Startups are typically concentrated in major urban centers, while their presence in peripheral regions remains limited, raising important questions about the spatial distribution of innovation and entrepreneurship. This study investigates how different types of startups respond to disparities in regional ecosystem factors, with a focus on the role of support mechanisms in shaping location decisions. We conducted a survey of 202 startups, including 157 located in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and 45 in the peripheral city of Be’er-Sheva. The survey assessed startup typologies such as innovation strategy, international orientation, and R&D intensity, alongside perceptions of the importance and availability of key ecosystem resources. Logistic regression analysis indicated that startups in peripheral regions rely more heavily on government financial support, pointing to a structural market failure that requires targeted policy intervention. In contrast, startups in central regions benefit from stronger proximity-based advantages, particularly collaboration with suppliers and consumers. Startups engaged in open innovation or with international links were especially dependent on external ecosystem resources. These findings highlight the need for differentiated, evidence-based policies to support entrepreneurial activity in peripheral regions, strengthen local innovation ecosystems, and promote more balanced patterns of regional economic development.

This study investigates how behavioral interventions affect prosocial decision-making in dictator and trust games, examining immediate and persistent effects. We conducted a two-round experiment with five treatments (defaults, sanctions, social norms, anchoring, moral persuasion) vs control, separated by an unrelated task to measure persistence. We explored how self-efficacy and gender moderate treatment effectiveness. Sanctions were initially most effective for increasing prosocial behavior across both games. When interventions were removed in round two, sanctions continued influencing trust game participants but showed gender-specific patterns in the dictator game, with effects observed only among women. Social norms affected only women across both rounds, significantly in the Trust Game and marginally in the Dictator Game. Additionally, we found self-efficacy and moral persuasion interactions among women only: higher self-efficacy increased giving in the dictator game but decreased giving in the trust game, with effects persisting into round two. No significant relationships emerged for men. Our findings demonstrate important policy implications. While sanctions effectively promote immediate prosocial behavior, interventions affect demographic groups differently. Understanding these differential impacts is crucial for policymakers evaluating behavioral intervention outcomes, suggesting that effective regulatory design must account for individual characteristics rather than assuming universal responses across populations.

Israel's National Health Insurance system exhibits persistent regional disparities in health outcomes. In 2010, the government reformed its capitation formula to allocate additional funding to Health Plans (HPs) serving peripheral communities, aiming to reduce these disparities. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the 2010 capitation reform in narrowing regional health gaps, as measured by self-reported health (SRH). Using a DiD research design and longitudinal panel data, we analyzed SRH data from the Israeli Social Survey, which includes approximately 7500 individual respondents annually. Aggregation across 15 sub-districts over 21 years (2002-2022) yielded 315 sub-district-year observations for the DiD analysis. The CBS peripherality index served as the treatment variable. Regression models included sub-district and year fixed effects and controlled for relevant sociodemographic characteristics. Regional differences in self-reported health between peripheral and non-peripheral areas widened during the post-2010 period. Prior to 2010, disparities had shown signs of narrowing, but this pattern reversed thereafter, with non-peripheral regions experiencing relatively greater improvements in SRH. The findings indicate that regional disparities in self-reported health, which had narrowed prior to 2010, widened again during the post-2010 period, suggesting that capitation adjustments alone may be insufficient without broader workforce, infrastructure, and effective policy implementation.