Path dependence and regional economic evolution

Ronald Martin and Peter Sunley

Journal of Economic Geography, 2006, vol. 6, issue 4, 395-437

Abstract: In recent years, economic geographers have seized on the concepts of 'path dependence' and 'lock-in' as key ingredients in constructing an evolutionary approach to their subject. However, they have tended to invoke these notions without proper examination of the ongoing discussion and debate devoted to them within evolutionary economics and elsewhere. Our aim in this paper, therefore, is, first, to highlight some of the unresolved issues that surround these concepts, and, second, to explore their usefulness for understanding the evolution of the economic landscape and the process of regional development. We argue that in many important aspects, path dependence and 'lock-in' are place-dependent processes, and as such require geographical explanation. However, the precise meaning of regional 'lock-in', we contend, is unclear, and little is known about why it is that some regional economies become locked into development paths that lose dynamism, whilst other regional economies seem able to avoid this danger and in effect are able to 'reinvent' themselves through successive new paths or phases of development. The issue of regional path creation is thus equally important, but has been rarely discussed. We conclude that whilst path dependence is an important feature of the economic landscape, the concept requires further elaboration if it is to function as a core notion in an evolutionary economic geography. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (553)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbl012 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Path Dependence and Regional Economic Evolution (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:6:y:2006:i:4:p:395-437

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Geography is currently edited by Jorge De la Roca, Stephen Gibbons, Simona Iammarino, Amanda Ross and James Faulconbridge

More articles in Journal of Economic Geography from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().