IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mil/wpdepa/2013-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Smart Specialization Strategies and Smart Cities: An Evidence-Based Assessment of EU policies

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea CARAGLIU
  • Chiara F. DEL BO

Abstract

Recent EU policies, prompted by the European Commission, revolve around the word “smart” and are aimed at stimulating the best from each region and city. At the urban level, several policy initiatives are focused on the concept of Smart City, which initially developed around the relevance of ICT infrastructure as a means of connecting cities and, thus, empowering their growth capabilities. More recently, the “smart” label has also been applied to regional policies. Originally conceived in terms of industrial specialization, Smart Specialization Strategies are currently a highly debated topic in regional science both steering policy making and eliciting academic studies. Despite the popularity of these concepts in the policy domain, few attempts have been made to properly ground the concept of Smart Specialization Strategy into a comprehensive theoretical framework, and none has been made to explain the difference between the concept of Smart City and Smart Specialization Strategy. This paper aims at filling this gap by framing both concepts in a single unitary framework. A previous definition of smart city is the basis for the construction of an urban indicator of smartness, while a new empirical methodology to identify Smart Specialization Strategies among regions is proposed. By combining the two levels of analysis, empirical results suggest that EU regions appear to be on a smart specialization path and that Smart Cities are more likely to emerge in smartly specialized regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea CARAGLIU & Chiara F. DEL BO, 2013. "Smart Specialization Strategies and Smart Cities: An Evidence-Based Assessment of EU policies," Departmental Working Papers 2013-17, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    • Handle: RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2013-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wp.demm.unimi.it/files/wp/2013/DEMM-2013_17wp.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello, 2013. "Regional Innovation Patterns and the EU Regional Policy Reform: Toward Smart Innovation Policies," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 355-389, June.
    2. Berry, Christopher R. & Glaeser, Edward L., 2005. "Divergence of Human Capital Levels across Cities," Working Paper Series rwp05-057, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Gans, Will & Alberini, Anna & Longo, Alberto, 2013. "Smart meter devices and the effect of feedback on residential electricity consumption: Evidence from a natural experiment in Northern Ireland," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 729-743.
    4. Clastres, Cédric, 2011. "Smart grids: Another step towards competition, energy security and climate change objectives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5399-5408, September.
    5. Bart van Ark & Mary O'Mahoney & Marcel P. Timmer, 2008. "The Productivity Gap between Europe and the United States: Trends and Causes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 25-44, Winter.
    6. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The divergence of human capital levels across cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(3), pages 407-444, August.
    7. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Divergence of Human Capital Levels across Cities," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2091, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    8. Cédric Clastres, 2011. "Smart grids : Another step towards competition, energy security and climate change objectives," Post-Print halshs-00617702, HAL.
    9. John V. Winters, 2011. "Why Are Smart Cities Growing? Who Moves And Who Stays," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 253-270, May.
    10. Christopher R. Berry & Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Divergence of Human Capital Levels Across Cities," NBER Working Papers 11617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Philip McCann & Raquel Ortega-Argilés, 2011. "Smart specialisation, regional growth and applications to EU cohesion policy," Working Papers 2011/14, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Winters, John V., 2011. "Human capital, higher education institutions, and quality of life," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 446-454, September.
    2. John V. Winters, 2013. "Human capital externalities and employment differences across metropolitan areas of the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(5), pages 799-822, September.
    3. Winters, John V., 2014. "The Production and Stock of College Graduates for U.S. States," IZA Discussion Papers 8730, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Schiavone, Francesco & Paolone, Francesco & Mancini, Daniela, 2019. "Business model innovation for urban smartization," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 210-219.
    5. Jørn Rattsø & Hildegunn Stokke, 2014. "Regional Convergence of Income and Education: Investigation of Distribution Dynamics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(8), pages 1672-1685, June.
    6. Winters, John V., 2014. "STEM graduates, human capital externalities, and wages in the U.S," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 190-198.
    7. Michael R. Betz & Mark D. Partridge & Belal Fallah, 2016. "Smart cities and attracting knowledge workers: Which cities attract highly-educated workers in the 21st century?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 819-841, November.
    8. Areendam Chanda & Bibhudutta Panda, 2016. "Productivity Growth In Goods And Services Across The Heterogeneous States Of America," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1021-1045, April.
    9. Lee, Jun Yeong & Winters, John, 2021. "Too Cold to Venture There? January Temperature and Immigrant Self-Employment across the United States," ISU General Staff Papers 202112131848540000, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. John V. Winters, 2011. "Human Capital and Population Growth in Nonmetropolitan U.S. Counties," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 25(4), pages 353-365, November.
    11. John Winters, 2012. "Differences in employment outcomes for college town stayers and leavers," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-17, December.
    12. Winters, John V, 2010. "Human Capital and Population Growth in Non-Metropolitan U.S. Counties: The Importance of College Student Migration," MPRA Paper 25592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Alessandra Faggian & Rachel S. Franklin, 2014. "Human Capital Redistribution in the USA: The Migration of the College-bound," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 376-395, October.
    14. Karima Kourtit, 2021. "City intelligence for enhancing urban performance value: a conceptual study on data decomposition in smart cities," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 191-222, February.
    15. Brian Fabrègue & Léo J. Portal & Christopher Cockshaw, 2023. "Using smart people to build smarter: How smart cities attract and retain highly skilled workers to drive innovation (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland)," Smart Cities and Regional Development (SCRD) Journal, Smart-EDU Hub, vol. 7(1), pages 9-30, March.
    16. Ben Letaifa, Soumaya, 2015. "How to strategize smart cities: Revealing the SMART model," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1414-1419.
    17. Su, Yaqin & Hua, Yue & Deng, Lanfang, 2021. "Agglomeration of human capital: Evidence from city choice of online job seekers in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    18. Eliasson, Kent & Haapanen, Mika & Westerlund, Olle, 2019. "Regional concentration of university graduates: The role of high school grades and parental background," Umeå Economic Studies 966, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    19. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2010. "Did the Death of Distance Hurt Detroit and Help New York?," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 303-337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Jos� Lobo & Charlotta Mellander & Kevin Stolarick & Deborah Strumsky, 2014. "The Inventive, the Educated and the Creative: How Do They Affect Metropolitan Productivity?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 155-177, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Smart City; Smart Specialization Strategies; EU policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy
    • L52 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2013-17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: DEMM Working Papers (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/damilit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.