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This research note contains the third update of the research program “A promised land? Drivers, challenges and opportunities related to the (green) industrialization of Northern Sweden,” (nr. M22-0029) awarded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s in 2022. The document summarizes work in progress and is updated annually in different versions according to the requirements of the program. 

This interdisciplinary program aims to understand the economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities of the ongoing industrial transformation in northern Sweden. A key element of the program is to identify drivers, obstacles, and preconditions in a historical, present, and forward-looking process-perspective. 

Recently family firms seen a delicate renewed interest in regional science, regional studies and economic geography and similarly, spatial and regional contexts have been addressed in family business studies. Those strands are driven by interest in the heterogeneity of family firms as the most common type of organization all over the world (family spatialities) and the heterogeneity of spatial and regional context as a significant selection filter for the behavior and performance of family firms (spatial familiness). This editorial addresses these unique settings of family firms and the nature of spatial/regional contexts in a greater depth, by providing a concise literature overview on contextualizing research, by presenting a star shaped model to systemize research around spatial and regional contexts, and by suggesting further research directions. Our proposed star-shaped model frames a holistic view on spatial and regional contexts though a scientific agenda that differentiates between theoretical explanations and modelling (spatial concepts), empirical descriptions and analyses (spatial factors, spatial structures, spatial settings), and policy recommendations (spatial policies). These elements are shaped by scalar (spatial frames) and temporal frames (spatial processes). Most of these spatial building blocks and their interplay are explored by the articles in this special issue.

The continued reliance on cars presents a challenge for sustainable mobility policy. A wide range of approaches exists to address this issue, from promoting more sustainable vehicle options to replacing cars altogether. However, national sustainable mobility policies related to car use often suffer from spatial blindness – which implies a limited contextual differentiation based on the specific characteristics of the area in which they are implemented. Enhancing policy differentiation may improve policy effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the literature on sustainable mobility policies and explore practical approaches to achieving greater policy differentiation, using Sweden as a pilot case. Our findings suggest that existing sustainable mobility policies, typically based on a common urbanrural distinction, can be adapted to a spatially differentiated spectrum that considers variations in population density. This study contributes a practice-oriented perspective to the discussion on policy differentiation, articulated through a policy model that integrates quantitative analysis and a literature review. Additionally, it provides a review of potential sustainable mobility policy measures and examines their applicability across different spatial contexts.

Over the years, family business and regional science scholars have developed an interest in exploring andunderstanding the relationship between the two research fields, typically, on how they influence eachother. In this article, we build on the family business and the regional context to question and explorehow family firms are locally embedded. We argue that the importance of local embeddedness offamily firms cannot be fully understood without untangling how and what family firms are locallyembedded in. Drawing on the relational spatial ontology and familial factors, and within the regionaldevelopment framework, we propose typologies of family firms’ relational spaces, thereafter, familialspaces – cognitive familial space, institutional familial space, social familial space, organisationalfamilial space and clientele/communal familial space. Where we define familial spaces as the relationalnetworks of varied functional relationships enabled by familial factors at the disposal of family firmsto explore. Based on a multidisciplinary perspective, we offer a specification of familial space andexplore how the regional context and family governance system can influence the familial spaces. Wemaintain that family firms whose resources and productive activities are anchored in specific localplaces, and who themselves are locally attached, may be more likely than any other organisationaltype to influence familial spaces to influence their (non) economic goals. We propose suggestions forfuture research.

Promoting Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) aims to increase the productive capacities of farmer households. Under FMNR, farmers select and manage natural regeneration on farmlands and keep them under production. While FMNR contributes to the wealth of farming communities, its contribution to household food security has rarely been researched. We, therefore, used a mixed-methods approach to address the research gap by measuring FMNR’s contribution to food security among farmer households in the Talensi district of Ghana. We adopted the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) and Food Consumption Score (FCS) to estimate food security status among 243 FMNR farmer households and 243 non-FMNR farmer households. Also, we performed a Chi-square test of independence to compare the frequency of each food group (present vs not present) between FMNR adopters and non-FMNR adopters to establish the relationship between adopting FMNR and consuming the FCS and HDDS food groups. Our results reveal that FMNR farmer households are more food secure than non-FMNR farmer households. The HHDS of the FMNR farmer households was 9.6, which is higher than the target value of 9.1. Conversely, the HHDS of the non-FMNR farmer households was 4.3, which is lower than the target value of 9.1. Up to 86% and 37% of the FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer households fell within acceptable FCS; 15% and 17% of FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer households fell within borderline FCS. While none of the FMNR farmer households fell within poor FCS, 46% of non-FMNR farmer households fell within poor FCS. Adopting FMNR is significantly related to consuming all food groups promoted and benefiting from FMNR practices. The paper recommends enabling farmers in semi-arid environments to practice and invest in FMNR for long-term returns to food security.

A previous publication advocated for integrating decolonial perspectives as a transversal principle to the practice and progress of economic geography (Morales, 2024). In this paper, we propose tools to achieve this goal, highlighting the opportunities that the expansion and diversification of the subdiscipline presents for doing so, anecdotally, we observe increased representation of women and individuals from diverse backgrounds at major conferences, in graduate schools, and as early career researchers (we are yet to witness such diversification at more advanced career stages). This presents a great opportunity to expand our theorisations, engage with different expertise and backgrounds, and learn from different geographies. However, diversifying the pool of economic geographers is not enough, we need to challenge, revise, and transform the structures, practices, and ideologies that have perpetuated colonial legacies in the areas of theory, curriculum and pedagogy, methodology, and the dissemination of research, in both education and practice. This may be an uncomfortable and lengthy, but necessary task. Here we propose some ideas on how to start.

Recent large investments in northern Sweden connected to the green transition – primarily within mining and manufacturing (fossil-free steel, batteries) – have led to substantial increases in local demand for labour. In a territory with low unemployment and a decreasing labour supply due to ageing and a history of net outmigration, there is a substantial risk that this increased labour demand will, particularly in the short term, draw at least to some extent from the public sector.

Against this backdrop, the chapter examines the dynamic effects of employment expansion in the mining and manufacturing industries on public sector employment in northern Sweden during the period 1990–2019. It also analyses which factors affect the probability of a worker leaving the public sector for a job in manufacturing or mining.

Our results suggest that the expansion of manufacturing and, in particular, mining has a negative short-term effect on public sector employment. The largest effect is attributable to poaching from public administration, with education and health less affected. Assuming a linear trend based on previous labour market interdependencies, a three standard deviation increase in mining (about 2,700 new jobs) and manufacturing (about 10,800 new jobs) could potentially lead to 8% of the current public administration workforce being poached. The results also indicate that younger individuals, low- and high-income earners, and those highly educated in the social or technical sciences are the most likely to leave the public sector. In the longer perspective, these vacancies go on to be filled by skilled but inexperienced workers.

A number of policy implications arise from the above findings. First, given the regional dimension of job mobility, policy-makers should consider how large investments influence the other parts of a regional economy, rather than simply attending to the immediate demands of focal industries. Second, while the poaching of public sector employees will inevitably occur, the functioning of the public sector also hinges on the supply of workers entering the labour market. There is therefore a pressing need to bolster the status of key public sector jobs and improve working conditions, thereby ensuring they are regarded as viable career opportunities when mining and manufacturing expands. The public sector should also ensure that it is in a position to attract and retain workers crowded out of the mining and manufacturing in the event of future rationalisation. Third, general policy interventions may not serve local needs, especially the spatial mismatch of available jobs and supply of workers. Support for relocation tailored to local demands is therefore crucial.

This article examines the impact of establishing a large industrial manufacturing entity on employment and the labor market in a remote, sparsely populated part of Sweden, focusing on how it affects total regional employment because industrial policies aiming to attract investment and reignite employment in stagnating regions have been a central policy tool. The empirical analysis is based on the synthetic control method, which enables the estimation of place-specific causal effects. Using aggregated microdata from 1995 to 2019, the results indicate that employment in the treated region, as compared to synthetic regions, has been negatively affected by the manufacturing establishment. However, the short- and long-term effects differ across different labor market segments (same, related, and unrelated industries) and according to firm size. Overall, the findings suggest that large manufacturing investment does not necessarily have a positive or instantaneous impact on total regional employment. It does, however, provide some potential for long-term diversification because employment in related activities grows in the long run.