Professor James Simmie

In this article it is argued that long-term economic growth can be secured by the continual re-invention of the technological and consequential economic bases of local economies. Starting from the perspective of evolutionary path dependence in the development histories of new technologies, the roles of innovators in the creation of new technological pathways are theorised. Historical case study evidence is then presented of the contributions of pioneering innovators to the ongoing long-term production and employment growth in the local economy of Oxfordshire over the last two centuries. Oxfordshire provides an empirical example of one of the more successful local economies in the UK. It is concluded that much of this success has been based on the activities of a small number of innovators who have used national and international knowledge networks to import cutting edge technologies of their time into the local economy in order to start world leading industries in the County. These have formed the bases of its long-term economic performance.

This paper takes up the Schumpeterian argument that innovations drive economic recovery following cyclical phases of recession and deperssion. The peformance of regional innovation systems of two contrasting regions in England is examined in the light of this argument. It is shown that the long-term development of the regions' respective innovation systems contributed significantly to the long-run adaptation and consequential economic resilience of their economies in the face of periodic external economic shocks. It is also argued that regional innovation systems policies can contribute to the adaptation of regional economies and therefore their economic resilience.

In this paper, it is argued that in order to overcome the limitations of canonical path dependence and new path creation theories that arise from the different ontological approaches of economics and sociology, a hybrid socio-economic theory is required that examines the contributions of intelligent agents to the creation of new technological pathways in conditions of path dependence. The main aim of such a theory is to explain the processes by which agents may collectively contribute to the emergence of new technological pathways and overcome the barriers confronting them as a result of the evolution of historical forces that establish the path-dependent trajectories of contemporary technologies. The arguments are illustrated empirically by analysing the roles of inventors and innovation pioneers located in economic niches together with the diffusion of new technologies to the attainment of critical mass and the creation of new pathways. The roles and processes engaged in by such actors, and the path-dependent barriers confronting them, are illustrated using the historical creation the renewable energy technological pathway in wind power in Denmark.

This paper seeks to explore the issues of innovation and new path creation in the UK and Germany, illustrated through the case of the modern wind power industry. Taking an evolutionary perspective drawing on path dependence theory, the paper examines the role of niche environments in the creation of new economic pathways. The research finds that new economic pathways are more likely to develop in places where niche conditions provide receptive environments for innovations to flourish. The policy implications of the research include the importance of supporting niche environments that encourage growth in new sectors and the need for financial support to bring innovations to market, to encourage the development of new economic pathways.

In this paper, we review the different definitions of resilience and their potential application in explaining the long-term development of urban and regional economies. We reject equilibrist versions of resilience and argue instead that we should seek an understanding of the concept from an evolutionary perspective. After discussing a number of such perspectives, we focus on the adaptive cycle model from panarchy theory to generate testable hypotheses concerning urban and regional resilience. Two case study city-regional economies are used to explore this model. We conclude that the evolutionary adaptive cycle model, though not without problems, warrants further study as a framework for analysing regional economic resilience.

In this paper we argue that evolutionary economic geography and particularly the concept of path dependence provide a theoretical framework within which to understand the different historical economic trajectories followed by different cities. Within this framework we identify four phases of path dependent development of new technologies or industrial sectors within urban economies. The particular characteristics of each of these phases depend on the nature and interactions of a city’s local innovation system combined with the capacity to absorb new knowledge.

In this paper we seek to accomplish two main tasks. The first is to lay out the different theoretical approaches to understanding the concept of competitiveness as it applies at the spatial level of city regions. We provide a definition of what the concept means at this level. We then examine the different but sometimes overlapping theories that seek to explain what makes city regional economies competitive. These include export base, increasing returns, knowledge and innovation, cluster and cultural economy theories. The second task is to understand the roles of different concepts of proximity in these theories. Here we make a broad distinction between spatial nearness, organizational interactions and cultural proximity. We conclude that all three of these play significant roles in the competitiveness of city economies with the most competitive successfully combining geographically local assets with knowledge and information from other places.

This paper examines the transfer and sharing of knowledge within and between regions in the context of the development of the international economy. It is argued that knowledge is a key resource for innovation which, in turn, is one of the major drivers of economic growth. The firms producing the most novel product innovations in the most significant regional concentrations of innovation are very adept at working across the interface of local and global knowledge transfers. Using data from previous studies combined with the latest regional data from the Community Innovation Survey 3, comparisons are made between the ways in which the most innovative firms in the Greater South East transfer and share knowledge from the local to the international level. The most innovative firms are shown to access international sources of knowledge. This raises questions over the relative importance of local versus international knowledge spillovers for the most innovative firms. Innovative firms tend to concentrate in a minority of key metropolitan regions. These are shown to combine a strong local knowledge capital base with high levels of connectivity to similar regions in the international economy. In this way they are able to combine and decode both codified and tacit knowledge originating from multiple regional, national and international sources. As a result they are able to generate virtuous circles of knowledge, innovation, competitiveness and exports. 

This paper reports the findings of a survey of innovative firms in the South East of England undertaken during 1999/2000. It is argued that in order to explain the observed concentration of innovation in a limited number of cities both in the US and in Europe it is necessary to consider both local knowledge spillovers and international knowledge transfers. Knowledge and experience are argued to be important in overcoming the uncertainties that characterise the innovation process. The survey reported here shows that two main categories of knowledge are important for SMEs. These are first mainly supply-side local knowledge spillovers from suppliers, collaborators and HEIs. Secondly, they are often demand-side national and international knowledge transfers from clients, customers and their international distributors. Cities rich in both local capacity and international connections are usually the locations for high levels of innovation among the firms based in them.

This paper reports the Žndings of an ESRC funded study of innovation in Žve European cities.

It is argued that the contemporary emphasis on local production clusters as the basis of economic growth provides only a limited explanation, in certain types of cities, of what drives growth. The argument developed here is that export base theory should be revisited as a more likely explanation of virtuous circles of growth. The evidence presented suggests that such circles are composed of innovation and trade in the context of the types of externalitiesfound in core metropolitan international gateway cities.