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AbstractRegions and cities face unceasing pressures to adapt in response to processes of globalization, changes in industrial production, and new patterns of migration and trade. At the same time, the dominant development policies are proving less than capable of providing answers to these challenges. Strategies based on a mix of physical and human capital and technology have not succeeded in dealing with growing territorial inequality and its treacherous economic, social and political consequences. There is thus an urgent need to understand why territorial divergence occurs and why there is what seems to be a growing decline in the returns of public intervention targeting economic development. In the search for answers, scholars have turned to the examination of institutions. But despite progress in our grasp of how institutions affect development, crucial knowledge gaps remain. This paper reviews recent progress in our understanding of the role of institutions for development, unveils the most important gaps, and proposes a series of avenues to improve how a better understanding of how institutions shape regional and urban development can lead to more efficient development policies.

Regions and cities face unceasing pressures to adapt in response to processes of globalization, changes in industrial production, and new patterns of migration and trade. At the same time, the dominant development policies are proving less than capable of providing answers to these challenges. Strategies based on a mix of physical and human capital and technology have not succeeded in dealing with growing territorial inequality and its treacherous economic, social and political consequences. There is thus an urgent need to understand why territorial divergence occurs and why there is what seems to be a growing decline in the returns of public intervention targeting economic development. In the search for answers, scholars have turned to the examination of institutions. But despite progress in our grasp of how institutions affect development, crucial knowledge gaps remain. This paper reviews recent progress in our understanding of the role of institutions for development, unveils the most important gaps, and proposes a series of avenues to improve how a better understanding of how institutions shape regional and urban development can lead to more efficient development policies.

Populism is on the rise, especially in the developed world. It has gone from being a force to be reckoned with to becoming one of the main challenges for society today. But the causes behind its rise remain hotly debated. Many of the economic analyses of the ascent of populism have focused on growing inequalities – both from an interpersonal and territorial dimension. In this essay, I argue that the rise of the vote for anti-system parties is far more related to the long-term economic decline of places that have seen far better times and have been disadvantaged by processes that have rendered them exposed and somewhat 'expendable' than to increases inequality. Fixing this type of 'places that don't matter' is possibly one of the best ways to tackle anti-system voting. This will imply the implementation of well-targeted place-sensitive polices, going beyond the traditional wealthy and less developed places that have attracted the bulk of investment and considering long-term economic trajectories.

La fecha NO consta el el documento, se ha puesto una fecha aproximada ; Ensayo del geógrafo Andrés Rodríguez Pose, sobre la política regional comunitaria y su incidencia en España, en donde explica los motivos del fracaso de la política regional y critica la reforma de los fondos estructurales. Por otra parte, el autor considera un éxito de la delegación española las negociaciones entre España y los organismos comunitarios para la distribución de los fondos estructurales, ya que más el 80% del territorio español formará parte de las líneas de actuación prioritarias de la política regional comunitaria y hará de España el mayor beneficiario de estos fondos.

In this paper, I will try to analyse the factors behind the lack of relative convergence in Spain since the early 1980s by focusing on two regions which have had different economic trajectories in the last two decades: Navarre, a region which, despite being located in the declining northern Spanish fringe, has managed to grow at a slightly higher pace than the rest of Spain; and Galicia, one of the regions which has undergone a relative decline since the beginning of the 1980s. The paper is structured in four further Sections. The next section deals with the economic performance of Spanish regions since 1980, focusing specially on the problem of lack of regional convergence in recent years. Section 3 includes the reasons behind the selection of the two case studies, despite the fact that neither Navarre is the most dynamic, nor Galicia is the least dynamic region in Spain, as well as a description of the changing structure of the economies of the two regions. The fourth Section deals with the existing institutional framework for designing and implementing regional development policies in these regions, and with the assistance programmes actually implemented at the regional, national and EU levels. This is followed in Section 5 by a discussion of the factors behind the success and failure of regional development policies. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of how the experiences of these two regions can be generalised to other regions.

This article tries to assess, by resorting to the use of cluster analysis techniques, the relationship between economic growth and social structure at a regional level in western Europe. It is argued that the processes of socio‐economic restructuring and structural change have rendered the traditional factors determining the location of economic activity more mobile. Hence, since regional disparities tend to persist, the connection between growth and the underlying social conditions has become more visible. The empirical results of the analysis show that there is a robust association between economic growth and the local social forces, and that this relationship is not only evident in the so‐called 'new growth spaces', as pinpointed by most of the literature on structural change, but in almost any type of region. Moreover, the results reveal that there is no unique social mix associated with low or high growth, and that similar levels of economic growth might be achieved in very different social environments.Utilisant des techniques d'analyse de groupe, cet article essaie d'évaluer la relation entre la croissance économique et la structure sociale à un niveau régional en Europe occidentale. Je soutiens que les processus de restructuration socio‐économique et le changement structurel ont rendu plus mobiles les facteurs traditionnels qui déterminent où les activités économiques sont situées. Le lien entre la croissance et les conditions sociales fondamentales est donc rendu plus apparent puisque les disparités régionales tendent à persister. Les résultats empiriques de l'analyse montrent qu'il y a une forte association entre la croissance économique et les forces sociales locales, et que cette relation n'est pas seulement évidente dans les soi‐disant 'nouveaux espaces de croissance», comme il est indiqué dans de nombreux écrits sur le changement structurel, mais dans presque tous les types de régions. De plus, les résultats révèlent qu'aucun mélange social n'est associéà un niveau bas ou à un niveau élevé de croissance, et que des niveaux de croissance similaires peuvent être achevés dans des environnements sociaux très différents.