The concept of Smart Specialisation (S3) as a foundation of regional development has spread far beyond the European Union. In Australia, S3 appeared first in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, but was applied in its most developed form in the Gippsland region of Victoria. Despite its growing influence, S3 has come in for criticism. In this article, we look at the way that the Foundational Economy (FE) and the related concept of Deep Place (DP) analysis have been promoted as potential answers to these limitations. I question how far FE and DP should be seen as an extension of or an alternative to S3. I look to more extensive approaches that have been put forward.

Academic discussion of social challenges and the government interventions which might address them are overlooking social innovation as an option. Contemporary trends at the community-public management interface, however, show an upsurge of interest in social innovation as a way of simultaneously creating social benefit and economic opportunity. While this indicates that the idea has genuine substance our observation of international and Australian developments convinces us that there is now sufficient experience upon which to base an understanding of what social innovation is and why it has policy significance. In this article we identify some components of social innovation practice and indicate how these might be theorised into generally applicable models.

Planning for a low-carbon future in Australia will need to address simultaneously three aspects of sustainable development: centralisation/regional development, mobility and communication. After reviewing existing roadmaps for low-carbon growth by 2050, the article identifies the importance for Australia of an integrated and mutually reinforcing set of measures, based on a bold approach to urban and regional planning. Taking account of national geography, the approach is based on the decentralisation of energy production, use and storage, and on new uses of communication, transport and the location of food, water and mineral resources. Revitalised regional centres could be connected, through new energy and transport solutions, by a national transport arc and electrified highways. The use of infrastructure funding to support low-carbon regional development would avoid the ‘tragedy of the commons’, transcending incremental, cumulative approaches based on compensation and incentives for household, business and sectoral abatement efforts. It would generate long-term environmentally sustainable development.

Louisiana consistently ranks as one of the most corrupt states in the nation. In fact, the Pelican State is the most corrupt state when looking at the most common indicator of corruption: corruption convictions per 100,000. What is less clear about Louisiana is how the state became corrupt. This paper seeks to provide the missing link. I argue that the high levels of corruption in the state can be explained by its origins in French civil law. This historical influence has perverse and persistent effects on the state, despite occurring over 200 years ago. Through these origins in civil law, corruption in Louisiana impacts its economic institutions. These institutions then lead to a variety of other bad outcomes in the state such as a high dependency on oil and low incomes. This argument implies that resource dependency is bad for development only when institutional quality is low. By linking legal origins to corruption, institutions, and economic outcomes, I seek to offer a clearer explanation for why Louisiana sets itself apart from other states in its politically corrupt environment.

Across the United Kingdom public (and private) resources have been targeted on improving broadband infrastructure. While this has served to provide new opportunities for households and firms, there has been some debate around the ability of firms to take full advantage of the opportunities that arise through this evolving infrastructure. In this respect, there has been particular debate on how far small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have taken up the challenge of effectively engaging with the resource. Drawing on the case of Wales, this paper explores the digital maturity of a sample of Welsh SMEs. The paper provides evidence of how far SMEs are successfully engaging with the new opportunities available through broadband, and develops a typology of firms according to their engagement. The paper then explores how these differences produce policy implications.

Southern and central regions of Argentina moved from being relatively poor in the sixteenth century to being the richest in the country today. Although there is some evidence of this reversal, the process of regional growth in Argentina in the first half of the twentieth century is, in the main, unknown. In this paper, we present an estimation of the GDPs of Argentina's 25 provinces in 1914: this is the first consistent estimation of this variable for any period before the 1950s. Our results confirm that in 1914 the city of Buenos Aires and some districts in Patagonia had the highest per capita GDP, and a comparison with the available data for 1953 shows strong persistence in incomes per capita in this period; sectoral analysis of provincial GDPs suggests that growth in the leading districts was driven by economies of agglomeration in some cases and land abundance in others.

This article examines the nuances and complexities of business-government relations in the British paper-pulp industry between 1950 and 1980 through the prism of interactions between Wiggins, Teape & Co., a paper company, and various U.K. government departments in the postwar period. It highlights the complexity of business-government and interdepartmental relations and tensions, set against the global and domestic paper industry competition and the United Kingdom's international economic position. Long-standing industry underinvestment and interdepartmental tensions in government are identified as principal contributors to the failing competitiveness of the industry and of British businesses more generally in the twentieth century.

This paper reports on an exploratory study into critical success factors as they are perceived by Māori small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners in the Otago/Southland regions of New Zealand. We draw on interview responses from 11 Māori business owners and four representatives of SME support services. The aim of this study is to explore Māori SME characteristics in terms of the critical success factors that help or hinder the achievement of their business aspirations. The findings indicate three main thematic concerns: Māori SME owners’ perception of being Māori impacts on how they position themselves as a business; the regional business environment has particular features that impact in a particular way on Māori SMEs; and, notions of business strategy are culturally nuanced. We propose that a culturally constituted regional business support system will better enable Māori SMEs to achieve their aspirations.

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is arguably the largest regional development project ever witnessed in Turkey. Begun in the 1970s, GAP initially aimed primarily at the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and of extensive irrigation networks to produce hydroelectric energy and water 1.8 million hectares of land in southeastern Turkey. Later, the scope of GAP broadened significantly as it became a more ambitious and comprehensive scheme of modernization and transformation. Following this expansion, the multidimensionality of GAP and its multifaceted implications became clearer at both the national and international level. The project grew more visible and influential not only in political and public discourses, but also in the GAP region itself. Despite these developments, however, the question of how the project’s characteristics, vocabulary, rationales, and mechanisms have changed since its inception remains underdiscussed. This article asks what GAP was in the past and what it has more recently become. It examines the gradual transformation of GAP over forty years by specifically taking into account the continuities and ruptures in development discourse, theory, and practice since the 1950s. In this way, the article aims to provide a new perspective regarding the stages through which the project has passed to reach its current form.

This study illuminates the important yet under-studied phenomenon of industrial transfer in China: the migration of capital and investment from wealthy coastal areas into poorer central and western provinces, beginning in the 2000s. By 2015, the value of domestic investment in five central provinces alone was 2.5 times that of foreign investment throughout China. Compared to the original “flying geese” model of tiered production in Asia, China's experience is distinct in three ways: (1) industrial transfer occurred domestically, rather than across nations; (2) sub-national transfer followed cross-national transfer; and (3) industrial migration is accompanied by a delayed replication of government policies and practices. While coastal locales today resolve to expel low-end industries, inland governments cannot afford to be selective and have only recently adopted the aggressive investment promotion tactics that coastal cities abandoned years ago. Policy diffusion is delayed as policy adoption depends on economic conditions, which vary widely across China and change over time.

Although benefit-cost analysis (BCA) can be traced back to European thinkers, its first practical applications were in the United States. Recent years have witnessed a growing demand for economic appraisals of policies in different sectors in Europe, but the implementation rate is still low compared to that in the United States. This article introduces a symposium that includes four articles that present current examples of how BCA is being applied in different sectors and in different institutional settings in Europe. They deal with environmental valuation in the United Kingdom, economic analysis for investment in Sweden’s transport sector, economic versus financial returns in European Union investment project appraisal, and BCA in EU chemicals legislation. The goal is to stimulate continuing discussion on the implementation of BCA, not only in Europe but also worldwide.

Agritourism is a consumer-driven innovation that producers are exploring as a means to diversify and grow farm-based revenues. In order to help guide management and policy decisions, we conduct an exploratory spatial data analysis and find that travel infrastructure, region and rurality, characteristics of the local economy, and proximity to outdoor attractions are all significantly associated with the probability of a county being an agritourism hot spot. Mapping our primary spatial analysis’ residuals, we further identify counties with unique agritourism market conditions as a starting point to identify best practices that other regions interested in agritourism development might follow.

In the context of this symposium, this article reviews social science research in the emerging field of environment and health in China, with a particular focus on the impacts of pollution. It begins with a discussion of the particular nature of China's environment-related health problems, distinguishing the different challenges presented by diseases of poverty, affluence and transition. It then reviews recent developments in policy and civil society with regard to environment and health, and the extent to which work in the social sciences has advanced our knowledge of these and of state–society interactions. The article concludes with some reflections on the need for and challenges of interdisciplinary and international collaboration in this area.