ABSTRACT
If it is assumed that the ultimate aim of regional policy is its own demise, i.e. the achievement of a situation where regional disparities stay within politically acceptable limits without recourse to specifically regional policies, then particular attention should be focussed on those mechanisms through which a region’s industry is itself able to diversify into more rapidly growing areas and to generate new products and processes as old ones decline. Market forces, expressed through regional variations in factor prices, may lead existing businesses elsewhere to move location, but the experience of the last 30 years suggests that this mechanism alone is unlikely to achieve fully the desired result. Furthermore, immigrant industry – at least as far as the Northern Region is concerned – is likely to play a less significant role in the future [N R S T (NRST), 1977b, p. 112].
