Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—Rethinking Regional Path Dependence: Beyond Lock‐in to Evolution
2009/12/14 by Ron Martin · 894 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Core (optical fiber) #Economic geography #Economics #Epistemology #Geography #Geology #Law #Lock (firearm) #Neoclassical economics #Path (computing) #Path dependence #Path dependency #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Punctuated equilibrium #Regional Development and Policy #Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis #Regional resilience and development #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1944-8287.2009.01056.x
published in Economic Geography 86(1), 1-27 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2009/12/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
abstract This article argues that in its “canonical” form, the path dependence model, with its core concept of lock‐in, affords a restrictive and narrowly applicable account of regional and local industrial evolution, an account moreover that is tied to problematic underpinnings based on equilibrist thinking. As such, the canonical path dependence model actually stresses continuity rather than change. The article explores recent developments in political science, in which there have been active attempts to rethink the application of path dependence to the evolution of institutions so as to emphasize change rather than continuity. These developments are used to argue for a rethinking of path dependence ideas in economic geography.
Citations
Cited by
- Path Creation as a Process of Resource Alignment and Anchoring: Industry Formation for On-Site Water Recycling in Beijing
- Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience
- Relatedness, Industrial Branching and Technological Cohesion in US Metropolitan Areas
- The geography of Industry 4.0 technologies across European regions
- Creating New Paths? Offshore Wind, Policy Activism, and Peripheral Region Development
- Rethinking Path Creation: A Geographical Political Economy Approach
- Exogenously Led and Policy-Supported New Path Development in Peripheral Regions: Analytical and Synthetic Routes
- Towards a theory of regional diversification: combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies
- Institutional reform, path development and firm creation: evidence from China
- Regional development traps in Europe: a study of occupational trajectories of regions
- Future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development: Towards a critical examination
- Untangling regional development traps through narratives
- Breaking out of old paths? Towards a research agenda on path decline
- The politics of path reproduction under vulnerable climate conditions: the case of skiing infrastructure expansion in the Austrian Alps
- Towards an evolutionary perspective on institutions in economic geography
- Constrained opportunities for path development: how misaligned agencies and structures shape Southern regional value chains
- Analysing the prospects for place-based micro-missions: the role of challenge complexity and regional capacity
- Historic paths and future expectations: The macroeconomic impacts of the offshore wind technologies in the UK
- The Geography of Technology Legitimation: How Multiscalar Institutional Dynamics Matter for Path Creation in Emerging Industries
- Lock-in, resilience and path development in old industrial regions: an agency-based explanation
- Breaking free from the regional carbon trap: analysing the persistence of CO2 emissions in EU regions
- Diversification strategies for manufacturing essential COVID-19 products: a dialogue between regional preconditions and change agency
- Tracing paths to internationalisation: historical trajectories, ownership advantages and outward FDIs from Shanghai and Shenzhen
- The paradox of ‘on-path’ development: what are the structure–agency dynamics of avoiding negative lock-in?
- Digital vines: mapping China’s network of global platform ecosystems
- Imagining and emplacing net zero industrial clusters: A critical analysis of stakeholder discourses
- Rural E-Commerce and Emerging Paths Toward Product Renewal: Evidence from Taobao Villages in Zhejiang Province, China
- Digital social innovations in rural areas – process tracing and mapping critical junctures
- Beyond the Single Path View: Interpath Dynamics in Regional Contexts
- Expanding Analyses of Path Creation: Interconnections between Territory and Technology
- Institutions under pressure: East Asian states, global markets and national firms
- Driving forces of cluster evolution – Growth and lock-in of two German packaging machinery clusters
- Embracing the future: path transformation and system reconfiguration for self-driving cars in West Sweden
- Discourse as a carrier of history: wine tourism in the Negev and its evolution
- Fuelling regional development or exporting value? The role of the gas industry on the Limestone Coast, South Australia. [europepmc]
- Economic complexity of cities and its role for resilience. [europepmc]
- Quantifying the Selective, Stochastic, and Complementary Drivers of Institutional Evolution in Online Communities. [europepmc]
- Whirlwind model of entrepreneurial ecosystem path dependence. [europepmc]
- Reframing creativity in the city: on the emergence of contemporary township creativity. [europepmc]
- Spatial early warning signals to assess economic resilience. [europepmc]
- Changing geographies of fashion during COVID‐19: The Australian case [europepmc]
Related