Wealth from Diversity: Innovation, Structural Change and Finance for Regional Development in Europe (Economics of Science, Technology and Innovation, 9)

x. Vence-Deza & J.S. Metcalfe U. of Santiago de Compostela & U. of Manchester This book contains selected papers presented at the International Congress "European Periphery Facing the New Century" held in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, at the end of 1993. The general aim of this congress was to rethink the great economic and social changes in Europe during the last decade from a critical view, specially focused on peripheral regions and the conditions for an enduring process of development. Both economic, social and political changes affect the characteristic diversity of Europe and they have a special impact on the countries and regions that were traditionally known as the periphery within Western Europe. The list of concerns is long: regions with different levels of development compete within a new single market; the free movement of productive factors modifies the traditional pattern of industrial location, increasing tendencies to regional concentration shift the balance of income generation; new competitors enter traditional markets; information technology creates new possibilities of industrial organization and cooperation; competitivity is based on different capabilities to innovate and to promote structural change, and these capabilities differ among regions; traditional regional policies fail in the present even more than in the past. Hence the central concern of this volume, to explore the links between diversity and regional development. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-10 Changes in Structure and Relations between Productive Systems....Pages 11-18 Economic Dynamics and Regional Diversity — Some Evolutionary Ideas....Pages 19-38 Uneven Technological Development....Pages 39-73 The Changing Economics of Technological Learning: Implications for the Distribution of Innovative Capabilities in Europe....Pages 75-101 Industrial Districts and the Globalization of Innovation: Regions and Networks in the New Economic Space....Pages 103-134 The Diversity of European Regions and the Conditions for a Sustainable Economic Growth....Pages 135-143 Innovation, Regional Development and Technology Policy: New Spatial Trends in Industrialization and the Emergence of Regionalization of Technology Policy....Pages 145-197 Strategic Technology Policy for New Industrial Infrastructure: Creating Capabilities and Building New Markets....Pages 199-227 Local Synergy and Innovation in Peripheral Areas....Pages 229-240 Inter-Firm Cooperation: A Mode for the Internationalization of SME....Pages 241-266 External Control and Regional Development in an Integrated Europe....Pages 267-291 European Monetary Integration, Endogenous Credit Creation and Regional Economic Development....Pages 293-305 Banking and Finance in the Italian Mezzogiorno: Issues and Problems....Pages 307-342 The Regional Impact of the Internal Market: An Analysis for Lagging Regions....Pages 343-360 Boosting European Growth: Strategies for Integration and Strategies for Competition....Pages 361-387 Back Matter....Pages 389-395 Wealth from Diversity presents a new approach to the problems of structural change and regional dynamics in the context of globalization, specifically focused on the experience of the European integration process. The book reviews different aspects of structural change and regional development including: Increasing returns and cumulativeness in the dynamics of structural change at the regional level; Technological learning and the distribution of innovative capabilities; The globalization of innovation, networks, regional diversity and the regionalization of technology policy; Inter-firm cooperation, external investment and external control; Endogenous credit creation, finance and regional development; Strategies for integration and strategies for competition at the European level. This important new collective work is intended for academics, policy practitioners and students in the fields of economic growth, structural change, regional development, regional financing and innovation, and technology policy