Regional prosperities compared: Massachusetts and Baden-Württemberg in the 1980s.

This article compares the relationship between economic development and public policy in two of the most prosperous regions of the 1980s: Massachusetts in the United States and Baden-Württemberg in West Germany. Beginning with a critique of the theory of the product life-cycle, the article examines the rise and fall of traditional industries in Massachusetts and their survival in Baden-Württemberg. It then goes on to consider the rise - but also the vulnerability - of the high-tech and financial firms in Massachusetts, as well as the more robust, though almost invisible growth of these sectors in Baden-Württemberg. The burden of the argument is that there are, strictly speaking, no `mature' industries and public policies aimed at stimulating innovation are most successful when the latter is integrated into the local industrial structure as a whole rather than isolated into a distinct high-tech sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]