Institutions and regional economic development from a comparative perspective
The course introduces the scholarly debate about concepts of institutions, processes of institutional change, the role of agency – institutional work – in changing institutions, and the role of institutions in innovation and regional development. Adopting a view of relational economic geography, the course reviews illustrative regional case studies to learn assess the specific institutional contexts of regional economies. Finally, it discusses the institutional policy-making approach as a response to the failure of ‘travelling policies’ and as a way to help unlock development traps of regional economies.