The Industrial District Model

Abstract

In the literature, the industrial district model is not presented as an analytical model, but rather as a list of stylized facts useful to organize empirical investigation and to confront it with reality. We propose to define industrial districts in terms of four key elements:

• (a) a cluster of mainly small and medium enterprises that are spatially concentrated and sectorally specialized (locational and spatial factors);

• (b) a strong, relatively homogeneous, cultural and social background linking the economic agents and creating a common and widely accepted sometimes explicit but often implicit behavioural code (social and cultural factors);

• (c) an intense set of backward, forward, horizontal and labour linkages, based both on market and non-market exchanges of goods, services, information and people (organizational and economic factors);

• (d) a network of public and private local institutions supporting the economic agents in the clusters (institutional and policy factors).