İçsel bölgesel kalkınma teorilerinin eleştirel değerlendirilmesi.

Regional development discourses and theories have significantly changed since the born of regional science. Focus of regional development theories has shifted from industrialization efforts via large-scale enterprises and transfer of central government funds to disadvantaged regions to endogenous capabilities and potentials of innovation and knowledge creation. Endogenous factors and self-development capabilities are highly emphasized by recent development literature. Changes in the regional development discourses also affected regional policies, policy tools and actors; endogenous factors and self-development discourses became dominant in regional development policies and implementations. However, source of regional development for less developed regions that do not have endogenous potentials and self-development capability have not clearly defined and have not empirically tested. The thesis attempted to empirically define regional growth factors and the usefulness of theoretical frameworks. In the thesis, econometric model of Turkey is used for the empirical study. The theoretical framework discussed in the thesis is both economic theories and regional development models. The study shows that all theoretical models offer only partial explanations of regional growth. While study shows that factors emphasized by traditional theories support regional growth, the study has no evidence supporting that soft factors emphasized by recent theories support regional growth. The main findings of this study contribute to theoretical and empirical field by reintroducing role of government and interventions. Factors highlighted by recent regional development theories are not sufficient for explaining growth, since the regional policies at the national level continue to be important therefore factors emphasized by traditional theories still have significant contributions to growth.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra