Philip Cooke is editor of the journal European Planning Studies.

Why do some regions grow faster than others? Why are some more innovative? How do geographic factors - like proximity - affect the process of technological change? The Associational Economy provides a useful primer on these questions for all those interested in the regional dimensions of innovation and economic development. The authors are extremely well read and provide a useful and excellent work of theoretical synthesis, integrating a wide body of theory from Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Marshall to evolutionary economics, increasing returns, path dependence, organizational learning, social capital, and agglomeration. This book is clearly worthwhile for regional specialists, but may have even more to offer economists and other students of technological innovation who want to learn more about the role of regions in the porcesses of innovation and economic growth.

• The Associational Economy: Introduction ; 1. the Institutions of Innovation ; 2. Firms as Laboratories: Re-inventing the Corporation ; 3. The Region as a Nexus of Learning Processes ; 4. Baden-WD"u rttemberg: The Evolution of a Model Region ; 5. Emilia-Romagna: From Civic Culture to Global Networks ; 6. Wales: Innovating through GlobalLocal Interaction ; 7. The Basque Conundrum: Regional Autonomy and Economic Decline ; 8. Evolutionary Processes and Regional Practices

Philip Cooke is editor of the journal European Planning Studies.

Why do some regions grow faster than others? Why are some more innovative? How do geographic factors - like proximity - affect the process of technological change? The Associational Economy provides a useful primer on these questions for all those interested in the regional dimensions of innovation and economic development. The authors are extremely well read and provide a useful and excellent work of theoretical synthesis, integrating a wide body of theory from Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Marshall to evolutionary economics, increasing returns, path dependence, organizational learning, social capital, and agglomeration. This book is clearly worthwhile for regional specialists, but may have even more to offer economists and other students of technological innovation who want to learn more about the role of regions in the porcesses of innovation and economic growth.

• The Associational Economy: Introduction ; 1. the Institutions of Innovation ; 2. Firms as Laboratories: Re-inventing the Corporation ; 3. The Region as a Nexus of Learning Processes ; 4. Baden-WD"u rttemberg: The Evolution of a Model Region ; 5. Emilia-Romagna: From Civic Culture to Global Networks ; 6. Wales: Innovating through GlobalLocal Interaction ; 7. The Basque Conundrum: Regional Autonomy and Economic Decline ; 8. Evolutionary Processes and Regional Practices