The industrial rise of the Third Italy: open window of locational opportunity? paper to be presented at the 38th Congress of the European Regional Science Association

The article aims to test a theoretical concept (the Window of Locational Opportunity concept) which provides a particular perspective with respect to the key problem in economic geography of how to explain the ability of regions to generate or apply new technology. In short, this WLO-concept holds the view that windows of locational opportunity tend to open up in the event of new techno-industrial development: these are likely to provide opportunities of industrial development for both leading and backward regions. This is because the impact of space may be unpredictable and rather weak for several reasons: there is likely to be a poor match with the new requirements of new techno-industrial activities, their creative ability may safeguard their development in unfavourable places, while local conditions favourable to their development are likely to be of a generic nature. Following the principles behind this theoretical concept, we present a long-term spatial analysis of Italy, which aims to explain the industrial rise of the Third Italy region in the post-war period. It attempts to assess empirically the impact of spatial conditions (including culture) on the industrial rise of the so-called Third Italy region during its initial stage of developmen