ABSTRACT
The past thirty years have been challenging ones for traditional practices of economic development. After decades of uninterrupted economic growth coupled with generally rising living standards, economic expectations about work and wages are changing in the largest economies. Many Western European countries struggle with high unemployment rates. Japan is facing a crisis in core domestic industries and a weakening in lifetime employment policies. The US and Canada, with more flexible labour markets, are experiencing declining wages for most of their populations. The balance between growth on the one hand and rising living standards and economic stability on the other, central to the social contracts of these societies, has been disrupted by a series of changes within these economies since the 1960s. These changes can be analysed along several key dimensions:
The first of these dimensions is technological. The developed economies appeared, by the mid-1990s, to be entering a major period of economic growth associated with the maturing of information technology. The information technology paradigm has now dramatically expanded within the economy, improving the productivity of a far wider range of activities. In terms of regional economic development, this level of technological change offers new opportunities for diversification, but also challenges regions to adopt the latest technology or risk losing competitiveness.
