 The rise and fall of industrial clusters: Technology and the life cycle of regionNo 2004/6, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) Abstract: When a major technological innovation spreads out in both high-tech and middle/low-tech industries, new clusters appear, develop and grow at the expenses of "older" historical industrial sites. The literature has, under various labels, recognised three main stages of cluster development: an initial stage sparked by an initial exogenous, shock; a second stage driven by Marshall's (1920) agglomeration economies (labour market pooling, supply of intermediate goods and services and knowledge spillovers); a third stage in which the cluster either achieves a sectoral leadership or declines. The paper shows how different clusters' evolution (often told as separated stories) are part of a wider picture in which technological and spatial interactions between emerging and declining clusters play a decisive role. A final section draws some policy suggestions for public authorities and regional planners dealing with the development of an innovative cluster. Keywords: Agglomeration diseconomies; Agglomeration economies; Industrial clusters; Technological dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2004-6 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) Contact information at EDIRC. |
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