The industrial rise of the Third Italy: Open windows of locational opportunity?

The article aims to test a theoretical concept (the Window of Locational Opportunity concept) which provides a particular perspective with respect to the key problem in economic geography of how to explain the ability of regions to generate or apply new technology. In short, this WLO-concept holds the view that windows of locational opportunity tend to open up in the event of new techno-industrial development: these are likely to provide opportunities of industrial development for both leading and backward regions. This is because the impact of space may be unpredictable and rather weak for several reasons: there is likely to be a poor match with the new requirements of new techno-industrial activities, their creative ability may safeguard their development in unfavourable places, while local conditions favourable to their development are likely to be of a generic nature. Following the principles behind this theoretical concept, we present a long-term spatial analysis of Italy, which aims to explain the industrial rise of the Third Italy region in the post-war period. It attempts to assess empirically the impact of spatial conditions (including culture) on the industrial rise of the so-called Third Italy region during its initial stage of development in the 1950s and 1960s. A regression technique has been used to determine which of many potential factors (for instance, culture, industrial specialization, infrastructure and low-cost, flexible labour) in the 1950s could be held responsible for the particular type of industrial development in the Third Italy area, which was based on dense networks of flexible, strongly related, small and medium-sized firms in craft-based industries (clothing, ceramics) in a number of specialized industrial districts. By doing so, we focus attention on the extent to which the industrial rise of the Third Italy region was a rather accidental event that could also have occurred in other regions such as the First Italy (the industrial heartland of the North) and the Second Italy (the backward South). The preliminary results at this stage of the analysis tend to point out that the cultural dimension makes the difference: this particular type of industrial development took place in the Third Italy region because of a local culture of entrepreneurship and cooperation which seems to be lacking to some degree in the other regions in Italy.

Evolutionary economic geography and its implications for regional innovation policy

Related variety is important to regional growth because it induces knowledge transfer between complementary sectors at the regional level. This is accomplished through three mechanisms: spinoff dynamics, labor mobility and network formation. They transfer knowledge across related sectors, which contributes to industrial renewal and economic branching in regions. Since these mechanisms of knowledge transfer are basically taking place at the regional level, and because they make regions move into new growth paths while building on their existing assets, regional innovation policy should encourage spinoff activity, labor mobility and network formation. Doing so, policy builds on region-specific assets that provides opportunities but also sets limits to what can be achieved by policy. Public intervention should neither apply Îone-size-fits-allÌ approaches nor adopt Îpicking-the- winnerÌ strategies, but should aim to connect complementary sectors and exploit related variety as a source of regional diversification.related variety, evolutionary economic geography, regional innovation systems, regional growth

The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography

This aim of this paper is to present the objectives and scope of an evolutionary approach to economic geography. We argue that the goal is not only to utilise the concepts and ideas from evolutionary economics (and evolutionary thinking more broadly) to help interpret and explain how the economic landscape changes over historical time, but also to reveal how situating the economy in space adds to our understanding of the processes that drive economic evolution, that is to say, to demonstrate how geography matters in determining the nature and trajectory of evolution of the economic system. We will argue that evolutionary economic geography is concerned with the spatialities of economic novelty; with how the spatial structures of the economy emerge from the micro-behaviours of economic agents; with how, in the absence of central coordination or direction, the economic landscape exhibits self-organisation; and with how the processes of path creation and path dependence interact to shape geographies of economic development and transformation, and why and how such processes may themselves be place dependent. Economic transformation proceeds differently in different places, and the mechanisms involved neither originate nor operate evenly across space. Our concern is both with the ways in which the forces making for economic change, adaptation and novelty shape and reshape the geographies of wealth creation, work and welfare, and with how the spatial structures and features so produced themselves feed back to influence the forces driving economic evolution. In the final part, we summarize a number of papers that have contributed to evolutionary economic geography, and which will be published in The Handbook on Evolutionary Economic Geography that is edited by the two authors, and forthcoming at Edward Elgar.evolutionary economic geography, industry location, geography of networks, institutions, agglomeration economies

The Window of locational opportunity-concept

This article aims to set out a theoretical concept, i.e. the Window of Locational Opportunity concept, which accounts for notions like indeterminacy, human agency and historical accidents when explaining the spatial pattern of newly emerging industries.\ud We will state that their spatial formation does probably not reveal predictable tendencies of necessity and regularity during their initial stage of development, because structures, conditions and capabilities laid down in the past are unlikely to determine their spatial manifestation. Potential impacts of space are considered to be highly unpredictable: latent triggers or incentives providing opportunities and/or challenges are manifold, while the selection environment may operate only very weakly. As a consequence, we will claim that notions of human agency and accidents are necessitated to `explain' the spatial pattern of new industries. Because there is much uncertainty about the site where new industries will emerge, windows of locational opportunity tend to open up in the event of newly emerging industries: this theoretical concept holds the view that the long-term evolution of the spatial system is potentially, but not necessarily unstable

The emerging empirics of evolutionary economic geography

Following last decade’s programmatic papers on Evolutionary Economic Geography, we report on recent empirical advances and how this empirical work can be positioned vis-à-vis other strands of research in economic geography. First, we review studies on the path dependent nature of clustering, and how the evolutionary perspective relates to that of New Economic Geography. Second, we discuss research on agglomeration externalities in Regional Science, and how Evolutionary Economic Geography contributed to this literature with the concepts of cognitive proximity and related variety. Third, we go into the role of institutions in Evolutionary Economic Geography, and we relate this to the way Institutional Economic Geography tends to view institutions. From this discussion, a number of new research challenges are derived.evolutionary economic geography, clusters, related variety, institutions

The Spatial Evolution of Innovation Networks: A Proximity Perspective

We propose an evolutionary perspective on the geography of network formation that is grounded in a dynamic proximity framework. In doing so, we root the proximity concept in an evolutionary approach to the geography of innovation networks. We discuss three topics. The first topic focuses on explaining the structure of networks. The second topic concentrates on explaining the effects of networks on the performance of actors. The third topic deals with the changing role of proximity dimensions in the formation and performance of innovation networks in the longer run.evolutionary economic geography, knowledge networks, innovation networks, dynamic proximity

Why is Economic Geography not an Evolutionary Science?

This paper explains the main commonalities and differences between neoclassical, institutional and evolutionary approaches that have been influential in economic geography during the last couple of decades. For all three approaches, we argue that they are in agreement in some respects and in conflict in other respects. While explaining to what extent and in what ways the Evolutionary Economic Geography approach differs from the Neoclassical (or ‘new’) Economic Geography and the Institutional Economic Geography, we can specify the value-added of economic geography as an evolutionary science. Finally, we briefly outline a research agenda of the Evolutionary Economic Geography we like to explore.

How to explain the spatial evolution of new industries? The spatial evolution of the Dutch ICT industry

In the paper, we concentrate on one of the most challenging issues of economic geography, that is, how to explain and analyze the evolution of the spatial pattern of new industries. First, we review the literature concerning this issue. Various theoretical frameworks provide an explanation for the spatial evolution of new industries. One view is that the spatial ordering of industry is preordained by geographical endowments, transport possibilities and firms' needs. Weberian location theory, for example, assumes that new technologies develop most rapidly in those regions where their static, pre-given locational needs are most consistent with existing local factors. Another view criticizes such an idea of a preordained spatial pattern. According to the 'window of locational opportunity' view, it overlooks the possibility that (new) needs of new high-tech industries are not there from the outset but come into being as these industries develop. New high-tech firms require new resources (such as knowledge, skills, institutions) that are unlikely to be available in space. The firms have to create their own mechanisms to satisfy their needs and turn 'generic' resources (e.g. basic knowledge and skills) into 'specific' ones (e.g. specialized knowledge and skills). This approach leaves room for the existence of historical accidents in the spatial formation of new industries. New high tech firms are assumed to select their first location based on 'generic' resources and these are expected to be widely available in space. Finally, we discuss a few analytical issues that take up the question whether the spatial evolution of new industries should be described in such terms as necessity or chance. We take the example of the new Information and Communication Technology industry (ICT), which is now shaping the spatial system in Western economies. The depth and significance of the revolution in ICT is widely acknowledged. But how does the spatial pattern of this new industry develop? And how to determine analytically whether this pattern is preordained or whether it is indeed so novel, that this sector opens up a 'window of locational opportunity'?