1 The economics of clusters. Lessons from the French experience Forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Geography doi: 10.1093/jeg/lbr029

Much has been written about clusters, often broadly understood as spatial concentrations of firms in the same or related industries. Whilst there seems to be some saturation effect in the academic community, clusters still seem to be a fashionable tool in public policy. In particular in the wake of Michael Porter’s significant marketing efforts to disseminate the view of increasing competitiveness through clustering, many policy makers have focused on promoting industry clusters. Although there are different versions of cluster theories and policies, this is widely based on the assumption that the spatial concentration of industries is associated with benefits for the firms as well as for the region. Yet, despite the vast amount of literature on this topic, the economic effects of clusters are still unclear (Martin and Sunley, 2003). In particular, there is a lack of empirical work which critically examines the benefits vis-à-vis the costs of clustering. The important contribution of this book is to tackle this issue and to quantitatively assess the economic role of clustering and cluster policies in France on the basis of systematic statistical analyses. After a succinct introductory chapter 1, the book consists of four parts