Marie-Benoît Magrini

Marshall's versus Jacobs' Externalities in Firm Innovation Performance: The Case of French Industry

Galliano D., Magrini M.-B. and Triboulet P. Marshalls versus Jacobs’ externalities in firm innovation performance: the case of French industry, Regional Studies. This paper analyses the influence of different types of spatial externalities related to the location of firms on their innovation performance and how those externalities combine in the territories with regard to the Marshall–Jacobs dichotomy. The originality of this study also lies in the consideration of a larger definition of the firm, one that takes into account the location of all its units. Based on a dataset of French industrial firms and specific indicators to evaluate the specialization and/or diversification of the employment zones, the impacts of the spatial profile of the firm on its innovation performance are tested.

Job Qualification, Distance between Towns and Geographical Relocation for French Youth

Geographical mobility of professionally active youth is often considered as an attribute of the most qualified among them. Nevertheless, joint consideration of geographical relocation at an infraregional scale and of the distance travelled in migration between cities shows that the spatial mobility of youth towards the least-qualified jobs is not only non-negligible, but displays substantial amplitude. Even so, mobility behaviour still differs according to the qualification level of the targeted employment and is particularly dependent on territorial characteristics as well.

PULSES FOR SUSTAINABILITY: BREAKING AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECTORS OUT OF LOCK-IN

Crop diversification can improve the sustainability of Western agriculture. In particular, pulses are crops that can help both agriculture and the food industry more ecological, as they reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offer opportunities to reduce animal-based food consumption. However, the development of those crops in Europe remains locked-in by major crops that have been co-developed to a greater extent both in farming and food systems. After recalling the major mechanisms that lead to this lock-in, this article proposes to adopt a co-evolution framework to tackle with a dual transition of both agriculture and food systems. We question how the current societal trends in the agrifood system offer new opportunities for pulses, and how simultaneous changes both in production and consumption can occur to facilitate this dual transition. Based on various insights from the literature, and some points of views from stakeholders in France - taken here as examples - we argue that to develop pulses, strong support is required from public institutions to coordinate and guide the multiple actors involved in the same direction.

Socio-technical lock-in hinders crop diversification in France

Crop diversification is considered as a major lever to increase the sustainability of arable farming systems, allowing reduced inputs (irrigation water, pesticides, fertilizers), increasing the heterogeneity of habitat mosaics, or reducing yield gap associated with too frequent returns of the same species. To free up paths of collective action, this article highlights obstacles to crop diversification, existing at various levels of the value chains. We used a threefold approach: (i) a cross-cutting analysis of impediments to the development of 11 diversifying crops (5 species of grain legumes, alfalfa, flax, hemp, linseed, mustard, sorghum), based on published documents and on 30 interviews of stakeholders in French value chains; (ii) a detailed study (55 semi-structured surveys, including 39 farmers) of three value chains: pea and linseed for animal feed, hemp for insulation and biomaterials; and (iii) a bibliometric analysis of the technical journals and websites (180 articles) to characterize the nature of information diffused to farmers. We highlight that the development of minor crops is hindered by a socio-technical lock-in in favor of the dominant species (wheat, rapeseed, maize, etc.). We show for the first time that this lock-in is characterized by strongly interconnected impediments, occurring at every link of the value chains, such as lack of availability of improved varieties and methods of plant protection, scarcity of quantified references on crop successions, complexity of the knowledge to be acquired by farmers, logistical constraints to harvest collection, and difficulties of coordination within the emerging value chains. On the basis of this lock-in analysis, that could concern other European countries, the article proposes levers aimed at encouraging actors to incorporate a greater diversity of crops into their productive systems: adaptation of standards and labelling, better coordination between stakeholders to fairly share added value within value chains, and combination of genetic, agronomic, technological, and organizational innovations.