Regional Development Strategies in Changing Environments: An Ecological Approach

Aim of this paper is the analysis of regional industrial development policies. This objective is achieved through a class of dynamic models mutated from the population ecology literature. The paper begins by studying the development of a local population of homogeneous firms when only one region is considered. In this way it is possible to endogenously determine the regional 'carrying capacity' (i.e. the maximum dimension of its industrial mass) in terms of the availability of resources (local inputs and infrastructures) and the firms' ability to exploit these resources.