Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

With the midterms a week away, #America’s electoral map bears the scars of decades of decline. @aligliss.bsky.social & I link persistent regional decline to Republican gains in our brand new paper in @rsa-tpg.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/2162...

Three million more Brazilians voted in the runoff of the #BrazilianElections. #Lula added ten million votes, #Bolsonaro under four. #Geography decided the winner. Lula took 75% in the poorest fifth of municipalities. Bolsonaro's vote was split between the agribusiness frontier & stalling places.

Europe chasing #OpenAI is like climbing Alpe d'Huez on a three-gear bike with a picnic basket, while the #US & #China ride up doped on state aid. Better to use #AI, I told @rajkharel8.bsky.social & Farooq-Bhat on their #RegInno Podcast. nettop.guru/wordpress/th... nettop.guru/wordpress/ca...

A fairer economic map need not mean slower #growth. Bartlomiej Rokicki’s simulations in @regionalstudies.bsky.social find that shifting #EU funds towards poorer Polish regions cuts #inequality, measured by income dispersion by 12%, with a small national growth gain. doi.org/10.1080/0034...

Sometimes it is just good to celebrate😊. 441st worldwide in the Stanford/Elsevier #rankings, up from 685th last year. First in urban and regional planning for a fifth year. The only LSE researcher in the global top 500. Simply proud, happy & grateful. www.lse.ac.uk/geography-an...

When driving is unavoidable & there is no alternative, dearer fuel can carry a political cost. Lahunovich, @giuliomattioli.bsky.social, Varavallo & @filippobarbera.bsky.social link #fuel #vulnerability to the rise in far-right support in Energy Research & Social Science. doi.org/10.1016/j.er...

The next EU budget risks the right diagnosis but the wrong treatment. @cor.europa.eu’s 2026 State of #Regions and #Cities report warns that #Europe cannot build #competitiveness by ignoring the many places where manufacturing still grows. www.cor.europa.eu/en/plenaries... doi.org/10.1016/j.gc...

In regional development, better #institutions matter as much as more #investment. Cutrini, Carfora & Ninivaggi show in @rsa-rsrs.bsky.social that roads can be built, but prosperity also needs good institutions. Government quality is central to #development. doi.org/10.1080/2168...

The capacity to benefit from #development policy should be an outcome of that policy. Colozza, Bagarani & Salvati examine #productivity catch-up in ARS and find that, after the Great Recession, catch-up strengthened in #EU regions with weaker capabilities. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Unreliable harvests, lasting prosperity? @robertoezcurra.bsky.social, in The Annals of Regional Science, finds that European regions with more unstable preindustrial climates tend to be richer today. The possible link is centuries of adaptation. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

When trust is broken, the consequences reach far beyond politics. Lewczuk-Czerwińska, Zabarina & Śleszyński, link in European Planning Studies anti-establishment #voting to lower #COVID vaccination uptake in #Poland. doi.org/10.1080/0965...

A special economic zone (#SEZ) can be created by decree; a functioning economy takes far more work. Amaddeo, Bergantino & Fusco show in their new paper in the Journal of Regional Science@JRS83202671 how Italy’s southern #SEZ raised #investment but with limited #job gains. doi.org/10.1111/jors...

Governments that pass down responsibilities but keep the purse strings do not really devolve power. @pedroecongeog.bsky.social & @davidwglasgow.bsky.social explore the limits of #decentralisation in #England & #Portugal in @tesg-journal.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1111/tesg...

Putting #bureaucracy online can simply give the queue a password. Coluccia, Cattivelli & Barbieri show in the Annals of Regional Science that institutional capacity has no download button. Digitalisation alone does not ensure better #EU fund management. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

#Brazilelections, final count: #Flávio #Bolsonaro 47.0%, #Lula 45.2%. Among states that lost ground, the rich (#SãoPaulo, #Rio) backed Flávio Bolsonaro; the poor backed Lula. Stalled prosperity, not poverty, drives #discontent. doi.org/10.31389/lse... doi.org/10.1080/0013...

The EU’s #SRIP2026 is out and is a monster of a report—in the best sense: rigorous, well built and alive to challenges far beyond #innovation itself. Innovation is not the whole story, but Europe will solve very little without it. research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/knowledge-pu...

Administrative boundaries do not define #ecosystems. Fratesi & Vicari, writing in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social, trace ecosystems from actual firm ties. The policy sting: backing the #networks that work in #Italy may lift productivity but deepen regional divides. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

A well-deserved 2026 Jim Lewis Prize🏆for MacKinnon, Kinossian, Pike, Béal, Lang, Rousseau & Tomaney. Their EURS paper asks the awkward question: how new is “new” spatial policy? They find that new labels carry older intellectual luggage. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

GDP is a scoreline, not a match report. A region can win on output but lose on #housing, #health, trust or mobility. The key point for Ottaviani, L'Huillier & Argoud in @cjres.bsky.social is that what we measure shapes what policymakers see and in turn what they do. doi.org/10.1093/cjre...

European inventors made 21,245 never-before-seen technology combinations between 1987 and 2017. Fewer than four in ten were reused. Ocampo-Corrales & Moreno show in @econgeog-journal.bsky.social that survival depends, above all, on the region where the #invention is born. doi.org/10.1080/0013...

#Berlin's mainstream collapsed amid dynamism; #MecklenburgVorpommern's amid decline. There, the #CDU polled a pitiful 4.9%. Same verdict, opposite causes. Mainstream parties call this a communications problem. It isn't. It is #geography & political #neglect. www.intereconomics.eu/contents/yea...

In the global competitiveness game, #Europe holds cards its competitors envy. But it constantly talks itself into folding. @DijkstraLewis & I argue in @RSPP_RSAI that #competitiveness always begins with playing our own hand well. doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

#Ukraine’s post-war recovery needs more than a well-written plan. Federico Bartalucci’s @wiiw.ac.at paper with @U-LEAD with #Europe explains why local authority, skills & funding must turn strategy into delivery, particularly in the weaker communities of the country u-lead.org.ua/en/media?tab...

Sweden’s far right lost votes. Its geography barely moved. The correlation with the 2022 #Sweden Democrats vote is 0.98. So, the problem remains and the task now is to rebuild opportunity in places where confidence in the future has eroded. doi.org/10.1080/0013...

When skills exceed opportunities, the life prospects of individuals do not improve. Dentinho, Valiev, Valieva, Iskakova & Shaikin show in APJRS that, among 1,250 North #Kazakhstan graduates, #English proficiency did not lead to improvements in jobs. doi.org/10.1007/s416...

#Ukraine must rebuild more than roads and power grids. It must rebuild local capacity and trust. My new paper for the U-LEAD with Europe #decentralisation #reform project puts local capacity at the heart of reconstruction and #EU accession. u-lead.org.ua/en/media?tab...

In the #competitiveness game, #Europe holds good cards. The danger is that it is playing someone else’s hand. With Dijkstra in Regional Science Policy & Practice, we argue that, rather than chase #US & #China shadows, Europe must build on its strengths & strategic chokeholds. doi.org/10.1016/j.rs...

A place should not have to become somewhere else to deserve a future. @gretegans.bsky.social & @stefaniafiorentino.bsky.social, writing in @regionalstudies.bsky.social, argue that prescribing metropolitan #growth to every region mistakes one model for a universal cure. doi.org/10.1080/0034...

Europe’s #competitiveness depends on the potential of all its regions. Cuadrado-Roura's new review in the Journal of Regional Research shows why #CohesionPolicy matters and why #Europe needs #investment that improves the prospects of all its citizens, wherever they live. doi.org/10.38191/iir...

Sunday’s #AfD victory makes the politics of struggling places harder to ignore. @gjwestenberger.bsky.social in @actapolitica.bsky.social finds, however, that frustration has more than one electoral outlet, with stronger #SPD support in places failing to secure better #jobs. doi.org/10.1057/s412...

Saxony-Anhalt lost a quarter of its people. Yet turnout rose from 60.3% to 77.8%, and the #AfD more than doubled its vote share to 43.8%, three seats short of a majority. Political neglect carries a hefty price. And, increasingly, the bill arrives at the ballot box. #SachsenAnhalt

Economic convergence may be #health policy by another name. Bayerlein shows in @spatialeconomic.bsky.social that #EU regions which actually converged saw far smaller #mortality increases during #COVID-19. Funding alone did little; development did the work. doi.org/10.1080/1742...

Investing in places means, above all, investing in their institutions. Scotti, Caporali & @d-luca.bsky.social show in the Journal of Regional Science how good #institutions make public money go further. doi.org/10.1111/jors...

A place can lack research labs and still possess ingenuity. Kagel, Sternberg and Friedrich explore everyday #SME learning and how #innovation happens in lagging behind regions in their new paper in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Politicians can cut the ribbon on a #research centre. However, without impartial #government, it may never fulfil its promise. This is the main conclusion reached by Román Aso, Coca-Villalba & Bosch-Frigola in R&FS: Southern Europe’s #R&D gap is also an institutional gap. doi.org/10.1080/1359...

#Innovation in micro firms is not science or practice, but science with practice. Martins Gonçalves & Laranja find in European Planning Studies that 56% of those micro #firms surveyed innovated, often by combining #STI and #DUI. doi.org/10.1080/0965...

Nearly half of #Europe’s new #jobs since 2000 came from #welfare services. But, as Pavolini, @luigiburr.bsky.social, @darioraspanti.bsky.social & @envamc.bsky.social show in @socioeconreview.bsky.social, welfare is a growth engine in some regions but a fallback in others. doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

#Iceland’s No has a stark #geography: #Reykjavík voted Yes; every other constituency voted No. Recent #growth cannot explain the divide. The longer story —demographic decline, centralisation and lost local control— fits far better. doi.org/10.1093/cjre... doi.org/10.1080/0013...

Delighted that my great friend —and scholar of the highest rank— André Torre has won the 2026 ERSA Prize. His work on #proximity, knowledge diffusion and #innovation has transformed #RegionalScience. His wonderful #ERSA2026 keynote in #Sofia kept us thinking. Thoroughly earned and celebrated.

A few immensely rewarding days at #ERSA2026 have come to an end: thought-provoking papers and keynotes, inspiring young scholars, flawless organisation, and, above all, enormous fun. #Sofia won me over. Warmest thanks to ERSA & Kosyo Stoychev. Roll on #ERSA2027 in #Milan!

America’s middle has not merely been squeezed; it has been physically separated from the highly skilled. Frigon & Storper show in JoEG how #America is sorting itself apart, with high- and low-skilled sharing major #cities & the middle moving elsewhere. doi.org/10.1093/jeg/...

Social #innovation follows the geography of relationships, not patents. Berti Mecocci, Dellisanti & Maghssudipour show in @regionalstudies.bsky.social that density matters. And that public funding matters most where #density is low. doi.org/10.1080/0034...

How a region joins a global value chain decides who gets rich from it. @martinapardy.bsky.social & @eduherro.bsky.social find in their new ARS paper that, in #Europe, forward participation in #GVCs, swells #incomes at the very top while backward participation does not. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Europe’s #cities keep spreading even when their populations don't. Alexandra Sandu shows in @urbanstudiesjournal.com that 44.2% of European cities have expanded beyond what their demographic paths predicted. #Population decline no longer guarantees less urban #growth. doi.org/10.1177/0042...

#Europe cannot choose between #competitiveness and #cohesion. Casas, Christou, @abigarrod.bsky.social, Lazarou, Lecca, Monfort & Salotti show in @jcms-eu.bsky.social that while mission-led funding raises long-run GDP, place-based funding creates more than twice as many #jobs. doi.org/10.1111/jcms...

China’s innovation has two engines but one destination: STI and DUI both drive new products, not business-process #innovation. Parrilli & Lu show in JEE that, although #China excels at inventing products, it struggles at modernising how firms work. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

#Italy’s map of disadvantage is widening. Begantino, Caravaggio, Intini & Resce count 4,608 municipalities losing access to #schools, #hospitals & transport in 2025 in their new Review of Political Economy article. The Italian state is spending, but still receding. doi.org/10.1080/0953...

The Washington Consensus treated policy like scripture. Besley & Velasco offer in @globalpolicy.bsky.social a more adult #economics for a more volatile age. #Growth matters, but so do place, dignity, resilience, politics and state capacity. People do not live in a vacuum. doi.org/10.1111/1758...

Europe's #circular transition is expected to create 700,000 new #jobs. But, according to Fantechi & Mazzola in European Urban and Regional Studies, these jobs will not be created in places where jobs are lost, but in regions that have little tradition of circular activity. doi.org/10.1177/0969...

As #Europe pivots to competitiveness & security, effective #green spending matters more, not less. Yet, as Aliana, Balaguer-Coll, Prior & Tortosa-Ausina show, #EU regions converge in eco-productivity once national and regional government quality is recognised. doi.org/10.1016/j.se...