Regional Economic Development and History

Regional Studies is inextricably intertwined with history. Cultural and institutional legacies inform choices between different policy options, meaning that the past plays a crucial role in how we think about regional economic development, planning and policy.

Through a selection of accessible theoretical, methodological and empirical chapters, this book explores the connections between regional development and history. Drawing on the expertise of scholars in several disciplines, it links history to topics such as behavioural geography, interdependence, divergence and regional and urban policy.

This innovative book will be of interest to researchers across regional studies, planning, economic geography and economic history.

Marijn Molema is a historian and working as programme leader at the Frisian Institute of Social Research. He is also a guest researcher at the Fryske Akademy, a research institute in the city of Leeuwarden of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sara Svensson is a political scientist specializing in regional collaboration across national borders. She is Senior Lecturer at Halmstad University in Sweden and Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies at Central European University in Budapest (Hungary).