ABSTRACT
In the national and international media the regional economy of Styria is associated with the successful and dynamic development of its automobile cluster. The Styrian economy faced severe structural problems as regional output decreased dramatically and the rate of unemployment rose. Five branches of the Styrian economy can be seen as cluster industries. These clusters either have strong regional input linkages or are characterised by relatively high growth rates in output and employment. Altogether the clusters have significantly higher shares of knowledge-intensive collaborative links with other firms and the regional RTD infrastructure than the average for Styrian industry as a whole. At the beginning of the 1990s, a new philosophy for economic policy was developing in Styria, growing out of the experience of the crisis in the Upper Styrian steel industry. On the basis of this new philosophy for regional policy, two clusters have been developed in Styria: the automobile cluster; and the wood cluster.
