This article analyses the impact of skill portfolios and labour mobility on plant performance by means of a unique database that connects attributes of individuals to features of plants for the whole Swedish economy. We found that a portfolio of related competences at the plant level increases significantly productivity growth of plants, in contrast to plant portfolios consisting of either similar or unrelated competences. Based on the analysis of 101,093 job moves, we found that inflows of skills that are related to the existing knowledge base of the plant had a positive effect on plant performance, while the inflow of new employees with skills that are already present in the plant had a negative impact. Our analyses also show that geographical proximity influences the effect of different skill inflows. Inflows of unrelated skills only contribute positively to plant performance when these are recruited in the same region. Labour mobility across regions only has a positive effect on productivity growth of plants when this concerns new employees with related skills.

BackgroundPainful shoulders pose a substantial socioeconomic burden. A prospective cost-of-illness study was performed to assess the costs associated with healthcare use and loss of productivity in patients with shoulder pain in primary health care in Sweden.MethodsThe study was performed in western Sweden, in a region with 24 000 inhabitants. Data were collected during six months from electronic patient records at three primary healthcare centres in two municipalities. All patients between 20 and 64 years of age who presented with shoulder pain to a general practitioner or a physiotherapist were included. Diagnostic codes were used for selection, and the cases were manually controlled. The cost for sick leave was calculated according to the human capital approach. Sensitivity analysis was used to explore uncertainty in various factors used in the model.Results204 (103 women) patients, mean age 48 (SD 11) years, were registered. Half of the cases were closed within six weeks, whereas 32 patients (16%) remained in the system for more than six months. A fifth of the patients were responsible for 91% of the total costs, and for 44% of the healthcare costs. The mean healthcare cost per patient was €326 (SD 389) during six months. Physiotherapy treatments accounted for 60%. The costs for sick leave contributed to 84% of the total costs. The mean annual total cost was €4139 per patient. Estimated costs for secondary care increased the total costs by one third.ConclusionsThe model applied in this study provides valuable information that can be used in cost evaluations. Costs for secondary care and particularly for sick leave have a major influence on total costs and interventions that can reduce long periods of sick leave are warranted.

Key words: agglomeration economies knowledge spillovers labor mobility plant performance geographic proximity related variety ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 87(2):127-152.

Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) is receiving increasing interest from tourism scholars. EEG has proven to be a useful explanatory paradigm in other sectors, e.g., high-technology and creative sectors. There remains, however, a lack of theoretical discussion on evolutionary principles of economic change within relatively low-technology service sectors, of which tourism is a prime example. This paper introduces EEG to a wider tourism audience by presenting the core principles of EEG and how they relate to tourism studies. A selection of new research paths combining EEG and tourism studies is highlighted together with a number of latent research synergies which can progress both EEG and tourism studies. The paper calls for further empirical and conceptual engagement with EEG by tourism scholars.

This study investigates the relationship between labour market externalities and regional growth based on real labour flows. In particular, we test for the importance of labour mobility across so-called skill-related industries. We make use of a sophisticated indicator that measures the degree of skillrelatedness between all industries, and we employ actual labour flows between 435 4-digit industries within 72 Swedish functional labour market regions to estimate how labour market externalities are related to regional growth in the period 1998-2002. Both our fixed effect models and GMMestimates demonstrate that a strong intensity of intra-regional labour flows between skill-related industries impacts positively on regional productivity growth, but less so on regional employment growth. Labour mobility between unrelated industries tends to dampen regional unemployment growth while a high degree of intra-industry labour flows is only found to be associated with rising regional unemployment.