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Niedomysl T. How migration motives change over migration distance: evidence on variation across socio-economic and demographic groups, Regional Studies. Migration researchers have long known that the motives for changing place of residence vary over migration distance. Typically, short-distance moves are regarded as motivated by housing considerations and longer-distance moves primarily by employment considerations. Using a large-scale survey on migration motives, this paper explores how migration motives change over migration distance. Particular attention is paid to variations across socio-economic and demographic groups. The results show that the housing- versus employment-driven migration dichotomy, over short and long distances, respectively, is still somewhat valid, though the present findings give a much more nuanced interpretation. The paper reveals considerable variation in migration motives, not only over migration distance, but also particularly in relation to migrant socio-economic and demogra...

Shuttleworth I. and Green A. E. Spatial mobility, workers and jobs: perspectives from the Northern Ireland experience, Regional Studies. How best to address local concentrations of worklessness is a key question for labour market, economic development and social inclusion policy. Historically, initiatives in Northern Ireland have focused on moving ‘jobs to workers’, but in changed political circumstances there is now greater emphasis on encouraging the movement of ‘workers to jobs’. A review of the Northern Ireland experience in the context of broader consideration of the geography and socio-institutional structure of local labour markets sheds light on the difficulties and successes in implementing both approaches. It is concluded that both have a role to play because labour market space is simultaneously ‘segmented’ and ‘seamless’. Shuttleworth I. et Green A. E. La mobilite geographique, les travailleurs et l'emploi: des perspectives provenant de l'experience en Irlande du Nord, Regional Studies. Une qu...

Hamnett C. Spatial divisions of welfare: the geography of welfare benefit expenditure and of housing benefit in Britain, Regional Studies. This paper examines the structure of state welfare expenditure in Britain. It argues that the geography of state welfare expenditure and its impacts have been relatively neglected given their importance in terms of state expenditure, regional distribution and spatial equality. It shows that welfare spending is a key component of government expenditure and that it has a distinct regional and local geography. The paper shows that there are distinct differences in the geographical incidence of different welfare benefits, some of which function to redistribute income from the South to the North of Britain and it focuses on the geography of housing benefit as an example of what has been termed ‘spatial divisions of welfare’. Hamnett C. Les ecarts geographiques de l'aide sociale: la geographie des prestations sociales et des allocations logement en Grande-Bretagne, Regional ...

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning literature on the 'new regionalism'. Protagonists, both at an academic and political level, have made persuasive arguments on the existence of regions and successful models of economic and social development. Critics of the new regionalism have been suggesting a need to problematise several issues: the role of the national state in underpinning regional economic development; the economic connections between regions and cities in terms of innovation and competitiveness; and more recently conflicts between securing competitiveness and managing the everyday politics of collective consumption and social reproduction in a city-region (CR). Set within the context of UK 'regional policy', this paper adds to this body of knowledge by discussing the relationships between city-regional competitiveness, work-welfare regimes - those policies and strategies dealing with labour market governance and welfare state restructuring - labour market inequalities and low pay. Ongoing research on the Sheffield City-Region is used to explore this.

Hoyler M., Freytag T. and Mager C. Connecting Rhine-Main: the production of multi-scalar polycentricities through knowledge-intensive business services, Regional Studies. Most of the literature on polycentric urban regions has focused on the analysis of intra-regional rather than external linkages, while research on the emergence of a ‘world city network’ has analysed external city relations without explicitly addressing city-regional contexts. This paper aims to bring both perspectives together. Drawing on Taylor's interlocking network model, it presents a first analysis of multi-scalar inter-city connectivities within a specific city-regional context. Central to the analysis is the question how knowledge-intensive business service firms in Rhine-Main connect this multi-nodal metropolitan region to other cities within Germany and beyond. The result is a detailed mapping of the business service connectivities of a major European city-region. Hoyler M., Freytag T. et Mager C. Region Rhin-Main et processus ...

Pain K. Examining ‘core–periphery’ relationships in a global city-region: the case of London and South East England, Regional Studies. This paper examines the interdependencies between the London ‘core’ and the South East England ‘Mega-City Region’. London's description as a monocentric city in the European Spatial Development Perspective belies functional connectivities that make a wide area to the west of the capital a web of dense inter-urban linkages. How are advanced business services creating a functional geography that differs from binary territorial representations? What are the implications for policy and theorization? This paper addresses these questions with specific reference to South East England and the ‘core–periphery’ thesis. Pain K. Examiner le rapport ‘centre–peripherie’ dans une cite-region mondiale: etude de cas de Londres et de l'Angleterre du Sud-Est, Regional Studies. Cet article cherche a examiner les interdependances entre le ‘centre’, a savoir Londres, et la mega-cite-region' de ...

Lazaric N., Longhi C. and Thomas C. Gatekeepers of knowledge versus platforms of knowledge: from potential to realized absorptive capacity, Regional Studies. The development of clusters rests on geographical proximity, cognitive interactions as well as entrepreneurial initiatives. Sophia Antipolis, a multi-technology cluster in Valbonne, France, is a good illustration of the type of challenges local systems of innovation face in creating positive knowledge externalities. This paper shows that if the existence of ‘gatekeepers of knowledge’ can generate the potential implementation of ‘absorptive capacity’, its effective realization requires some additional effort regarding the transfer of knowledge into the cluster. The concept of ‘platform of knowledge’ defined shows how a project of knowledge codification could generate externalities by creating new opportunities for effectively combining and absorbing knowledge. Lazaric N., Longhi C. et Thomas C. Deux modalites opposees de diffusion des connaissances: l...

Stuyck K., Luyten S., Kesteloot C., Meert H. and Peleman K. A geography of gender relations: role patterns in the context of different regional industrial development, Regional Studies. Feminist geographers state that gender relations produce spatial structures and that, in turn, these structures help to maintain these relations. In order to explore this idea, the paper considers the household role pattern of women in two different economic regions in Belgium with different histories of industrial activity: the textile region in Ghent and the coal basin in Limburg. The paper emphasizes the influence of these regional economic developments on the time budget of women and on the effect of their activities on their use and experience of space. It pays particular attention to the crucial role played by the social infrastructure available at different spatial levels. A comparison of both regions discloses a remarkable and lingering difference in women's role pattern and, by extension, the male role pattern. St...

Zorlu A. and Mulder C. H. Initial and subsequent location choices of immigrants to the Netherlands, Regional Studies 41, 1–20. The initial settlement behaviour and the subsequent mobility of immigrants who arrived in the Netherlands in 1999 are examined using rich administrative individual data. The study considers the settlement patterns of immigrants from various countries of origin who entered the country as labour, family or asylum migrants. The evidence suggests distinct settlement trajectories for asylum and other non-Western immigrants. The presence of co-ethnics and members of other ethnic minorities, but also socio-economic neighbourhood characteristics, appear to play an important role in determining location choice. Differences in the settlement and spatial mobility patterns of immigrants with various degrees of distance from the native Dutch in terms of human and financial capital, proficiency in the relevant language(s), and religion confirm the main predictions of spatial assimilation theory...

Carbo Valverde S., Lopez del Paso R. and Rodriguez Fernandez F. (2007) Financial innovations in banking: impact on regional growth, Regional Studies 41, 311–326. This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between finance and growth by analysing the relationships between financial intermediation and economic growth within the regions of one country, rather than with different countries. The focus on regions is relevant since regional information is more homogeneous, the legal and institutional factors are similar, and the relevant financial market is more accurately defined. The study also incorporates the effects of a set of banking innovations. The analysis is undertaken for the Spanish regions. The results show that product and service delivery innovations contribute positively to regional gross domestic product, investment and gross savings growth. Carbo Valverde S., Lopez del Paso R. et Rodriguez Fernandez F. (2007) Les innovations financieres dans le secteur bancaire: l'impact sur l...

This paper uses the techniques of exploratory spatial data analysis to analyse patterns of spatial association for different indicators of economic performance, and in so doing identify and describe the spatial structure of economic performance for Great Britain. This approach enables us to identify a number of significant local regimes – clusters of areas in which income per worker differs significantly from the global average – and investigate whether these come about primarily through spatial association in occupational composition or in productivity. Our results show that the contributions of occupational composition and productivity vary significantly across local regimes. The ‘winner’s circle’ of areas in the south and east of England benefits from both above average levels of productivity and better than average occupational composition, while the low income regime in the north of England suffers particularly from poor occupational composition. Keywords; regional disparities, income per worker, productivity, occupational composition, spatial autocorrelation JEL Classification: O18, O4, R11, R12