The study of how new regional industrial paths develop is a key topic in economic geography. In the last years, a number of important conceptual advancements and constantly growing empirical insights from distinct cases have contributed to refine our understanding of new industrial path development. One major reason for this interest is that new paths are perceived to generate positive regional development outcomes. However, up to now we know surprisingly little about the short- and long-term economic and social effects for regions. Existing studies on new path development tend not to make a link to such regional development outcomes. Although a new regional industrial path has the potential to generate substantial economic gains - both directly (e.g. employment generation, firm entries, etc.) as well as indirectly (e.g. knowledge spillover, production linkages, etc.) – recent research also points to possible ‘dark sides’ of new industrial path development. In other words, the development of a new industrial path cannot automatically be interpreted as a positive regional economic or social outcome. This session aims to improve our understanding of the conditions under which new industrial path development contributes to what kind of regional economic and social development and for whom.
We invite submissions for the session which link the study of new industrial path development to its regional economic and social consequences. Possible topics include but are not limited to: