ABSTRACT
Many regions in the industrialised West with old industrial traditions are today the victims of structural changes in the world economy. These regions, often specialising in iron and steel, shipbuilding, textiles, etc. today face high unemployment rates. In earlier periods some of the unemployment problems in the peripheral regions resulting from structural change could be relieved by expanding industrial sectors in more prosperous regions, by locating new manufacturing plants in these regions and by labour moving to the more central expanding regions. For a number of years these mechanisms do not seem to have worked as efficiently as earlier during the 1950s and 1960s. In this situation politicians and planners on both the central and the regional level have turned to the small and medium-sized firms as the new ‘life-preservers’ for depressed regions.
