Generalizing New Industrial Districts: A Theoretical Agenda and an Application from a Non-Western Economy

Abstract

New industrial districts occur in a number of forms, some of which are not subsumable under the flexibly specialized, locally embedded, and endogenously driven model based on the Italian case. In this paper, we critique the industrial districts literature, focusing on the role of the state, interdistrict mobility of labor, nonlocal externalities, and non-place embeddedness in district formation and character. We introduce the notion of the satellite industrial district, comprised of branch operations of nonlocally based corporations, as an example of a rapidly growing industrial district distinct from Marshallian and Italianate forms, and argue with evidence from South Korea that these types of districts may predominate, especially in developing countries.