An empirical assessment of the contribution of clusters to smart specialisation

The study will review existing literature on the effects of specialisation in clusters on firm performance. As the main focus it will perform an empirical analysis of firm performance differences inside and outside of clusters. Based on these findings the study will link it to the current cluster debate. The study was commissioned in the context of the European Competitiveness Framework Contract led by WIFO and is executed by the project partners Ecorys (Belgium) and SPI (Portugal).