Institutions and C omparative Regional R esearch

When I started to think about the topic of this paper/talk, I sat down with some colleagues and threw out a few general ideas to get their reactions. I envisioned days devoted to reading and hours thinking profound thoughts as I prepared it. I do not know why I had this fantasy. Long ago I learned that days devoted to reading are a luxury; something that surprises friends and family who are not professors. But I found my thoughts turning more to the everyday than the profound. As a result, this is a more personal view of regional science, which draws on my experiences and my training in both institutional economics and regional economics. I will start with some of those experiences and the questions they raised for me about the importance of institutions in regional development and some of the difficulties of doing comparative regional research. While I include regions at many levels of aggregation, my particular interest is how to incorporate institutions into the analysis of regional differences in economic development. I want to explore what literature and methods are out there that can provide insights into better ways of incorporating institutions into comparative regional research.