The event represented the 20th meeting of the Spatial Productivity Lab at the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development
Who we are
The Spatial Productivity Lab (SPL)
The Spatial Productivity Lab (SPL) at the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development is a dedicated research laboratory that works with local and global partners to advance knowledge about the ways regional policy and a better understanding of spatial links can improve productivity growth and thereby the creation of better jobs and well-being.
Focus of this meeting
Skills across jobs: addressing local labour shortages
Employers across cities and regions throughout the OECD are experiencing severe difficulties in hiring workers with the necessary skills. This webinar looked at the latest evidence and discussed how labour and skills shortages can affect firm productivity. It also considered how a skills-based approach can improve the matching of workers more flexibly across jobs, as compared to educational background and work experience, and better address needs for up-skilling, reskilling and adult learning.
The event, in-person, was open to civil society and all those interested in the topic upon free registration.
Wessel Vermeulen Economist, Trento Centre for Local Development, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), OECD
Kristine Langenbucher Head of Unit Labour and Skills, Local Employment, Skills and Social Innovation Division, CFE, OECD
Tony Fang Professor and Stephen Jarislowsky Chair in Economic and Cultural Transformation Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Klaas de Vries Senior Economist, The Conference Board
Marion Devine Principal Researcher, Human Capital, Europe, The Conference Board
Juan Gamboa Researcher, Orkestra, Basque Country, Spain
Webinar replay
Previous SPL meetings
19th SPL meeting | 14 December 2023 | Trento, Italy
Socioeconomic trends in the host region Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol (Italy)
The last SPL meeting of the year is traditionally devoted to the host region of the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development, the Autonomous Region Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol. The meeting brought together local SPL partners and other local stakeholders to present and discuss recent economic and social trends, as well as empirical research focused on the territory.
Regional economic resilience is the ability of places to withstand, recover and to reorganise in response to a negative shock. Resilience can be thought of as a short-term characteristic, for example employment performance during a specific crisis, or as a long-term phenomenon, when a lagging place emerges over time as a centre of high productivity and economic prosperity. What factors are linked to greater economic resilience both short-term and long-term? How can places strengthen their resilience? The webinar offered some answers drawing on academic research and practical examples of places that “turned-around”.
Business dynamism, turnover or churn – the rate of firm entry and exit in the economy – is robustly linked to increased industrial productivity. In more dynamic industries, greater competition pushes companies to innovate and improve efficiency while less productive firms are more likely to exit. As a result, resources are reallocated quicker to more productive uses. Do these mechanisms work spatially? Does regional business dynamism increase productivity and, if so, how can regions better tap the potential of this process to stimulate growth?
Regional institutions and productivity: Implications for policy
Institutions matter. Decades ago, Douglass North called institutions the underlying determinant of economic performance and growth prospects (North D. (1991). Institutions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), pp. 97-112). Since then, the appreciation for the role of institutions, and of governance arrangements in particular, in economic performance of nations and regions only grew. This meeting brought together resent research and offers policy perspectives on the link between regional quality of government and productivity.
15th SPL meeting | 14 December 2021 | Trento, Italy
Recent trends in Trentino and Alto-Adige/South Tyrol (Italy)
The last SPL meeting of the year is traditionally devoted to the host region of the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development, the Autonomous Region Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol. The meeting brought together local SPL partners and other local stakeholders to present and discuss recent economic and social trends, as well as empirical research focused on the territory.
Innovation is the most important contributor to long-term economic growth. It is not just about “pushing the frontier”, but also about the spread of ideas and technologies throughout the economy. Innovation diffusion can help regions to catch up by integrating and building on existing ideas and technologies. Yet, the spread of innovation seems to be slow. What are the mechanisms of innovation diffusion, what are the barriers and how can regions more actively and successfully learn in order to increase their productivity, competitiveness and wellbeing?
Adoption of advanced technologies: Productivity and labour market implications
Firms make continuous capital investments. Some of these investments have the potential to completely change the production process, in terms of productivity and in the role for existing employees. This SPL meeting collected insights on the implications of the adoption of advanced technologies for firms and workers, with a specific focus on the use of micro data and through local lens. The meeting combined empirical evidence from Canada and the US, as well as an OECD-wide perspective. The presentations served as a foundation for a panel discussion with the speakers.
As the world is changed by the pandemic, the mechanisms defining productivity of firms and regions are likely to be reshaped. What will stay the same and what will be different? How the crisis can be used as an opportunity to leap forward to a more productive, but also more inclusive, world with no places left behind? The webinar offered an opportunity to explore these and other pressing questions through the lens of labour markets, regional innovation systems and resilience.
Recent socioeconomic trends in Trentino and Alto-Adige/South Tyrol (Italy)
This meeting brought together the SPL and its partners to discuss the social and economic situation during the COVID-19 pandemic in our host region, Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol. Representatives of the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development, the Bank of Italy Trento Branch, the European Research Institute on Cooperatives and Social Enterprises (EURICSE) and the University of Trento presented recent analyses of the trends in contagion, mobility, industrial output, credit, labour markets and labour demand, as well as social economy.
Business incentives and firm entry: The past, the present and the future
The effectiveness of business incentives is a subject of debate among researchers but is a popular tool of supporting regional and local economic development. This seminar offered different perspectives on the link (established in the past) between policy-mandated business support and new firm entry. The differing points of view served as a background for a roundtable discussion among academics and practitioners on the ways to make incentives more effective, to bridge academic research and policy practice and to boost firm formation during and after the pandemic.
The new reality of teleworking: People, firms, places
The webinar brought together experts from academia, policy and policy research to share insights and discuss the impact of COVID-19 on teleworking/ homeworking and how the increase in working from home has affected mobility, productivity, wellbeing and local public policy.
The world changed by COVID-19: Policy, economy, society
The impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic are highly localised. What are the regional dimensions of the crisis – from economy to policy to society – and how will regions emerge from the current crisis? Profound economic effects of the spread of coronavirus are already sorely felt across the world. The geographic pattern of the impacts on regional economies will not necessarily follow the pattern of the virus hot spots. Indeed, both geography and sectoral specialisation play a key role. Analyses of the pandemic’s labour impacts and regional policy responses together with a discussion of the ways to shape people’s expectations were presented at this SPL meeting.
7th SPL meeting | 20 February 2020 | Trento, Italy
Regional connectivity and firm growth
The meeting was devoted to regional connectivity and firm growth. The first paper focused on the role of Global Value Chains (GVCs) and on the ways for regions to leverage connectivity for innovation and local growth. The second paper investigated the determinants of firm growth acceleration, which is a powerful economic driver.
6th SPL meeting | 11 December 2019 | Trento, Italy
Recent economic trends in Italy and the Provinces of Trento and Bolzano
The meeting was devoted to the analysis of recent economic trends in Italy and the Spatial Productivity Lab's host region, the Provinces of Trento and Bolzano.
Spatial productivity for regional and local development
The meeting presented a comprehensive overview of the literature, which identifies spatial and aspatial (those based on the firm- and industry-level research) productivity determinants. Invited speakers looked at specific mechanisms and processes related to geographical variations in productivity, such as agglomerations, Global Value Chains, migration, innovation networks and sorting of businesses and individuals across space.
The meeting was devoted to the theme of demography and productivity. The first paper explored demographic employment patterns along business cycle, while the other offered insights into the needed productivity improvements to overcome the negative effects of aging.
The meeting was dedicated to economic resilience, an ability of places to withstand negative shocks and to recover. The two presented papers focused on how regions with different industrial organisation and structure respond to various shocks and what can be done to enhance resilience.
15.30 -16.30 CEST 
Regional connectivity and firm growth
