Business agglomeration during the smart specialisation strategies Era: modelling tool for ranking policies

Which are the key factors that, taking into account the stakeholders’ assessment of individual preferences and the spatio-temporal relationship among the different policies and companies of a given territory, stimulate the development of agglomeration processes already in progress so as to enable all firms in the network to become part of the global value chain? The literature on business clusters emphasizes the role of cluster policy making in promoting and sustaining competitiveness, innovation, and growth on local, regional and national levels. However, in the studies carried out hitherto, it has not been taken into account that cluster diffusion may vary according to time, space and industry given the misalignment between the cluster concept and its translation in local and national policies. The present thesis aims at filling this gap by building a tool that make easy finding the interventions that are likely to be most effective in the policy making challenge. This work proceeds in five chapters. Following the introductory chapter, containing the rationales and the objectives, in the second chapter has been outlined the theoretical framework and the regional economic development theories focused on the concept of business cluster. Through the historic evolution analysis and the focus on the diamond of advantage by Porter, has been possible to fully justify the proposed research question. Chapter three detect the area of study. In particular, utilizing the Emerging Industries definition given by the European Commission and a cluster mapping technique, has been selected the NUTS 2 area with the highest number of clusters – Biopharmaceuticals, Digital Industries, and Medical Devices – that meet both of the established benchmark parameters, LQ and CE: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. In chapter four have been identified and analyzed the different type of policies used in different locations to start, improve or foster agglomerations of businesses. Through quantitative techniques has been possible to evaluate the correlation between the variables representative of the policies and the number of companies operating in the territory, and the policies considered preferable to achieve agglomeration according to stakeholders' elicitations. Finally, in order to complete the fourth phase of the work, namely designing a tool for the overall ranking of the policies examined, has been developed a monodimensional index that makes use of the aforementioned quantitative techniques. The application of the model resulted in ranking “Facilitating the Provision of Credit” as the most important policy for stimulating the development of agglomeration processes.