Little victories local economic development in European regions

Abstract

It has always been difficult to justify the concept of ‘the local economy’. In advanced economies, especially those very open to world trade, their defining characteristic could be said to be their. very lack of local economies. This obviously faces local economic policy-makers with a great dilemma on how best to maintain, sustain and/or develop local growth trajectories. In this paper, we seek to provide an overview of the general economic conditions between structural forces of internationalization and strong central control, and local effects to help revive locd economies weakened by such forces. In doing so, we will discuss some tendencies in corporate organisation which point to the necessity for local economic development initiatives to become stronger rather than weaker. In a section on local economic development in Italy, Spain and France, we shall suggest some of the more effective ways in which public-private links are being forged. We finally relate these points back to the prospect for revived...