The authors in this book regard the process of economic expansion as a non-homogeneous and multifaceted phenomenon which has deeply affected human welfare, and cultural, social and political change. The book is a bridge between the theorists (Rosenstein-Rodan, Lewis, Myrdal, and Hirschmann) who in the post-war period analyzed regional inequalities, structural change and dualism, and the modern literature on economic growth. The latter has emphasized the existence of multiple equilibria, bifurcations and various types of dynamic complexity, and clarified the conditions for the emergence of phenomena such as cumulative causation, path dependence and hysteresis. These are the typical ingredients of structural change, economic development or underdevelopment.

Here is a comprehensive edited volume that outlines the historical roots and state-of-the-art debates on the role of structural change in the process of economic development, including both orthodox and heterodox perspectives and contributions from prominent scholars in this field.

Structural change, economic policy, trade, production, OECD countries, developing countries in the 1960s and 1970s - economic implications, industrial development, technological change, industrialization policy, institutional framework, capital flow, economic relations, CMEA, OECD, trends, industrial production, Hungary, political aspect. References, statistical tables.

Today, the Bay Area is home to the most successful knowledge economy in America, while Los Angeles has fallen progressively further behind its neighbor to the north and a number of other American metropolises. Yet, in 1970, experts would have predicted that L.A. would outpace San Francisco in population, income, economic power, and influence. The usual factors used to explain urban growth—luck, immigration, local economic policies, and the pool of skilled labor—do not account for the contrast between the two cities and their fates. So what does? The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies challenges many of the conventional notions about economic development and sheds new light on its workings. The authors argue that it is essential to understand the interactions of three major components—economic specialization, human capital formation, and institutional factors—to determine how well a regional economy will cope with new opportunities and challenges. Drawing on economics, sociology, political science, and geography, they argue that the economic development of metropolitan regions hinges on previously underexplored capacities for organizational change in firms, networks of people, and networks of leaders. By studying San Francisco and Los Angeles in unprecedented levels of depth, this book extracts lessons for the field of economic development studies and urban regions around the world.

Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.

In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalism. Featuring groundbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword examining the impact of Neil's argument in a contemporary context.

Following drastic shifts in the spatial organization of goods production, increasingly fierce competition now forces firms also to look critically at how to organize the production of services. While digitization and advances in information and communication technologies have enabled firms to unbundle service production processes, the increased global availability of skilled labour allows for the relocation of ever more of these processes around the world. As a result, a new geography of services production takes shape: a geography that is defined by new interregional and international divisions of labour and held together by increasingly complex global services production networks. This book examines how the reorganisation of services production alters relations between and generates different sets of challenges and opportunities for economic development in the Global North and the Global South. Drawing from 11 case studies probing various aspects of services production in different parts of the world, the book brings out the remarkable heterogeneity and transformative capacities of services. It successively shows how global trade in services creates new interdependencies between services producing and services consuming regions; reveals how services help to mitigate the impact of and contribute to recovery from economic crises in the Global North; and demonstrates how services offshoring fosters economic development and service-sector driven modernisation processes in the Global South. The book’s openness to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of services production enlarges our understanding of which particular services in which spatiotemporal context have the capacity to generate good jobs, contribute to productivity and drive economic growth. The book stands out from other books in the field in that it combines perspectives on services-driven transformations from both the Global North and the Global South and looks into the role of various services segments. Based on pioneering empirical research and original data it offers a timely contribution to this growing debate. The book provides valuable insights for students, scholars and professionals interested in services, services offshoring, services-driven growth, and socioeconomic transformations in the Global North and South.

In this bold, sweeping study of the development of Western economies, Douglass C. North sets forth a new view of societal change.