Assessment and recommendations

The OECD Regional Outlook (2011) highlights that while often policies support growth in the large hub regions of a country, more of aggregate OECD growth comes from the other regions collectively (approximately two-thirds). For example, Central and Southern Denmark combined contributed more to Denmark’s GDP growth (1998-2008) than did the Capital Region (42.7% versus 37.3%). In the context of Denmark’s slowed productivity growth, spatially blind policies may not address the complementarities of the different growth drivers in each region. Therefore efforts to strengthen both the capacity for national policies to facilitate these complementarities, as well as the ability of the regions themselves to support strengths and remove bottlenecks, contribute to national growth goals.