To ignore regional plarisation is to invite a populist correction. McCann & Stierna identify in @regionalstudies.bsky.social the flaw in the #Draghi #competitiveness blueprint: it engages experts but shuns the people. A strategy without #legitimacy will not fly. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#Wage growth in the Visegrád Four has become a "sticky" affair, with a region’s fortune tied to that of its neighbours. Boris Hošoff and Sergei Kharin show in GeoJournal that the winning hands are concentrated in #Poland while #Hungary faces a widening regional chill. doi.org/10.1007/s107...

#Centralisation spreads responsibility thin; #autonomy concentrates it. In the European Journal of Political Economy, Ferraresi, Herrmann, Loiacono, Rizzo & Secomandi find that where town halls keep and manage most #tax the result is higher #income. doi.org/10.1016/j.ej...

🛑 'Las regiones marginadas acaban vengándose del sistema que las abandonó' El economista @rodriguez-pose.bsky.social explica en la #frAreces por qué territorios olvidados se han 'rebelado' y las posibles soluciones Aquí, algunas respuestas 🗞️ www.fundacionareces.es/fundacionare... #geografia

#Innovation has long been a story of #technology hubs and "innovation deserts." But as Zhuoying You & I argue in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social, #AI & #robotics are "digital levellers," allowing lagging places to leapfrog traditional barriers of distance and capital. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

Urban size becomes a multiplier only if there’s something to multiply. In my @spatialeconomic.bsky.social paper, I argue that thin skills & weak institutions can make megacities sluggish. Dynamism comes from skills, innovation & solid institutions, not headcount doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2025.2603498

A nation that treats its hinterland as weekend décor shouldn’t be shocked when it becomes political. Korsgaard, Bosworth & Gaddefors in @sbe-journal.bsky.social link #inequality, #climate strain & #unrest, proposing #rural #entrepreneurship as institutional activism. doi.org/10.1007/s111...

Applications open: LSE–Miguel Dols Fellowship (at Cañada Blanch Centre at LSE). Spring Term residency, 5 May–19 Jun. No stipend—just time, space and LSE. Email CV+600-word proposal by 27 Feb to [email protected] (subject: LSE-Miguel Dols Fellowship Application). www.lse.ac.uk/canada-blanc...

Los “lugares que no importan” han vuelto: no con fábricas, sino con votos. El 24/02 hablaré en @fundacionareces.bsky.social (Madrid) sobre abandono territorial, descontento y crecimiento del #populismo en #Europa, #EEUU y #América Latina. ¡No te lo pierdas! www.fundacionareces.es/fundacionare...

Public R&D can nourish regions, but it needs business R&D to turn grants into #GDP. But, as Ortega-Argilés & Yuan argue in Industrial and Corporate Change, it also needs collaboration routes that still run through #London to trigger regional convergence. doi.org/10.1093/icc/...

Valentine’s Day insists #love can be bought. But increasingly, our roses are for… no one. In @euractiv.com, Møller-Nielsen points to structural #loneliness. Chiara Burlina & I argue it has consequences beyond the personal and social. www.euractiv.com/news/europes... doi.org/10.1177/0308...

True cohesion is less about shifting resources between places and more about expanding what individuals can actually do within them. Artelaris & Mavrommatis argue in European Planning Studies for a "people-centric" turn in territorial #Cohesion Policy. doi.org/10.1080/0965...

The 2008 crash left scars that refuse to fade. In JEMS, Avola, Piccitto & Vegetti reveal that while native #employment proved remarkably elastic, male #migrants faced a seven-point slump that has become a permanent feature of the post-crisis era. doi.org/10.1080/1369...

Maybe industrial policy isn’t picking winners but using the right mechanisms to innovate. Zhuoying You & I show in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social that #AI adoption & #robots raise #innovation, especially in less innovative places and improve the returns of R&D spendomg. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

We have long feared #AI as a job-destroyer, yet it may drive #innovation and increase the returns of R&D. As Zhuoying You & I argue in our new @spatialeconomic.bsky.social paper, AI & #robotics make scarce resources deliver in places where investment has disappointed. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

Special Economic Zones don’t fail loudly. They fade quietly. #SEZs in #Africa amplify existing strengths—skills, infrastructure—while exposing weaknesses. The can raise export diversification but slowly, with effects only appearing after a decade or so. doi.org/10.1080/0885...

It is a funny feeling to find one’s work translated so precisely by a machine. My friend Duarte Rodrigues used #AI to craft a banner for my new LSEPPR paper. It captures the very soul of the debate. The algorithm, it seems, has a keener eye for nuance than I dared imagine. doi.org/10.31389/lse...

Can #Europe deliver on the #green #transition or just legislate it? A new Special Issue of the Journal of Economic Policy Reform, guest-edited by Sandu, @mariatsouri.bsky.social & me invites answers. Abstracts by 30 March 2026 to [email protected] think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

Tuesday 10 February at LSE: Lewis Dijkstra will deconstruct the quiet rewriting of the global #urban story. By 2100, the #rural may be little more than a memory. Join us at the @CanadaBlanchLSE to see how new UN data clarifies our urban destiny. www.lse.ac.uk/canada-blanc...

A new SEA paper, “Why size really doesn’t matter: from megacity myths to place-sensitive prosperity” by @rodriguez-pose.bsky.social, challenges the idea that bigger cities are always more successful. Open access: doi.org/10.1080/1742...

#EU #CohesionPolicy hasn’t failed. It has been mis-sold. Framed as compensation rather than #investment, it lost legitimacy, despite evidence of #growth and spillovers. My new LSEPPR paper shows that a policy of development dressed up as charity struggles. doi.org/10.31389/lse...

“Build, baby, build” meets inequality. As Julie Weil notes in @washingtonpost.com, supply alone may not fix #affordability. Our @urbanstudiesjournal.com paper warned why: #inequality, not #zoning, does the damage. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... doi.org/10.1177/0042... doi.org/10.31235/osf...

The populist free lunch is a mirage. As @martinsandbu.ft.com argues in the @financialtimes.com, today’s fault line is not left vs right but centre vs periphery. Uneven #geography breeds anger, anger➡️risk—& risk drains #growth. www.ft.com/content/91de... publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/h...

Come and join us at this Cañada Blanch Centre event to explore the "degree of #urbanisation," a new global standard that renders national #urban definitions obsolete. Lewis Dijkstra will unpack vital data for #climate resilience and #housing from 1950 until 2100. Don't miss it! 10 Feb

When local #news disappears, #democracy thins out. Rachel Barber’s study of 500 closures in the Journal of Urban Affairs reveals a bleak #geography: losses fall hardest on "left-behind" places. In these news deserts, accountability is displaced by noise & growing conflict. doi.org/10.1080/0735...

In theory, ideas have no borders; in practice, they behave like real estate. Check my new blog with Xiang & @neillee.bsky.social on the brutal #geography of #research. "Star" #scientists still cluster where the air is thickest with influence. blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... doi.org/10.1111/tran...

💥New | The brutal geography of global elite scientific research ✍️ @rodriguez-pose.bsky.social, Leiboyu Xiang & @neillee.bsky.social #AcademicSky #Innovation #Geography

The #GreenTransition doesn’t have an acceptance problem. It has a representation problem. In their new Applied Geography paper, Louise Michelle Fitzgerald & @angelique-palle.bsky.social find that technical jargon curdles into distrust; only candid politics builds legitimacy. doi.org/10.1016/j.ap...

@jburnmurdoch.ft.com writes in the @financialtimes.com that liberal #democracy’s rise rode on growth—not a moral escalator. But when #prosperity stalls, norms look like luxuries in places where the promise of a brighter future has moved elsewhere www.ft.com/content/b4d2... doi.org/10.1093/cjre...

#Europe’s periphery won’t catch up by trading mostly with close neighbours. In International Economics, Tidu, Apuzzo, and Usai note that the regions escaping the #productivity doldrums are those with the confidence to compete well beyond the #EU’s edges. doi.org/10.1016/j.in...

Innovation is less a choice between state dirigisme and market whim than a governance feat governance. As Parrilli & Lu show in their new paper, #China’s #innovation depends on a national centre to set the vision and regional systems to perform discovery. doi.org/10.1080/1043...

Will you be in #Madrid in late #February? Join @neillee.bsky.social & I to decode the #geography of #discontent and the structural rise of #populism. We map the territorial revolt in this @fundacionareces.bsky.social & #LSE masterclass. Applications: 9 February www.fundacionareces.es/fundacionare...

EU funds can build a hospital. They can’t guarantee it works well. #Institutions matter but their quality across the EU is highly uneven. Can Karahasan in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social finds institutional convergence, yet Italy is a reminder that improvement is not automatic. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

The dynamism of the #megacity rarely trickles down & the fixation on size has fuelled a #geography of #discontent. As I write in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social, real prosperity requires better #institutions & development ecosystems, not just stacking capital in the #metropolis. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

The future is being forged in the tension between politics and cultural imaginaries. Join @fitjar.bsky.social & Huiwen Gong at @unistavanger.bsky.social for two #postdocs mapping these new geographies. A rare chance to marry frontier research with a nice pace of life www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

#Devolution is often sold as a bespoke suit for local needs. In #NorthernIreland, however, it proved a hair shirt of provincial hubris. Birnie & @grahambrownlow.bsky.social's new PMM paper on the RHI scandal shows the costs of refusing to copy a the working #British model. doi.org/10.1080/0954...

#Innovation doesn’t just thrive in #urban centres. It also emerges on the margins. In Industrial & Corporate Change, @glueckler.bsky.social & @yaneck.bsky.social show how "institutional slack" and distance from the core create pockets where controversial #ideas can take root. doi.org/10.1093/icc/...

Promoting #megacities has become an economic bet. As I argue in my new @spatialeconomic.bsky.social paper, the promised spillovers of wealth often stop at the #city limits, leaving a fractured map and a slow-burn political #backlash, which is the price of #urban obsession. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

#EU #cohesion funds assume regional inequality is a passing rash: apply money, await recovery. Petrakos, Alexiou & Sotiriou show in Growth and Change that #discontent isn’t a symptom of stagnation but a cause. Hence, ignoring regions in a #DevelopmentTrap weakens the EU. doi.org/10.1111/grow...

The 2nd Workshop for Early Career #Women in #Economic Geography & Spatial #Economics takes place 16-17 March. Join @sbagagli.bsky.social & @elenarenzullo.bsky.social for two days of discussion with @maryannfeldman.bsky.social & @camhemet.bsky.social. Deadline: Thursday. www.lse.ac.uk/asset-librar...

#Europe’s #green #transition is less a rising tide and more a series of localised shocks. As Costantini, Paglialunga & Zanoni show, a "just" transition remains a geographic lottery. Prosperity depends on industrial DNA and the luck of the map. doi.org/10.1016/j.ei...

Looking for a job in academia? Itching to teach some of the brightest students in the world? LSE Geography & #Environment is hiring in Economic #Geography & Urban #Planning — where teaching leads, not follows. But rush, deadline 11 Jan, or spend another year wondering. jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

The digital divide is an institutional design, not a technical glitch. @dbreznitz.bsky.social, Jane Gingrich & Amos Zehavi argue in Industrial and Corporate Change that #innovation-driven equity lies in the dull detail of #governance, not in the novelty of the tool. doi.org/10.1093/icc/...

Prosperity and neglect are equally potent politically radicalising agents. As Adamiak, Churski, thers & I show in @rsa-tpg.bsky.social, #Poland’s spatial duel means that the ‘places that matter’ have mobilised to shield their interests from the 'places that don't matter'. doi.org/10.1080/2162...

#Publish or perish? Not quite. In TIBG, Leiboyu Xiang, @neillee.bsky.social & I argue the real divide isn’t who prints the most article pages, but who produces high-impact, elite #research. Four wold hubs dominate when quantity meets influence in scientific production. doi.org/10.1111/tran...

We treat #innovation as a self-sustaining engine, forgetting it requires the ballast of good #instititutions. Borsekova, Korony, Styk, Westlund & me show in our new PiRS paper that in CEE, #governance deficits are a hard ceiling on technical talent. doi.org/10.1016/j.pi...

Urban life needn’t be a binary choice between #metropolitan sclerosis & provincial stagnation. As Searle, @annforsythplan.bsky.social, Gurran & Darcy argue in #Cities, the intermediate city offers a Goldilocks third way: vibrancy without the punishing #urban diseconomies. doi.org/10.1016/j.ci...

Governments cannot "message" their way out of a geography of #discontent. Writing in Regional Science Policy & Practice, Torre and @bourdinseb.bsky.social suggest that only territorial justice can repair the symbolic hierarchies that treat certain #regions as obsolete. doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

The creative economy is less a series of spontaneous eruptions and more a matter of historical plumbing. Büyükyazıcı & @evacoll8.bsky.social show in @regionalstudies.bsky.social that hubs are built on latent skills, not conjured from thin air. #Culture by habit, not miracle. doi.org/10.1080/0034...

#EU green spending can, some times, actually raise emissions, according to Marco Dueñas & Antoine Mandel in their brand new @regionalstudies.bsky.social paper. Where #institutions are weak, #green budgets dissolve into near-term, high-emission expansion. doi.org/10.1080/0034...