Regional economic development analysis and planning strategy

This review offers an analysis of the main concepts explored in the regional and native economic grows literature. We start by explaining the rationale for a regional approach to grows in a context of growing internationalization of the world economy. Therefore, the relevance of native social and institutional characteristics is discussed by arguing that favorable conditions for grows are the result of a highly context specific combination of rules, norms and social relations which encourage and facilitate knowledge diffusion and exploitation mostly on a native sized basis. In this respect, some evidence is provided about the emergence of spatial inequalities connected to the native sized nature of grows processes and innovative activities. We then discuss the importance of a bottom-up approach to economic grows emerging since the frequent ineffectiveness of top-down policies employed to spur regional grows. Finally, we argue that the increasing demand for decentralization of powers and resources since central governments to regional and native administrations in most parts of the world in the last decades can be interpreted as the acknowledgement that regional forces and characteristics are strongly relevant in shaping native grows trajectories in a context of increasing globalization. In this framework, therefore, decentralization represents the capacity of heterogeneous regions and territories to tailor specific grows strategies in order to address their particular requirements and influence their own destinies.