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>> The best way to actually disperse economic access is from the ground up: target the inputs to industry and create regional cost advantages. I'm dubious this

>> The best way to actually disperse economic access is from the ground up: target the inputs to industry and create regional cost advantages. I'm dubious this still can work. Electrification was like steam - fundamentally transformative compared to all previous human history. It's hard to now put "cheap" inputs into almost any part of the UK - coal? nuclear? We have been mining the raw resources for something like 5,000 years in cornwall. There is not a lot left. Interested in counter examples or ideas but this feels a lot like "build cities not so centred around cars" Edit: are you saying that you give cost advantages to a region in a country? Say Cornwall will be the tech hub, North East will be aerospace, etc? Which it's probably possible to make an area an aerospace local maxima. but will that compete globally? do we set up tariffs? I genuinely am interested because otherwise it's a crapshoot.

ethbr0 5y ago
It's really two different questions. #1 How do you create incentives to locate profitable businesses in economically depressed areas? #2 How do you create competitive global businesses? The latter question is really a more complicated valuation of possible end state, current global market state and opportunities, and how much capital the nation is prepared to invest. South Korea and Japan (and SE Asia) would be modern examples. The former question is a bit simpler, because all the levers are in national government hands (or proxies for those levers). Although it's a process that still takes time, as businesses organically form, relocate, and scale in light of the new local maximum, and economies of colocation organize. If asked to pick, I'd say the biggest modern inputs that can be influenced by the government would be: temporary tax incentives, capital access at competitive rates, access to sufficient local supply of trained and knowledgeable labor, low carbon / cheap power, global network access at reasonable rates (or at least sufficient capacity to nearest backbone), and local upstream suppliers (or room for same).

ethbr0 5y ago

It's really two different questions. #1 How do you create incentives to locate profitable businesses in economically depressed areas? #2 How do you create competitive global businesses? The latter question is really a more complicated valuation of possible end state, current global market state and opportunities, and how much capital the nation is prepared to invest. South Korea and Japan (and SE Asia) would be modern examples. The former question is a bit simpler, because all the levers are in national government hands (or proxies for those levers). Although it's a process that still takes time, as businesses organically form, relocate, and scale in light of the new local maximum, and economies of colocation organize. If asked to pick, I'd say the biggest modern inputs that can be influenced by the government would be: temporary tax incentives, capital access at competitive rates, access to sufficient local supply of trained and knowledgeable labor, low carbon / cheap power, global network access at reasonable rates (or at least sufficient capacity to nearest backbone), and local upstream suppliers (or room for same).