An Occupational Approach to Regional Growth and Specialization

公认的区域增长理论强调企业和管理者在区位决策中的作用。相比之下，本研究项目调查了职业方法而不是工业方法是否可以更好地解释区域增长差异。职业方法强调人力资本的因果作用，特别是作为关键的生产性职业。与过去相比，各种技术工人与特定行业的联系都减少了，表现出相当大的区域间流动性，与在区域分析中传统地依赖行业相比，这可能为评估企业潜力提供了更好的有利条件。为了确定对区域发展至关重要的职业，该研究使用了四个属性：可捕获性、增长潜力、交叉受精和创业精神。利用联邦和州一级的职业数据，这项工作将确定美国大都市地区的每一种生产性职业，并检验关于每种职业对整体增长绩效贡献的假设。它还将比较职业方法与传统工业方法的结果。研究成果将为比较区域增长分析的方法论创新做出贡献，扩大对区域经济构成的认识，并为经济发展从业者提供指导大都市增长和发展的额外工具。州和地方政府已经花费了数十亿美元来吸引和留住公司，结果好坏参半。通过与创造和组织这些职业的机构（如学校、学院和大学、培训方案、专业协会）合作，鼓励发展关键职业，可能比以工业部门为目标更经济、更有效地将经济活动固定在区域内。这项研究旨在检验这种经济发展新方法的理论基础。

Received theories of regional growth stress the role of firms and managers in making location decisions. In contrast, this research project investigates whether an occupational rather than an industrial approach might better explain regional growth differentials. The occupational approach emphasizes the causal role of human capital, especially as key generative occupations. Skilled workers of all sorts are less linked to specific industries than in the past, exhibit considerable inter-regional mobility and may provide a better vantage point from which to assess entrepreneurial potential than does the traditional reliance upon industries in regional analysis. To identify occupations key to regional development, the research effort uses four attributes: capturability, growth potential, cross-fertilization and entrepreneurship. Using federal and state level data on occupations, the effort will identify generative occupations for each of a set of US metropolitan areas and test hypotheses regarding the contribution of each to overall growth performance. It will also compare the results of an occupational approach to traditional industrial approaches.The research results will contribute methodological innovations to comparative regional growth analysis, expand the state of knowledge on the composition of regional economies and offer economic development practitioners an additional tool for guiding metropolitan growth and development. Billions of dollars have been spent by state and local governments in attempts to attract and retain firms, with mixed results. Encouraging the development of key occupations by working with the institutions that create and organize them (e.g. schools, colleges and Universities, training programs, professional associations) might prove a more economical and effective way of anchoring economic activity in regions than targeting industrial sectors. This research is designed to test the theoretical underpinnings of this novel approach to economic development.