(Un-)Related Variety and Employment Growth at the Sub-Regional Level

Empirical results on the link between growth and diversity in (un-)related industries proved to be highly dependent on the specific regional and temporal context. Making use of highly disaggregated employment data at the sub-regional level, we find that higher employment growth in Austria is mainly linked to unrelated variety. However, in-depth analyses by sectors and regional regimes illustrate substantial heterogeneity in the results, mainly driven by the service sector and by a large number of relatively small regions. Thus, our results argue against structural policy conclusions based on assessments across all economic sectors or different types of regions.