Building a twenty‐first century regional economy in Emilia‐Romagna

Abstract

The Italian industrial districts have been experiencing duress, for the first time in a major way, during the 1990s. They face heightened market competition, innovation deficits, inadequate financial supplies, problems of scale where larger competitors have learnt flexibility too, and — last but not least — new burdens from sharper environmental concerns. Of these, perhaps the greatest challenge comes from the newly reinforced imperative for firms to innovate to raise competitiveness. Some sketches are provided of various innovation strategies operating at the regional level from which lessons of direct policy relevance may be learned.