Policy Review Section

Abstract

In this Policy Review Section, Ash Amin and Chris Pywell of the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne examine the attempts by central and local government to intervene in the process of technical innovation which has been a marked feature of economic policy in the 1980s. Specifically, their article critically reviews the wide range of policy measures which are relevant to technical change in the Tyne and Wear area of the North East of England. Amin and Pywell conclude that these measures are unlikely to remedy perceived technical deficiencies and that policies solely aimed at technical innovation are insufficient to deal with the structural weaknesses of the local economy. In the second article, David Hitchens and Esmond Birnie of the Department of Economics at Queens University, Belfast, continue the discussion of current government thinking on economic development policy in Northern Ireland as expressed in the Pathfinder Report. Hitchens and Birnie review the article by Paul Teague in a previous issue of the Policy Review Section on this topic and add and add further comments and criticisms of their own on the Pathfinder document. In the final article, Paul Teague presents a rejoinder to Hitchens and Birnie and expands on the arguments in his first article about an appropriate ‘economic policy model’ for the Province.