Oedzge Atzema, Ton van Rietbergen, Jan Lambooy and Sjef van Hoof - Dynamics in economic geography

1.1 Rediscovery of economic geography

education and entrepreneurial climate. An apt illustration was an anecdote by Swiss economic historian Paul Bairoch, who once wrote, ‘They are small countries, surrounded by often hostile neighbouring countries, without access to the sea and with no natural resources. Much of the land is mountainous and infertile. Roads are hard to construct due to the mountainous terrain. (…) The population is small and consists of several groups, without cultural or lin guistic connections. People are so poor that they leave the country or sign up as mercenaries in foreign armies. The prospects of such a country would appear to be very poor indeed − the developing nation par excellence .’ According to Bairoch, this was a fairly accurate description of Switzerland around 1800. Today Switzerland is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Its open-door policy, tax system, education, frugality, calm political situation and neutrality are some of the factors thought to have stimulated its economic development. Breaking the vicious circle of poverty is possible, historians argue, but it is a complex process. Jan Luiten van Zanden, Professor of Global Economic His tory at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, reduced this complexity to two factors: the division of power and access to natural resources. ‘Once a growth nucleus has developed (e.g. the late medieval Italian city states, the cities in 17th-century Holland, or post-World War II Germany and Japan), such a nucleus often pulls surrounding regions along with it. Soon, “the neigh bours” do more than simply bob along on the waves of trade and productivity. Often the surrounding areas copy the institutions of an economic centre. As well as reflecting economic fluctuations, this is a fundamental, structural development’ ( NRC Handelsblad , 21 June 2011). In addition to historians, we owe the rediscovery of economic geography to economists. In The Competitive Advantages of Nations (1990), bestselling American business strategy expert Michael Porter described the basic geo graphic factors necessary for a country to be competitive. In the context of the Netherlands, these geographic factors would be the mouths of the main rivers the Dutch ‘delta economy’ is based on. Boasting Rotterdam harbour and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (‘the Gateway to Europe’), the Netherlands has a competitive advantage that can be directly linked to its geography. Porter gave examples of the economic success stories of regions such as the Third Italy in northern Italy and Silicon Valley in the United States. Porter argued that nations are well advised to focus on their regional eco nomic specializations (clusters) as the driving force behind their economic development. In the Netherlands, this line of thinking underpinned Pieken in de Delta , a long-running development programme focussed on regional strengths that has led for example to the establishment of a ‘Food Valley’ in and around the town of Wageningen. What is striking here is that we are once again dealing with an approach to economic geography aimed at policy development.

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