Focus on Regional Economics

The topics discussed were very diverse and dealt, for example, with the effects of flood events on urban housing prices, the influence of intellectual property rights protection on competition between companies or the link between transport infrastructure and productivity.

As one of the highlights of the event Professor Riccardo Crescenzi of the London School of Economics gave a key note speech which covered a fascinating range of topics from the regional effects of foreign direct investment to the results of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, which were significantly influenced by economic development at the local and regional level.

Professor Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, the workshop's honorary patron and regular participant, is a member of the Department of Economics and the Department of Geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and has published numerous scientific papers in the field of regional economics. In 1989, he founded the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL), which he served as director until his recent retirement. REAL provides prospective regional economists with an ideal environment to start their research careers, supported and mentored by internationally renowned scientists. Several WIFO-researchers have also been visiting REAL over the last years. Persistently ignoring his retirement, Hewings still travels around the world year by year, working with and inspiring a large number of promising young economists. He has also been a member of the International Board of WIFO and is a long-standing associate of the Institute.