ABSTRACT
In recent years, fruitful research has been conducted in the field of economic geography. This is presumably because trade has greatly increased within regions such as Europe, Asia and South-America and North-America. At the same time, globalisation has increased in particular branches of industry; that is, electronics and automobile industries and financial services (P. Dicken, 1992; R.B. Reich, 1992; L. Weiss, 1998, Chapter 6). In this chapter, we will discuss in brief research and theories of economic geography of innovation and the role of geographical factors in technological development. We will start by observing the development of theories in this field and show that institutional factors are increasingly emphasised. In the last two parts of this chapter we will discuss the role of ‘social capital’ and ‘the creative class’ in innovation and economic development.
