TECHNOLOGY POLICIES AND THE GROWTH OF REGIONS - EVIDENCE FROM 4 COUNTRIES

Since the 1980s, all industrialized countries have established technol ogy policies aimed at increasing economic growth through the developme nt of scientific and technical resources. Most technology policy initi ates are at the national level and are predominantly concerned with le vels of funding. This is a problem because high-tech industrial develo pment is observed to be regional in nature and national technology pol icies do not explicitly pursue regional goals. This paper tests two hy potheses. First, that the different explicit and implicit technology p olicies have had a significant, although unintended, impact on the dev elopment of a special type of space, the high-tech regions. Next, that the spatial effects of government technology policy promote high-tech regions over other regions, although this influence is primarily of a n implicit or unintended nature.