The knowledge economy: a new source of regional divergence?

It is widely recognised that creativity and the capacity to innovate are the drivers of competitiveness,especially where the possibilities for cost-cutting have drastically lessened. Economics have madeimportant efforts to endogenise factors which boost such drivers. The paper deals with two connectedissues. First, the obsolescence of the cognitivist approach to which mainstream economics mostlyresorts to explain relationships between knowledge and creativity and, conversely, the heuristic powerof a hermeneutic approach. Second, the spatial implications of this approach, because of its stronglyplace-based nature. The paper suggests that major economies of agglomeration and cumulative effectsare at work, with important consequences on regional disparities if not divergences. Evidence from theItalian case corroborates this hypothesis, and also suggests that knowledge-based activities are givingrise to new forms of regional disparities.