Externalities, Learning and Governance: New Perspectives on Local Economic Development

Abstract

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.

Quelle gouvernance pour les réseaux territorialisés d'organisations ?

“…Il est cependant aujourd'hui établi qu'une meilleure compréhension et un effort de formalisation des structures et modalités de gouvernance sont nécessaires pour assurer la pérennité et la compétitivité des réseaux territorialisés (Benassi, 1995 ;Helmsing, 2001 ;Alberti, 2001 ;Mendez, 2005).…”

Geographic Concentration of Business Services Firms: A Poisson Sorting Model

“…Previous studies that focus on manufacturing firms sometimes find small or no effects of specialisation (see Guimarães et al, 2004;Woodward et al, 2006). It may be expected that manufacturing firms do not rely on other manufacturing firms nearby, but more on specialised business services in vicinity, as they offer access to local market information, technology and skills (Helmsing, 2001). In our study, however, access to specialist services is fully captured by our specialisation measure, which indeed is positively valued by business services firms.…”

La economía política institucional del desarrollo local: dos cuentos de turismo en Brasil

“…El proceso en ambos casos no consiste en generar sinergias, un supuesto implícito en muchos estudios sobre gobernanza local (Helmsing, 2001), sino una lucha entre diferentes intereses y visiones.…”