ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the economic actions of the regions in the wider context of actions undertaken by public authorities generally – municipalities, departments and the state – to promote local economic development. The science park fever which spread throughout western countries during the 1980s is based on the idea that crossfertilization between research and firms in the field of high technologies, innovation transfers between various sorts of firms, and an ideological commitment to modem, high tech firms was the best way forward. Italy and Germany are the principal sources of ideas related to the emergence of forms of ‘regional corporatism’. ‘Economic interventions of regions’ is a phrase which relates precisely to the legal framework for intervention as defined in the decentralization reforms. Regions have gradually abandoned the practice of giving direct grants to firms. French regional elites have not given up all idea of regional economic development policy.
