Economic Performance, Inter-Firm Relations and Local Institutional Engineering in a Computational Prototype of Industrial Districts

Flaminio Squazzoni () and Riccardo Boero
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Flaminio Squazzoni: http://behavelab.org/flaminio-squazzoni/

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2002, vol. 5, issue 1, 1

Abstract: Industrial districts can be conceived as complex systems characterised by a network of interactions amongst heterogeneous, localised, functionally integrated and complementary firms. In a previous paper, we have introduced an industrial district computational prototype, showing that the economic performance of an industrial district proceeds to the form through which firms interact and co-ordinate each others. In this paper, we use such computational framework to experiment different options of “local institutional engineering†, trying to understand how specific “supporting institutions†could perform macro-collective activities, such as, i.e., technology research, transfer and information, improving the technological adaptation of firms. Is a district more than a simple aggregation of localised firms? What can explain the economic performance of firms localised into the same space? Could some options of “local institutional engineering†improve the performance of a district? Could such options set aside the problem of how firms dynamically interact? These are questions explored in this paper.

Keywords: Agent-Based Computational Model; Industrial Districts; Technological Change; Local Institutional Engineering. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-01-31
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