Many European, Latin American and Asian countries have experience with regional policies aiming to reduce regional disparities in GDP per capita and/or to develop problem regions helping to recover from its GDP decrease. Spain represents, without any doubt, a very rich and interesting case-study regarding regional problems and regional development policies. The aim of this book is not only to analyze the regional policies practiced, their objectives, instruments and effects, but to provide an in-depth analysis on the impact of investments in infrastructure, human capital and other factors, as well as the advances accomplished in terms of productivity, convergence and regional competitiveness. The book particularly wants to impart knowledge, which can be useful for other countries’ policy makers, as well as for academics, researchers and consultants. The contributions selected have been written by prestigious Spanish academics, most of them also having practical experience in the field.

"In the face of new extraction, communities in Latin America's hydrocarbon and mining regions use participatory institutions powerfully. In some cases, communities act within the formal participatory spaces, while in others, they organized "around" or "in reaction to" the institutions, using participatory procedures as focal points for escalating conflict. Communities select their strategies in response to the participatory challenges they confront. Those challenges are associated with contestation over the boundaries that determine access to participatory institutions. Contestation over the line between subnational authority vis-à-vis central-state jurisdictions heightens communities' challenge of initiating a participatory process. Disagreement over the territorial delineation of communities impacted by planned extraction creates for formally non-impacted communities the challenge of gaining inclusion in participatory events. Finally, disputes over the boundary that sets representatives of an affected community apart from the community at large intensify the community's challenge of conveying a position on extraction. This analysis of thirty major extractive conflicts in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru in the 2000s and 2010s examines community uses of public hearings built into environmental licensing, state-led prior consultations with native communities, and local popular consultations, or referenda"--

In the first issue many very interesting research papers have been submitted from qualified international Scholars. We propose an overview about the main research- streams that have been chosen by the Authors. This mapping process provides the opportunity to check the guidelines for the study of economic and managerial phenomena that international scholars have followed for thirty years in the international associations that deal with economics and management, called ARETHUSE.

The existence and persistence of regional disparities between European regions require context-tailored policies to promote structural change. This book explores the congruence between place-based development and regional competitiveness in the EU context. Drawing on a range of social science disciplines, this book unpicks the complexity of regional transformation processes, aiming to enhance the applicability and transferability of theoretical approaches to innovation and place-based regional development in diverse European territorial settings. The contributors have a particular focus on less-favoured regions and on the application of Smart Specialisation – a strategic approach to innovation-based regional development – to the issues at hand. The book comes at a critical moment, meeting the growing demand of academics, practitioners and policymakers with an interest in promoting regional economic growth and well-being.

This book, originally published in 1988, analyzes the regional importance of small and medium sized enterprises, supplmenting a discussion of key issues in both regional development and th eeconomics of small firms with a wide range of national case studies from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Greece, Spain, Israel and Indonesia.