Abstract

In this paper we report some considerations on the relationship between the theory and policy in development economics with a focus on the issue of local development. Relying on a direct experience of the design and implementation of projects and policies on local development in Italy we suggest an interpretation of different forms (physical, social and human) of capital as the outcome of social interactions and cognitive processes among economic agents in an evolutionary perspective. In this view we argue that the city, evolving away from its Fordist structure, is still the place where the relationships among research, innovation and production of goods and services in modern economies get organized. As such, it has to be considered as the main object of the analysis and as the main target of the new industrial policy to foster social interactions and externalities at the base of growth and development trajectories even in so called developing regions.