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San José State University
Department of Economics |
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applet-magic.com Thayer Watkins Silicon Valley & Tornado Alley USA |
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Concept of A Growth Pole |
François Perroux introduced the idea of economic Growth Poles in 1949. He and others have written about the concept extensively and yet, despite this or perhaps because of this, there is no consensus as to what it means. There is considerable intuitive appeal of the concept and so it has had influence on policy makers. The policy makers presumed that economists could supply the technical analysis needed to make sense of the policies based upon the concept of growth poles.
The intuitive notion of growth poles would identify a growth pole as an
industry or perhaps a group of firms with an industry. At an extreme a
growth pole might be a single firm or it might be a group of industries.
Perroux, however, defined growth poles in terms of what he called abstract
economic space. Perroux conceived of abstract economic space to be of
three types:
Perroux specifically denied that abstract economic space could correspond to
a geographic area such as a city or region. For Perroux the aspect of dominance was important for growth
poles. A firm or industry A is said to be dominant over B if the flow
of goods and services from A to B is a greater proportion of A's output
than the flow from B to A is of B's output. A large firm or industry that
has
a high degree of interaction with others and is dominant in that interaction
is said to be propulsive. The process of development of a propulsive
firm or industry is called
polarization.
Perroux and other writers on growth poles try to base the concept on
the notions of external economies, agglomeration and linkages. An external economy exits
if a change in the output of one firm or one industry affects costs in
other firms. External economies of scale may be negative, as in the case
of pollutions costs, or they may be positive, as in the case of the
development of integrated circuit technology in the electronics industry.
Linkage is a concept developed in regional economics. Linkages may
be forward or backward. If a growth in production in one industry stimulates
production in the industries supplying it then that industry has backward
linkages. For example, the steel industry has backward linkages to the iron
ore mining industry, the coke and coal industries and the transportation
industry involved in transporting those inputs to the steel industry.
A forward linkage when the availability of the output of an industry make
possible the production of industries using that output. For example, the
plastic producing industry makes it feasable for businesses requiring plastic
to begin operation. The French economist, J-R. Bourdeville made a study of the steel industry
of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais as a growth pole. Despite Perroux's
denial that growth poles are geographic many of the applications of the
concept are for geographic regions.
These applications often are enlightening. For example, the regional
economy of Paris can be considered to be a growth pole. The case of Paris
shows that effect of polarization on the surrounding geographic area is not
always positive. The attraction of Paris has been so great that it has been
extremely difficult to promote any economic development in the area outside
of the Paris region. French planning literature refers to this as the
phenomenon of Paris and the French Desert. In the U.S. the concept of growth poles has usually taken the form
emphasizing geographic location which are called Growth Centers.
Growth centers are related to the concept of agglomeration. In many ways
the American work on growth centers is virtually independent of Perroux
and the French literature on growth poles.
Albert Hirschman uses
the term polarization to refer to the negative impact of a growth
pole on surrounding regions. Trickling down is the term he uses
for the positive impact of a growth pole or growth center on adjacent
regions. Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist, use the terms backwash
and spread for the same concepts as Hirschman's polarization and
trickling down.
The American economist, John R. Friedman, has developed a concept
that is related but distinct from the ideas of growth poles and growth
centers. It is called the matter of the center versus the periphery.
Friedman developed this idea in analyzing the relationship of the interior
regions of Venezuela to the coastal regions. Others have extended the
concept to the relationship of the North Atlantic center of Westerm
Europe and North America to Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.
Altogether the concept of growth poles has been of only marginal
importance in analyzing regional economic problems. Nevertheless the
idea of growth poles has had a major role in formulating regional
policy.
Source: David Darwent, "Growth poles and growth centers in regional
planning--a review," Environment and Planning, vol. 1 (1969), pp. 5-32.
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