Time should tell (more): evolutionary economic geography and the challenge of history

Abstract

Evolutionary economic geography theory stresses the importance of time and history to explain the evolution of regional economies. Yet, consistent empirical treatment of longitudinal patterns of regional evolution has largely escaped the focus of this new approach. There is much work in progress, which suggests that a deepening of the historical perspective is the next natural step in a further development of evolutionary economic geography. However, there are also theoretical, empirical and methodological challenges to 'taking evolutionary economic geography historical'. In this endeavour, much could be gained from insights from time-geography, economic history and the literature on longitudinal methodologies.

Towards a comprehensive understanding of new regional industrial path development

“…Pillar 3: Towards integrating the future Expectations have been largely ignored in the economic geography literature on new path development, although they potentially play a key role (Steen, 2016a(Steen, , 2016b. Particularly, the EEG literature has strongly emphasized routines and history (see Henning, 2018, for an insightful critical discussion of the treatment of time and history within EEG frameworks) conditioning new path development, and by doing so it ignored expectations, visions and conventions. Steen (2016aSteen ( , 2016b and Steen & Hansen (2018) have recently paid attention to this topic.…”

Introduction to the Handbook on Regional Economic Resilience

“…One of the key questions facing scholars surrounds the types of shock that regional economies should be resilient to, and over what timescales. This highlights how critical studies of economic resilience can contribute to wider debates in Evolutionary Economic Geography (Henning, 2019) and progress understanding of how economic processes work across territories more broadly. An increasingly prominent debate in the resilience literature considers the distributional dimension to resilience outcomes, asking the challenging question of 'resilience for whom?'.…”

El papel de las políticas públicas en la resiliencia regional: un análisis exploratorio del caso del País Vasco

“…Tratamos de responder a pregunta de investigación básica deste traballo, cal é a relación entre a resiliencia dunha rexión e as súas políticas de desenvolvemento económico, a través dun estudo de caso rexional -o País Vasco-cunha perspectiva lonxitudinal -histórica-e holística, adecuada á natureza dependente do contexto, do espazo e da historia tanto da resiliencia como do proceso de deseño e aplicación das políticas públicas (David, 2018;Evenhuis, 2017;Flanagan e Uyarra, 2016;Henning, 2019;Kakderi e Tasapoulou, 2017;Kay, 2006;Navarro, Valdaliso, Aranguren e Magro, 2014;Witt, 2003).…”

“…Porén, e aínda que a relación entre políticas de innovación e resiliencia rexionais pareza evidente desde estas aproximacións, é un dos temas menos explorados na literatura, sobre todo adoptando unha perspectiva histórica (Henning, 2019). De feito, esta relación pode non ser unidireccional, e está condicionada polas diferentes dimensións do concepto de resiliencia e pola complexidade inherente das políticas rexionais de innovación.…”