This report was produced by the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director.
It is part of the project “Sound Macroeconomic Framework Conditions, Structural Reforms and Convergence in Less-developed Regions”, which benefitted from financial support of the European Commission – Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy and from comments and input by Lewis Dijkstra (Head of Economic Analysis Sector).
The project was co-ordinated by Karen Maguire and Alexander Lembcke. The report was co-ordinated by Alexander Lembcke and prepared under the supervision of Karen Maguire and Rüdiger Ahrend with guidance from Joaquim Oliveira Martins. It was drafted by Alexander Lembcke (Chapters 1, 2 and 4), Abel Schumann (Chapter 3), and Lorena Figueiredo (Chapter 5). Eric Gonnard provided statistical support. Contributions and data from Wen Chen (University of Groningen), Sabine D’Costa (University of Westminster), Christian Ketels (BCG Henderson Institute Stockholm), Bart Los (University of Groningen), Sergiy Protsiv (Stanford University) and Clara Wolf supported this work and are gratefully acknowledged.
The OECD Secretariat extends its thanks and appreciation to the countries and regions that have collaborated in the five case studies that supported the work and are published separately. Specifically, the Secretariat thanks the delegates of Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain to the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee and the regions of Andalusia (Spain), Central Macedonia (Greece), Central and North Portugal, South East Romania and Warmian Masuria (Poland).
The Secretariat also thanks the delegates to the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee and its Working Parties, as well as the participants in workshops at OECD, the European Commission (DG for Regional and Urban Policy and Joint Research Centre), the European Commission, and at the 2017 conferences of the European Regional Science Association and the Regional Studies Association for valuable comments on earlier versions of (parts of) the report.
Andrew Brenner provided editorial assistance, Julie Harris prepared the manuscript for publication and Pauline Arbel, Cicely Dupont-Nivore and Pilar Philip supported the production process.