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Despite the importance of interregional trade for building effective regional economic policies, there are very few hard data to illustrate such interdependencies. We propose here a novel research framework to predict interregional trade flows by utilizing freely available Web data and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, we extract hyperlinks between archived Websites in the United Kingdom and we aggregate these data to create an interregional network of hyperlinks between geolocated and commercial Web pages over time. We also use existing interregional trade data to train our models using random forests and then make out-of-sample predictions of interregional trade flows using a rolling-forecasting framework. Our models illustrate great predictive capability with R2 greater than 0.9. We are also able to disaggregate our predictions in terms of industrial sectors, but also at a subregional level, for which trade data are not available. In total, our models provide a proof of concept that the digital traces left behind by physical trade can help us capture such economic activities at a more granular level and, consequently, inform regional policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-15thcentury, the space economy in Africa has assumed an imperial outlook under the influence of European mercantilism. It was the era that unfettered capitalism prevailed as economic orthodoxy for control of regional economies. At the inception of fettered capitalism in the mid-20thcentury, an imperial structure that served western interests under colonial rule was further entrenched in many African countries. At the turn of the 21stcentury, neoliberalism emerged as global economic orthodoxy, and free-trade relations implemented to manage Euro-American and Chinese mercantilism worldwide. This unleashed epistemological ideologies that ushered in urban productivity decline in the African space economy. As an entry point to address this urban development challenge in new regionalism, this article makes a case for neo-mercantilism as an alternative development ideology for Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing dominance of neoliberalism as the key steering mechanism of the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s has implied the competitiveness-oriented reshaping of cohesion policy. The aim of this paper is to initiate a debate from a critical political economic perspective on the implications of this shift for Central Eastern European (CEE) member states. To this end, the paper discusses the formation of EU centre-periphery relations from a CEE point of view and formulates some preliminary suggestions as to how cohesion policy would need to be rethought in order to ensure the better integration of lagging CEE regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration has been seen as an important issue in regional development worldwide. This study analyses the impact of internal migration on provincial growth in Indonesia. Applying a growth model, this study found evidence that migration played no role on regional convergence during the 1975-2005 period. However, different policies affected the signs and sizes of the estimates across sub-periods. Moreover, inter-provincial migration, especially in-migration in poorer provinces, had a positive impact on economic growth in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the role of organized business in regional economic integration is well documented, extant scholarship portrays them as mere legitimizers and partners of regional policy. This neat categorization fails to capture the complicated, ‘multiscalarity’ of business and overall civil society's role in regional governance. Drawing insights from social constructivism and empirical evidence from fieldwork conducted in 2012 and 2013 on the interactions between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and region-wide business associations and advocacy networks since the early 1990s, this article shows that although African business groups are relatively new actors at the regional stage, their impact on regional governance is substantial. This is not only in terms of getting governments to adopt particular policies or the ability to hold the state accountable, as functional institutionalists might argue, but also in terms of the regional socialization effects, namely the willingness and ability to frame issues that influence the choices of political decision-makers. Business regional governance roles also straddle competing conventional roles, and sometimes counter the neoliberal vision of regional integration, even among those that owe their emergence to regional organizations. The study also challenges the pervasive view of business actors (especially in Africa) as simply profit-seekers by highlighting the ways business actors have deployed and acted on principled beliefs about regional identity collectively or individually to forge denser and relatively effective policy coalitions that signal unfolding changes in the direction of regional policy in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cohesion policy belongs among the most important fields of EU interests. Its objectives are achieved by many ways with respect to diversity among the European regions at the level of NUTS 2. The aim of this paper is to analyse relevant indicators, and via the evaluation of EU regional policy effectiveness to rewiev difference in the production-consumption patterns of behaviour of European regions; focussing on convergence and variabiliness of these regions. With defined goal in mind, the regions have been classified. To classify the regions, the relational indicator has been created. The relational indicator has been developed as the relationship between the index of relative performance and index of relative consumption sources. The changes of relational indicator, as well as the GDP per capita criterion, have been evaluated in two periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic clusters have been recognised as important elements of urban and regional economic strategies, but their role in spatial planning is under-appreciated. This paper examines the initiatives and outcomes of economic clusters in relation to urban spatial planning in the periods of planned and market economies in China. Through an examination of the planning and development practices in Beijing, the effect of economic clusters in facilitating local growth and shaping urban spatial structure is revealed. The significance of economic clusters in achieving synergy between economic and spatial policies is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se investigan los efectos de las inversiones realizadas por el Fondo Constitucional de Financiamiento del Nordeste (FNE) en el crecimiento económico de los municipios de esa región en la década de 2000. Para ello se utiliza un marco empírico basado en modelos de crecimiento que permiten la formación de clubes de convergencia según el nivel de desarrollo inicial del municipio. Los resultados corroboran la estrategia empírica y revelan la existencia de cuatro grupos de municipios donde los flujos de inversión mediante el FNE afectan al crecimiento de manera diferente. En general, el FNE produce efectos positivos y significativos en la mayoría de los municipios del Nordeste, con excepción de aquellos cuyo producto interno bruto (PIB) per cápita era muy bajo o muy alto a comienzos de la década, donde sus efectos no resultaron significativos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article gives a brief historical overview of the changing perspectives of Norwegian regional research and regional policy related to the concept of regional restructuring. It offers an interpretation of the concept ‘path dependence’ and newer, related concepts such as ‘renewal’, ‘reorientation’, and ‘resilience’, which gradually have replaced the traditional regional restructuring approach associated with Doreen Massey. The article discusses how, in a series of case studies, history matters in the following ways: the significance that events or decisions in the past have for further development; institutions and regulations that cause inertia; and entrepreneurs and organizations that recombine accumulated knowledge and reutilize local resources, infrastructure, or cultural heritage in innovative processes. The studies are informed by evolutionary as well as by relational and institutional strands of economic geography. They are mainly qualitative case studies of Norwegian municipalities and regions dominated by certain industries vulnerable to economic decline. Further, they demonstrate a broad set of strategies of industrial renewal and reorientation. Bottom-up strategies and local flexibility with regard to modes of organizing restructuring are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the emergence and implementation of an international institution can only be fully understood if it is seen as part of a larger regime complex. It analyses the establishment of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), a regional financial arrangement in East Asia, by focusing on its interplay with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It will be argued that four factors play a major role in the CMI'S interactions within the financial regime complex: the lack of a clean slate, forum shopping, legal inconsistencies and the politics of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to show how the techniques of regional science and peace science can be applied for the economic development of poor countries. This article also describes techniques for integrating regional science and peace science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the result of a research project 'A Foresight Analysis of a Region for Economic Planning - Boyacá's Industrial Corridor towards 2019'. The theoretical foundations of the project were based on Territorial Foresight. The methodology was designed considering the following aspects - the positioning of the region considering the global, national and regional contexts; key trends and technologies that would influence the region and its productive sectors; an identification and prioritization of strategic variables for the regions territorial development system. On the basis of these aspects, four alternate scenarios of possible futures were developed and one of them was identified as a desired future and a set of seven strategies were identified and are being implemented with a view to actualizing the desired future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissimilar economic fluctuations and asymmetric shocks across the regions of a country might create severe policy distortions that, under these circumstances, aggregate policy interventions (such as taxation and interest rates), are likely to be sub-optimal for at least a fraction of the regions. For instance, monetary policy can hardly satisfy the needs of all regions when some of the regions are experiencing a boom while others are in a recession phase. For these reasons, similarity of regional business cycles and their convergence are highly desirable from a policy viewpoint. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to provide empirical evidence and policy implications in that context. In particular, I analyze business cycle correlations across Turkish provinces and the tendency of these cycles to converge over the period of analysis between 1975-2000 and 2004-2008 (for Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics [NUTS]-2 regions). I find that regional business cycle asymmetries have tended to decrease in recent decades. This result, although it seems to provide evidence in favor of rising correlations, shows that the convergence process is rather slow and there still exist asymmetries across the regional business cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU rural policies have, in the past, used the twin concepts of disparity and diversity in alternative ways but have never really acknowledged the different assumptions that underlie them in terms of rural development and policy implementation. This, it is argued here, is the result of three different processes. The first is that by which scientific knowledge passes through several mediation stages as concepts that are adopted by policymakers leading to the subsequent modification of their original meaning. The second is that by which European Union ( EU) rural policies are hosted in a variety of different policy areas for which they are not the main concern, leading to a degree of ambiguity that may nevertheless serve a political purpose. The third is that experience has shown that even though the concept of diversity might initially appear more suited to addressing the different needs of European rural areas in modern advanced economies, it has nevertheless proved particularly difficult and costly to implement. As a consequence, the simpler concept of disparity, with its one-size-fits-all approach, has maintained its dominance as a policy concept; a dominance that has been considerably reinforced over the last decade. In the first section of the article the concepts of diversity and disparity are analysed and contrasted in their assumptions and policy implications. This is followed by an assessment of how these concepts are employed in EU rural policy. The final section discusses the governance implications of both concepts in rural policy and their link to the wider agenda of EU policies today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the changing trends in regional economic development policy delivery in multilevel governance systems. Although the imperatives of coordination of public policy interventions across multiple levels has generally been recognized, not enough attention has been given to how different political systems actually adapt their institutional and policy designs to effectively operate in the emergent complexity of multilevel governance systems. The article focuses on regional economic development policy governance in the province of Ontario, Canada over the past three decades, drawing insights from new regionalism, organization theory and governance literature to examine the prospects and challenges of policy delivery in politically complex multilevel systems. The case study illustrates how regional economic development policy is increasingly dictated by complex environmental and institutional forces of multilevel governance that are shaped by the particular character of a political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paradigmatic change of national long-term development strategies (Great Strategies) in the context of globalisation. Globalisation has created conditions for the development of transcontinental political, business, social and cultural flows, networks and their interactions, which transformed traditional settings of the national Grand Strategy. It is noted that Grand Strategies based on the so-called systemic (linear, sectoral) strategic management paradigm and material resource management no longer give prerequisites for the long-term sustainable development of a state. The theoretical novelty of this publication is related to the fact that it is based on a holistic scientific and strategic management concept. The Grand Strategy is considered as an integral part of the management system and its subsystems, operating in complex local and global political, economic, social and cultural contexts. In order to achieve strategic development, a state has to participate in the local and global political, economic, social and cultural networks and strive to embed its national identities into a global media culture. Contemporary Grand Strategies are developed and implemented in the context of changed parameters of time and space. The traditional linear time has transformed itself into the cross/fragmented time, while the territory of the state, previously a traditional space for the implementation of the Grand Strategy, is now more and more complemented by global virtual spaces and global media platforms. To achieve strategic development, governments should devote more attention to the following aspects of the Grand Strategy: intellectualism, uniqueness and innovativeness. There is also a tendency of increasing focus on non-traditional, post-material issues (cyber and ecological security, smart technologies, alternative energy sources etc.), intangible (intellectual) strategic resources (information, knowledge, ideas, images, identities, public relations and effective communication). The conclusion is made in the article that the importance of national Grand Strategies and national development goals in the conditions of globalisation is not diminishing. Complexity of the environment in which states operate creates new opportunities for the spread of unique and innovative national identities on the global scale and for the creation of sustainable synergies on different geographical and institutional levels for the implementation of national goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functions and powers of local self-governance are broadly discussed at all levels of governmental institutions, non-governmental organisations and communities. There is an expressed position that local communities and their local self-governing institutions should be given the power of subsidiary decision-making in locally specific issues. However, year after year, the unanimous attitude is suppressed by dependence upon central government, unreasonably large territorial units with high population density. These circumstances limit down policy formulation, decision-making and, moreover, the implementation of decisions. From this point of view, the powers of local self-governing institutions and, consequently, the decision-making strata differ significantly from those in other European Union countries, Baltic and Central European countries, as well as other states (Ukraine, China, Armenia, USA, Macedonia). This article deals with the analysis of local self-governing administration in terms of the size of the local communities and its impact on decision-making. A comparison is drawn with European Union, Central European and Baltic countries, and with other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to help reconceptualize the spaces of local and regional economies by developing the idea of the ‘compound economy’. It is set in the context of a growing body of work in geography that emphasizes the importance of culture as a factor shaping differentiated local and regional economic development and, correspondingly, as an important dynamic informing the ability of localities and regions to negotiate economic forces operating at national and supranational scales. Exploring both dominant and counter-hegemonic economic imaginaries as articulated in academic debates, we draw on the case study of Central Wales and demonstrate how these imaginaries are variously manifested in government policy discourse of the National Assembly for Wales and in the understandings and practices of business stakeholders in the region. Through comparing and contrasting these representations, we provide an empirical illustration of what, building on the work of Gibson-Graham and others, we term the ‘compound economy’, whose drivers, relations and logics are far more diverse and complex than mainstream and alternative models tend to suggest. We conclude by assessing the implications of the compound economy for both economic policy and geographical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study contributes to the understanding of the regional structure of the Chilean economy utilizing the fundamental economic structure (FES) approach. The regional FES construct implies that selected characteristics of an economy will vary predictably with economic size, as measured by regional: domestic product, population, total value added, and total sector output. The overarching problem addressed in this research is if identifiable patterns of relations among regional macro aggregates and economic transactions can be revealed via regional input-output tables. Jensen, West and Hewings discuss the tiered, partitioned, and temporal approaches to the identification of FES using regional input–output table and spatial economic data. This research addresses the following four research questions: (1) Does a regional FES exist for the Chilean economy? (2) What proportions of the cells are predictable? (3) Can stability patterns in the intermediate transaction table be identified for Chilean regional economy? (4) Which economic transactions are most important across regional economies in Chile? Four regression models: linear-linear, linear-logarithmic, linear-inverse, and linear-logarithmic of inverse are run to identify the largest proportion of predictable FES cells for the Chilean regional economy. The regional input–output tables (1996) for the 13 regions compiled by the National Institute of Statistics of Chile provide data for the analysis. A FES analysis shows 75% cells are predictable, 34% are stable, and 25% are important for Chilean regional economies. Further, 7% of the total fundamental economic activities are predictable, stable and important simultaneously. These strong FES based economic activities consist of chemicals, rubber, petroleum, and plastics as well as public services among several other fundamental industries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT The paper examines the debates regarding place-neutral versus place-based policies for economic development. The analysis is set in the context of how development policy thinking on the part of both scholars and international organizations has evolved over several decades. Many of the previously accepted arguments have been called into question by the impacts of globalization and a new response to these issues has emerged, a response both to these global changes and also to nonspatial development approaches. The debates are highlighted in the context of a series of major reports recently published on the topic. The cases of the developing world and the European Union are used as examples of how in this changing context development intervention should increasingly focus on efficiency and social inclusion at the expense of an emphasis on territorial convergence and how strategies should consider economic, social, political, and institutional diversity in order to maximize both the local and the aggregate potential for economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s, public bodies became aware of the importance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in regional economic development. In order to stimulate their innovativeness and to overcome their inward limits, public policies set up innovation agencies all over European countries. Criticisms arose after 10 years of existence because of their low usefulness. This article aims to develop a better understanding of the relationship between SMEs and innovation agencies. It presents the implementation of a management scheme which experimented with new solutions in French SMEs, to overcome previous gaps. Our article seeks to enrich research exploring the links between the SME and the innovation agencies within knowledge-based clusters. It advocates new principles to improve SMEs' guidance in innovation processes and shows that they are still essential organizations to support SMEs' innovativeness, especially the structurally weak and inward-looking looking ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on planning literature which include approaches to empirical work in regional economics, understanding the barriers to social adaptation, and management of large city regions.

The paper refers to «monitoring» and «assessing» specific features, within the framework of the object's characteristics: actors of local development management and differences existing between these two complementary processes. The operational feature of a «local development» concept makes possible a first approach to the matrix of «logical framework» additionally putting into practice, in its methodology, a triangulation process: «brainstorm», Delphi and statistics techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When criticizing the economic functioning and enterprise management within the framework of socialism construction historic background, it has been highlighted, in the first place, the high level of state involvement in all of the economic structure, and the ruling of a bureaucratic power. Consequently, the challenge it poses is not just to have a unique conception, and a totalizing one of the basic productive steps and its management, nor to regard as absolute the ways that privileged the group or individual property versus social property, but instead to look for the better combinations of property and management variations that can guarantee combination of interests in favor of all society's interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how China is continuing its efforts to develop both a global and a regional economic policy. The article notes that China has always tried to develop both types of economic policy and sees neither as being mutually exclusive. The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the resulting global recession has allowed China's strong economy to try both regional and global strategies from a stronger position. The author notes that China prefers the ASEAN Plus Three Association (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan, and South Korea) to promote regionalism and does not openly challenge any rival groups.

This article discusses Japan's renewed interest in regionalism as a way of soft balancing diplomacy that counters increasing Chinese influence. The article notes that an alliance with the United States that is considered a hard balancing diplomatic strategy is considered insufficient because of Japan's reliance on the Chinese economy for the success of its own economy and prosperity. Japan has made some overtures to other Asian countries to establish a regional economy, but has taken no significant steps to implement such a policy.

The article analyzes the foreign investment decision as a response to the economic liberalization in Chile, using data obtained from a survey of 102 managers. I argue that the knowledge on strategies in response to reforms was a source of competitive advantage for Chilean firms, which enables them to successfully invest in other Latin American countries that were undertaking promarket reforms similar to the ones Chile did in the previous decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a history of regional economic models being patterned after their national counterparts, modern macroeconomic methodology has yet to be fully embraced by regional scientists. In this paper, I argue that modern macroeconomic methodology has much to offer the field of regional economic modeling. For one, the empirical strategies used in implementing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models provide insights into how regional computable general equilibrium models could be better parameterized and empirically verified. In addition, the structural macroeconomic approach more generally could be used to construct structural regional policy analysis models for use as alternatives to traditional regional models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on political and everyday interplay and integration between city and hinterland, investigating borders and boundaries in such interplay. Five Norwegian city-regions served as the empirical basis for analysing two empirical fields. In the first field - everyday mobility and flow - institutionalized interactions between the cities and their hinterlands were analysed as well as objectives and meaning as motivations in everyday mobility in the city-region between city and hinterland. In the second field - urbanregional economic development policy - the questions addressed related to the degree to which governance networks are developed as a tool in local economic development policy, the geographical span such networks have, and the degree to which actors are motivated by the idea of creating a city-region where the importance of borders is decreasing. The issues were discussed in a theoretical frame related to urban and boundary theory. The results demonstrated the multitude of meanings with regard to borders and boundaries, underscoring how fundamentally different cognitive approaches related to borders and flows are constituent in the two empirical fields as well as how borders and boundaries are used to separate and connect in fulfilling purposeful ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The repeated reterritorialisation of economic development policy has resulted in a congested institutional environment characterised by a confused, and confusing, nested spatial hierarchy of interventions. Nevertheless, advocacy for perpetual institutional manoeuvring has proceeded largely unchecked leaving important questions unanswered regarding both the desirability of adding to/modifying the institutional landscape of cities and also the viability of such policies in light of existing attachments to long-established administrative geographies. In calling for further research, this paper conducts a preliminary investigation of the mutation of sub-city Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) into city-regional City Development Companies (CDCs) and suggests the expansive critical realist epistemology as a potentially worthwhile methodological starting-point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the rapid expansion of the service sector in China in both the regional and national levels. It mentions that the author conducted a study which identifies the regional variations that contributed to the growth and development in the industry as well as explore other contributing factors related to it. It provides information on structural shifts that happened in the regional economy of China and relates that inequality in the contribution of services to its gross domestic product (GDP) did not have the same path being followed as that of employment in services.

The author reflects on the theoretical concept of accessibility. He states the fundamental role of accessibility to physical planning, location theory, and regional economic planning. He demonstrates and made distinctions on the two types of accessibility, in which the type 1 works on the abstracting of spatial system for a set of points while the type 2 focuses on ways to which such points can be physically connected.

As a sub-Saharan country, Mauritius has been branded a success story in terms of its sustained economic growth performance, with major improvements in the living standards of its population at large over the past few decades. This paper has the objectives of revisiting this success story, essentially by analyzing the numerous policies that have been adopted, to provide insights into Africa's policy options. The Mauritian case study demonstrates that no single dose of economic reforms may generate growth dividends to perpetuity, especially when the current economic environment differs from initial conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalisation in New Zealand has been driven further as a political project than in most other countries. After two decades of neoliberal economic policy, it is possible to examine how political-economic actors in subnational spaces have responded to vastly new conditions. I provide an account on how regional economic-development policy and planning has reappeared in Auckland in the postrestructuring period. By deploying relational-institutional and poststructural perspectives in the examination of key policy initiatives that coconstituted an emerging regional economic intervention trajectory, I discuss how economic governance has been assembled, assess its structural coherence and directionality, and analyse the role of the state. I argue that regional governance processes are characterised by contingencies, patterns of institutional experimentation, and, increasingly, the work of central state actors. What is not known to date, however, is whether new regulatory structures are having any major material effects on the course of New Zealand's largest regional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."

China's rising profile in world economic affairs is beyond dispute. This article explores several ways to think about China's experience as a latecomer, offering a preliminary assessment of its development trajectory and the evolving nature of its foreign economic relations. In particular, the analysis rejects the view that China is emerging as the hub of a regional economic order in East Asia that is increasingly cohesive and independent vis-à-vis other regions of the world. Alternatively, the article highlights the promise of research that focuses on the role of Chinese economic activity within global commodity chains and how this particular form of cross-border integration affects interdependence among nation-states at multi-continental distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses about Brazilian economy in the transformers 1990s, using the case of Mato Grasso do Sul to view that the national and regional economic dynamic can be so different. Then, while the first one is pushed by industry sector, concentrated in the center-south of the territory, the second has the economy based in the agriculture, mainly to exportation. In this way, analyzing the different productive structures in Brazil as a whole and the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, it can be seeing that a great opportunity was open in the favor of the state, but this chance was used only a little in amplifying industry and turn more complex the local economy. Nevertheless, this study affirms that window opportunity was not mean advantage inside a development local plan and, quickly international prices of commodities fall, the state will suffer. And the reason for this is that the state did not use this chance to improve its economy planning to achieve a large period of economic increase. Thus, the most important of this study is clarify that the regional development, like its programs and plans, need to be seeing in the long period perspectives to can catch up the opportunities which open and close all the time in national and international scenery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the concepts of regional competitiveness, including definitions, conceptual models, measurements, and the benefits and shortcomings of following a strategy to enhance competitiveness. Next, city-region rankings and indices of competitiveness are reviewed and the usefulness of these studies is summarized. Potential roles for regional scientists for improving (1) evaluations of regional competiveness and (2) applications of evaluations to regional development policy are suggested. Recommendations are made regarding the need for additional case study research by regional scientists in order to improve the quality and relevance of information used by public policy makers. Quality case studies also will enhance the roles of regional scientists in the policy process concerned with improving a region's prospects for economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new model of knowledge-based regional economic development was invented in Boston during the 1930s and subsequently transferred to northern California where it also had independent roots. Drawing upon academic, business and government resources and configuring them in new formats created new firms and new industries. Nevertheless, the two regions often appear dissimilar when they are contrasted synchronically, due to the different stages they may be in at the time. Thus, some observers argue that Boston and Silicon Valley are distinctive watersheds, irrelevant to follow-on regions. However, if the development process of these two prototypical high-tech regions are analysed diachronically, a trajectory with similar phases of development may be identified. We suggest that these two regions exemplify a general model for high-tech regional growth and renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of this study is to make recommendations on policy for the development of internationally competitive 'niche' clusters in small developing countries. Also discussed are the relevant strategies for the effective implementation of those policies. The study begins with a discussion of the key concept of the 'socio-psychological construct'. This construct is based on an interpretation of culture that sees all economic activity within a society as unique to that society and its productive pursuits. This unique culture is later transferred over time into competitive industrial activity. The study adopts the concept of a 'small developing countries model,' which is based on the socio-psychological construct. The small developing countries model is used to highlight the historical difference in the processes that were involved in the establishment of clusters in small developing countries as compared with those advanced by Michael E. Porter, for developed nations, in his book The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990). The point of departure of the small developing countries model from that advanced by Porter is a presumption that small developing countries are, and have been, historically open economic systems. This is in contrast to Michael E. Porter's findings that developed country clusters were formed in geographic isolation over historically long periods. The study reviews these concepts as they were applied to Clusters in Trinidad and Tobago and then formulates the policies and strategies relevant to all small developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the macroeconomic structure of SAARC countries, i.e. Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It also explores the possibility of trade expansion among these countries by examining the macro-economic and regional trade link models based on time series data of 28 years. The study finds that there are inter-country differences in production and consumption patterns, investment behaviour, tax and non-tax structures in the SAARC countries. Hence, there is considerable scope for trade expansion among the SAARC countries. The study also confirms that aggregate regional consumption and regional GNP increase significantly with the increase of aggregate regional trade, and the consumption and income elasticities are 1.70 and 1.61 respectively. The study also exhibits that the GNP of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with limited exceptions, are significantly increased with the increase of their exports to the region. So these countries would definitely benefit from the regional trade expansion. The same may be true for India if the smuggled trade is prevented or reduced, and true economic factors, keeping aside political conflicts, dominate for regional trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]