The Regional World

Territorial Development in a Global Economy

Michael Storper

Paperback

October 31, 1997

ISBN 9781572303157

Price: $49.00

338 Pages

Size: 6" x 9"

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This pioneering volume proposes a compelling new theory of how regions have sustained their economic viability in the era of multinational corporations. Unlike traditional approaches, which analyze economic systems in terms of their mechanics (inputs, outputs, prices, technology, etc.), this work views them as systems for coordinating human actions and relationships. Reconceptualizing the role of learning, technology, and local institutions in development, Storper illuminates the key role of regional economies as building blocks of the increasingly connected world.

A thought-provoking and timely work, The Regional World carries resounding implications for educators, students, and policymakers in economic geography, economic sociology, and international business. It is an essential primary or supplementary text for graduate-level courses on economic, regional, or industrial development and policy and international business.

“A major contribution to both regional science and modern social science. This book treats in an integrated way the major themes of regional economics: industrial districts, urbanization, and globalization. The approach is interdisciplinary, and the author succeeds in bringing together in his own original theoretical framework major elements from the most up-to-date theoretical debates in economics and sociology....The book will certainly become a classic among regional economists, and it has much to offer to anyone interested in what is going on in the social sciences in our time.”

—Bengt-Aake Lundvall, Department of Business Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark

“This is a path-breaking book written by one of our most prominent economic geographers. It offers a novel and compelling theorization of why regions continue to matter in a global age. In conceptualizing the region, inter alia, as a nexus of untraded interdependencies, Michael Storper forces recognition of the decisive influence upon economic competitiveness, innovation and adaptability, of the social relations of proximity such as sedimented actor rationalities, local knowledge and learning environments, social and cultural conventions, and industrial and institutional legacies. His approach considerably advances regional theory beyond the recent rediscovery of external economies of agglomeration within economics. It paves the way for a new institutionalist and evolutionary paradigm in regional development studies.”

—Ash Amin, Professor of Geography, University of Durham, UK

THE REGIONAL WORLD

I. Regions as Relations and Conventions

1. The Resurgence of Regional Economies, Ten Years Later

2. Regional Economies as Relational Assets

II. Evolution and Territorial Development

3. The Evolution of Regional Specificities

4. Crossing Industrial Divides in a Region

III. Products, Technologies, and Territories

5. Innovation as Collective Action: Conventions, Products, Technologies, and Territories

6. Regional Worlds of Production: Conventions of Learning and Innovation in the Technology Districts of France, Italy, and the United States

IV. Globalization and Territorial Specificity

7. Territories, Flows, and Hierarchies in the Clobal Economy

8. The Limits to Globalization: Technology Districts and International Trade

9. The World of the City: Local Relations in a Global Economy

V. Regional Institutions, Territorial Orders

10. Institutions of the Learning Economy

11. Conclusion: Technology, Firm Strategies, and Territorial Order

About the Author

Michael Storper is Professor of Regional and International Development in the School of Public Policy and Social Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor in Social and Human Sciences at the University of Marne-la-Vallée, France.

Audience

Educators, students, and policymakers in economic geography, economic sociology, and international business.

Serves as a primary or supplementary text for graduate-level courses on economic, regional, and industrial development and policy, as well as international business.

Course Use