important material infrastructure for recent technological shifts. Relying on text analysis of US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data, this exploratory study examines the technological and geographical linkages between technological paradigms and selected CCMs. Our descriptive analysis fi...

Sexual crimes against women are severely underreported to the police, allowing for impunity of perpetrators. Observers suggest that a stimulus towards reporting the crime comes from nearby support services for victims of sexual offences - like refuges and advisors. Still, the evidence about the effects of nearby support on the reporting of sexual c...

The relationship between research and development (R&D) investment and economic development is well established. Yet, at a global scale, the resource-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are consistent outliers in this relationship, combining rich-world national incomes with R&D expenditure of developing countries. This paper uses a case...

This work explores the role of university department characteristics in academic engagement with industry. In particular, we investigate the role played by research quality and previous experience in academic engagement across different scientific disciplines. We test our hypotheses on a dataset of public sponsored university-industry partnerships...

Human capital investments are frequently suggested as a policy measure to cope with smaller and older labor forces caused by demographic change across Europe. However, the availability and composition of human capital is fundamentally intertwined with demographic structures, especially at a regional level. This article analyzes how aging is related...

Kuwait combines rich-world national income with the Research and Develop- ment (R&D) spending of a developing country. This situation is unsustainable. This report uses the National System of Innovation (NSI) framework to investigate how the Kuwaiti government could increase private sector R&D spending. Based on a review of the existing literature...

2021 sees the Journal of Economic Geography (JEG) enter its third decade of publication, offering an apposite moment to briefly reflect upon its evolution and trajectory. Since the first issue appeared in January 2001, JEG has been on a journey encompassing 92 regular issues, 20 special issues, 731 papers, 13 debates and commentaries pieces, 153 bo...

Since the 2008 economic and financial crisis, the rise of populism and nationalism has been associated with increased protectionism and policy uncertainty in the world trade system, with profound side effects for international business (IB) activities and global value chains (GVCs). The aim of this paper is to investigate the way trade policy uncer...

This article explores the role of subnational geography in the analysis of the consequences of Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) for workers performing different typologies of jobs. We qualify jobs according to their knowledge content, degree of tradability and response to agglomeration economies. While the former two dimensions are key to s...

This paper connects the literature on obstacles to innovation to the concept of regional economic resilience by empirically assessing the relationship between the intensity of firms’ engagement in innovative activities and self-reported obstacles to innovation during the unfolding of the latest economic and financial downturn. The analysis is groun...

The overall rise in inequality in the USA since 1980 has been matched by a rise in inequality between places; local and regional development policies aimed at reversing this polarisation have seen limited success. We propose an explanation for the spatial polarisation of prosperity and the failure of the policies to remedy it. Our explanation is ba...

Regional economic divergence has become a threat to economic progress, social cohesion and political stability in Europe. Market processes and policies that are supposed to spread prosperity and opportunity are no longer sufficiently effective. The evidence points to the existence of several different modes of regional economic performance in Europ...

This article offers a joint analysis of two phenomena characterising most advanced economies in recent decades: The rise of foreign ownership in manufacturing activities and the pervasiveness of the service economy. The analysis focuses on a specific intersectoral demand-side channel for structural change: The forward linkage established by foreign...

Universities have been mainly included in the S3 debate as creators or vectors of knowledge, their higher education mission has been somewhat overlooked. For this reason, in March 2016, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has started a project on the role of Higher Education in Smart Specialisation (HESS). This document reports the...

The transformations in the worldwide division of labour brought about by globalisation and technological change have shown an unintended negative effect, particularly evident in advanced economic systems: uneven spatial distribution of wealth and rising within-country inequality. Although the latter has featured prominently in recent academic and p...

This article analyses the relationship between firm's perception of market risk and engagement in innovation. We conceptualise this relationship by integrating insights from the management literature on innovation barriers with those derived from the international business and economic geography perspectives on the interplay of ownership and locati...

This paper investigates one particular aspect of human capital formation: the relative effectiveness of training, as reflected in its effect on the probability of securing continued employment during the recent financial crisis. It uses a panel of 3983 individuals for the period 2008–11 and focuses on how the effects of training differ between the...

Purpose This paper aims to explain how thinking regarding multinationals, competitiveness and location in cities has evolved over the past five decades and how our current understanding and thinking about future challenges is contingent on these previous shifts. Design/methodology/approach The design of the paper is a conceptual piece linking di...

The main analytical and multidisciplinary frameworks adopted for understanding the multinational enterprise (MNE) have tended to be largely non-spatial and non-geographical in nature. Although there have been some recent developments incorporating geography into the analysis of the of MNE studies the longstanding and widespread absence of geography...

The main analytical and multidisciplinary frameworks adopted for understanding the multinational enterprise (MNE) have tended to be largely non-spatial and non-geographical in nature. Although there have been some recent developments incorporating geography into the analysis of the of MNE studies the longstanding and widespread absence of geography...

This Report focuses on global networks, value chains and investment flows data at the level of the single FDI decision directed to (inward) and originating from (outward) Scotland and Wales, placing the two UK regions (NUTS 1) in the wider context of Europe and the world. The focus is on the period 2003-2014, allowing to observe the years before (2...

This paper addresses a number of fundamental research questions on university–industry (U–I) collaborations. Are U–I collaborations intrinsically different from other forms of collaboration, such as inter-firm or inter-university collaborations? Are they more difficult to form? Is their output qualitatively different? What factors facilitate their...

Although one of the core questions in the study of multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been typically that of where their different operations take place, the spatial dimension of MNE investments and functions is still relatively underexplored in the literature. This paper investigates the networks formed by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by appl...

This paper analyses the relationship between firm engagement in innovation and perception of market risk. It points to heterogeneity in the behaviour of multinationals (MNEs) versus single domestic firms, emphasising how this relationship changes across regional contexts.

Global investments and regional development trajectories: the missing links. Regional Studies. Regional economic development has been long conceptualized as a non-linear, interactive and socially embedded process: these features were traditionally regarded as spatially mediated and highly localized. However, unprecedentedly fast technological chang...

Il punto di partenza del presente Rapporto sono state quindi la ‘domanda’ di conoscenza ed interpretazione dei trend globali emergenti rilevanti per l’economia laziale e la richiesta di ‘diagnosi’ della capacità dell’economia locale di adattarvisi e rispondere con successo. Queste istanze sono state accompagnate da un primo percorso di analisi inte...

This article investigates how the location behavior of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) is shaped by the economic institutions of the host countries. The analysis covers a wide set of geographically proximate economies with different degrees of integration with the ‘Old’ 15 European Union (EU) members: New Member States, Accession and Candidate Cou...

This paper aims to investigate the economic integration between the European Union and its neighbouring countries by exploring the location drivers of Italian Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) in 33 destination countries including the New Member States of the European Union (NMs) and the European Neighbouring countries (NCs). The paper compares mark...

This paper explores the relative effectiveness of training in securing continued employment in a time of economic downturn, within the context of the Italian territorial dualism. We use a panel on 4,861 individuals for the period 2008-2011 and focus on how the effects of training differ between the South and the Centre-North of Italy, and also acro...

This paper aims at investigating the drivers of Multinational Enterprise (MNE) investment in countries linked to the 'core' of the European Union (EU-15) by different degrees of functional, economic and political integration: the EU 'New' Member states, Accession and Candidate countries, European Neighbourhood Policy countries, as well as Russia. U...

Iammarino S. and Marinelli E. Education–job (mis)match and interregional migration: Italian university graduates' transition to work, Regional Studies. This paper analyses the micro-level determinants of the education–job (mis)matches of recent university graduates in Italy. As the Italian graduate population has experienced increasing internal mig...

This paper looks at foreign Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) investing in the UK and at their impact on the innovation performance of domestic firms active in their same sector. By employing data on Foreign Direct Investments matched with firm-level information the paper develops a direct measure of capital inflows at a three-digit industry level....

The requirements of the knowledge-based economy and the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to socio-economic change have had a significant impact upon regional economic performance in the European Union. So far, however, the literature on the implications of the ICT paradigm for labour productivity growth has largely neg...

This paper investigates whether the presence of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) carrying out investment activities in the UK benefits the innovation capacity of domestic firms within the same industry.

"Despite often playing second fiddle to clusters in the economic geography literature, multinationals are fundamental drivers of economic development. As generators and diffusers of knowledge they have played an essential role in shaping the new world economic order. No book captures this better than Simona Iammarino and Philip McCann's Multination...

This chapter focuses on the relationship between firms’ technological competencies and capabilities and different forms of cooperation for innovation by combining the analysis of both micro and meso levels, i.e. the level of the firm and of the geographical region. Our findings, based on the Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS), provide new...

This chapter focuses on the relationship between firms’ technological competencies and capabilities and different forms of cooperation for innovation by combining the analysis of both micro and meso levels, i.e. the level of the firm and of the geographical region. Our findings, based on the Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS), provide new...

IAMMARINO S., PIVA M., VIVARELLI M. and VON TUNZELMANN N. Technological capabilities and patterns of innovative cooperation of firms in the UK regions, Regional Studies. This paper focuses on the relationship between firms' technological capabilities and different forms of cooperation for innovation, paying specific attention to the role of regiona...

This paper explores the patterns of education-job (mis)matching of recent university graduates, focussing on the impact of interregional migration. With the aim of offering a place-based perspective on the topic, the paper looks at the three Italian macro-regions of the North, the Centre and the South, comparing them with the country as a whole. We...

Innovating firms are likely to face several challenges and experience different types of barriers. In this paper we argue that it is necessary to distinguish between two kinds of barriers to innovation. The first corresponds to what we describe as revealed barriers and reflects the degree of difficulty of the innovation process and the learning exp...

This paper investigates the impact of regional sectoral diversity on regional employment growth in Italy over the period 1991-2001. Assuming that externalities may be stronger between industries selling similar products or sharing the same skills and technology (i.e. related industries), we analyze the role of different forms of sectoral variety at...

Edited by Martin Heidenreich, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany 'This wonderful volume brings together contributions mainly from the innovation literature, whose findings are in a sense quite familiar, but which in this collection are juxtaposed in such a way as to highlight their common institutional underpinnings. This is very m...

This paper explores the links between spatial mobility and job-related well-being for young Italian graduates. Theoretically it posits that mobility and job satisfaction can be related indirectly, as migration may provide access to new or better job opportunities, and directly, as mobility generates expectations on the outcome of the move. Methodol...

The sources of value creation are increasingly relying on intangible assets (IAs). IAs are the lifeblood of knowledge-intensive industries where the new value added is disproportionally based on specialized, non-repetitious activities. However, while the role of IAs is recognised as central to sustain the competitiveness of firms and innovation sys...

Research collaborations between universities and industry (U-I) are considered to be one important channel of potential localized knowledge spillovers (LKS). These collaborations favour both intended and unintended flows of knowledge and facilitate learning processes between partners from different organizations. Despite the copious literature on L...

This paper provides qualitative insights on the key channels through which intangible assets are enhanced in the innovation processes of multinational enterprises (MNEs), and describes their spatial roots and impacts. The focus is specifically on three intangible assets, namely human, organisational and network capital, which have been shown by the...

This paper focuses on one particular type of linkage between university and business – joint research partnerships – and addresses two specific issues. First, it investigates the extent to which research quality and geographical proximity bear an influence on the frequency of the collaborations between university departments and businesses. Second,...

This article presents estimates of the impact of regional variety and trade linkages on regional economic growth by means of export and import data by Italian province (NUTS 3) and sector (three-digit) for the period 1995-2003. Our results show strong evidence that related variety contributes to regional economic growth. Thus, Italian regions that...

This paper looks at the perception of obstacles to innovation of both foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) and domestic firms located in Italy. Drawing on firm-level data from the Italian third Community Innovation Survey (CIS3), we show that important differences in firms’ perception of obstacles to innovation occur both across macro-regions a...

Book synopsis: This insightful book contributes to a better understanding of regional structural transformation in the context of globalisation and technological changes, and the formation and evaluation of more differentiated policy making in this area. Many of the basic characteristics of mature regions are very different from those of buoyant or...

This paper focuses on the relationship between firms’ technological capabilities and different forms of cooperation for innovation by combining the analysis of both micro and meso levels, i.e. the level of the firm and of the geographical region. Our findings, based on the Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS), provide new insights regarding...

Summary The evolutionary approach to technical change considers technological capability building as the outcome of interactions among individuals, firms, and organizations within a socio-economic and institutional framework in a geographically defined space. This paper aims to study technological capabilities by combining the analysis of both micr...