TY - JOUR

T1 - Regional clusters in Germany

T2 - Their geography and their relevance for entrepreneurial activities

AU - Sternberg, Rolf

AU - Litzenberger, Timo

N1 - Funding Information: Research for this paper was done as part of the project ‘Sectoral-spatial clusters and the New Economic Geography’ financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG STE 628/8–1). We thank the discussants at the Symposium ‘Entrepreneurship, Spatial Clusters and Inter-Firm Networks’, University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla, Sweden, 12–14 June 2003 for comments that led to an extensive revision of an earlier version. Copyright: Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2004/9

Y1 - 2004/9

N2 - The aim of this paper is to identify regions with industrial clusters in Germany and to analyse their entrepreneurial environment. A new index employing industry data supplied from the German Federal Labour Office is used to elaborate on spatial clusters in the most concentrated German industries. A second data set collected as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), serves to assess the relationship between regional clusters and entrepreneurial activities and attitudes. The paper tests the rather popular but hitherto seldomly empirically-proven hypothesis that the existence of one or several industrial cluster(s) in a region has a positive impact on the number of start-ups and attitudes in the very same region. The implications of the findings with respect to regional policies encouraging industrial clusters are discussed briefly in the concluding section.

AB - The aim of this paper is to identify regions with industrial clusters in Germany and to analyse their entrepreneurial environment. A new index employing industry data supplied from the German Federal Labour Office is used to elaborate on spatial clusters in the most concentrated German industries. A second data set collected as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), serves to assess the relationship between regional clusters and entrepreneurial activities and attitudes. The paper tests the rather popular but hitherto seldomly empirically-proven hypothesis that the existence of one or several industrial cluster(s) in a region has a positive impact on the number of start-ups and attitudes in the very same region. The implications of the findings with respect to regional policies encouraging industrial clusters are discussed briefly in the concluding section.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=5444265931&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/0965431042000251855

DO - 10.1080/0965431042000251855

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:5444265931

VL - 12

SP - 767

EP - 791

JO - European planning studies

JF - European planning studies

SN - 0965-4313

IS - 6

ER -