Un-traded Interdependencies' as a Useful Theory of Regional Economic Development

The dissertation is an international comparative project examining metropolitan regional economic development. Focused on the connection between economic geography and economic learning, the study examines the locus of regional innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in each region (Dublin and Beijing) through small sample survey methodologies. An applied theory project, this dissertation relies on transaction cost and evolutionary economic theory to examine the micro-foundations of how regions are being touted for their "collective learning systems" and how this is an important aspect of understanding how rapid economic change occurs. Among some of the most influential arguments in this area are those often made by regional planners, industrial geographers, and economic sociologists which perceive of such dynamic regions as constituting a "nexus of un-traded interdependencies." Based on a small sample of twenty indigenous firms ICT firms in each region, the project takes aim at the often unspecified ways firm-specific capability development is argued to result from the interplay between industrial knowledge and issues of spatial clustering. Goal-se