Blackwell Reference Online

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As global production becomes increasingly integrated, workers and firms in different regions are forced more directly into competition with one another. How do these firms, and the regions in which they are embedded, compete for the capital and labor required to sustain competitiveness? The dominant strategies of competitive advantage, in one form or another, hinge on technology. More specifically, technological change is the primary determinant of profitability and growth. This much was clear in the 1950s (Abramowitz, 1956; Solow, 1956, 1957) and it remains so today (Grossman and Helpman, 1991; Lucas, 1988; Romer, 1986, 1990).The role of technical change in fueling economic growth has been the subject of much recent discussion as growth rates have declined in many of the advanced industrialized nations and as certain newly industrializing countries (NICs) are reducing the technological gap (Baumol, 1986; Fagerberg, 1994; Maddison, 1982). Explanations of national differences in innovative performance have turned to focus on industrial organization, on the sectoral and spatial linkages between firms, and on the institutional systems within which they operate (Archibugi and Michie, 1995; Freeman, 1991; Lundvall, 1992; Nelson, 1993; von Hippel, 1988).Increasingly it is recognized that the motors of national economic performance are sub-national technology districts (Amin and Thrift, ... log in or subscribe to read full text