TOWARDS NEW INDUSTRIAL AND SPATIAL SYSTEMS: THE ROLE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the idea that new telecommunication technologies are "enabling technologies" for processes of industrial and spatial restructuring. How-ever, they remain only a necessary and not a sufficient condition to generate processes of decentralization of industrial activities and local development. A vast literature on the effects of now information technologies ou industrial restructuring and regional development has been reviewed, with the aim of focusing on the linkages between new telecommunication technologies and the economic characteristics of new industrial and spatial systems. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part analyzes in depth the nature of the new technologies in order to understand their real capacity and potential to reshape industrial and spatial systems. An interpretation on the technological, organizational and economic features of adoption processes is crucial Id understand the real capabilities of these technologies. The second part is focused on an empirical investigation of the effects of these new technologies on the location of industrial activities, and, conse quently, on local development, for a sample of firms located in Italy.