In spite of growing mobility of production and production factors, economic development is increasingly localized in economic agglomerations. This article reviews three partially overlapping perspectives on local economic development, which derive from three factors intensifying the localized nature of economic development: externalities, learning and governance. Externalities play a central role in the new geographical economics of Krugman and in new economic geography of clusters and industrial districts. The dynamics of local economic development are increasingly associated with evolutionary economic thinking in general and with collective learning in particular. Inter-firm and extra-firm organization has experienced considerable innovation in the last few decades. New institutional devices are based on the notions of commodity chain, cluster and milieu. These innovations introduce new issues of economic governance both at the level of industry and of territory.
Twenty years after apartheid was formally abolished, black handicraft exporters in Cape Town still innovate significantly less than their white counterparts. This study explains these differences based on the segmentation of business and innovation systems, a novel approach that aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of path dependency in South Africa. The study concludes that the business system is segmented between formal and informal firms and that such segmentation is correlated with race. Despite path dependency, a group of black entrepreneurs has managed to breach the barriers, owing to the ongoing support of an intermediate organisation, intense networking and risk-taking.
The Institute of Social Studies organised a seminar on the NIEO and UNCTAD IV from October 21st-23rd. This had been requested by the UNCTAD Secretariat as part of a world-wide attempt to (i) promote more active participation by intellectuals and other interested groups in the preparation of UNCTAD IV, and (ii) create enlightened public support for the development issues which will be dealt with at UNCTAD IV. The seminar was attended by more than 100 Dutch experts and people from research institutions, business enterprises, trade unions, political parties, government organisations, action groups and mass media.The plenary session was opened by the Rector ad interim of the Institute, Professor J. G. M. Hilhorst, who outlined a theoretical framework in which the NIEO could be discussed. Professor Tinbergen then elaborated his project 'Reviewing the liiternational Order' and posed a series of inter-related questions, the answers to which would constitute the building blocks for the new order.Participants were then divided into five working groups, each concerned with a crucial problem area about which papers had been written and distributed in advance.Working Group I dealt with the world food problem, the most appalling aspect of underdevelopment, on the basis of a quantitative model prepared by a research group from the Free University of Amsterdam. In view of the fact that the situation can only be improved by a substantive increase in food production in the poor countries, Working Group I was of the opinion that traditional food aid should be given only as a short-run measure; all effort should be concentrated on achieving a stable price level that is high enough to enhance production but not so high as to increase the hunger of the poorest strata in the developing countries. This will require the establishment of international buffer stocks. Rich countries should maintain the higher price level by manipulating their imports and exports, i.e. by an internal agricultural policy by which quantities produced could be controlled
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.