Essays on industrial clusters: Smart Specialization Strategy and regional resilience

Abstract

Three papers integrate the thesis. Each one has its hypotheses and methodology related to the study of industrial cluster.

Paper 1: The concept of clusters has been popularized over the last two decades, mainly through the work of Michael Porter. A question that has arisen recently in relation to cluster theory is whether it can be complemented with Smart Specialization Strategies (S3). This study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to the Mexican economy to evaluate three effects: 1) whether the kind of policies envisaged through a S3 strategy has an impact on the efficiency of Mexican clusters; 2) whether this impact changes with the technological intensity of the clusters; 3) to what extent such impact is related to the technological intensity of the cluster. The results show that strategies following the S3 had a significant impact in all clusters, but when clusters were classified by technological intensity, the impact on efficiency is higher in clusters in the medium low-tech group. According to the results in the DEA, we can conclude that these S3 strategies have the potential to increase the clusters’ productivity significantly.

Paper 2: This paper evaluates the role of cluster strength on regional resilience. Previous literature shows that the industrial composition of a region measured with variables such as specialization, diversity and related and unrelated variety, is a crucial determinant of resilience. In our case, we aggregate cluster-level data into several indicators of regional cluster strength to proxy different aspects of the cluster portfolio of a region. Specifically, we consider the role of the presence of strong clusters in a regional economy as well as the mix of clusters in which the region has a robust importance. On the one hand, we assume that the agglomeration forces arising in regions specialized in certain clusters could mitigate the effect of recessions. However, these strong industrial linkages may increase the diffusion of the economic shock from one industry to the rest. To check which of the two forces dominates, we consider the resilience of the U.S. states over the Great Recession and a cluster definition that group traded industries in 51 clusters. Our findings suggest that the presence of a portfolio of strong clusters allows mitigating economic shocks.

Paper 3: This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition on resilience. Previous literature shows that industrial composition, measured with variables like related and unrelated variety, is one of the main determinants of resilience. In our case, we describe industrial composition with measures of cluster specialization and cluster diversity. We expect these measures have a similar effect on resilience than the ones of related and unrelated variety. We assume cluster specialization increases resilience for regions with high innovation, and cluster diversity positively impacts on resilience for regions with low innovation. Furthermore, we assume that cluster specialization make the regions less vulnerable in the short term (adaptation resilience stage), meanwhile, cluster diversity has a more long-term effect on resilience (adaptability resilience stage). To test our hypotheses, we consider the resilience of the U.S. states overs the Great Recession and a cluster definition that group traded industries in 51 clusters. Our findings confirm that the effect of clusters specialization and diversity on resilience depends on the innovation level of the region. Furthermore, these effects are effective in different stages of the resilience process, adaptation and adaptability. These finding have crucial implication for the design of cluster policies as an instrument to make regions less vulnerable to external shocks.