Local Economic Development and its Potential

Although Local Economic Development seems to be nothing new, because it must have always existed, the issue was just until recently not on the political agenda nor adequately recognized in traditional economic thinking. More or less there existed only two approaches:

Microeconomics focus on the economic performance of the single enterprise, while macroeconomic approaches focus on the national economy and increasingly on the economy at a world wide level. In this view the single enterprise interacts directly with the national resp the world economy more or less without any relationship to intermediate entities like neighbourhoods, communities, localities or regions. Although this might sound strange again, scientific efforts especially designed for the economic performance of neighbourhoods, communities, localities or regions were not seen as of any importance or necessity.

The paper answers the following questions:

• What is Local Economic Development?

• What are the strategies for Local Economic Development?

• What is the impact of Local Economic Development?

• Who are the major actors?

• How can cross-border co-operation be encouraged?