‘Traditional Knowledge’ and Local Development Trajectories

The papers discusses the concept of ‘traditional knowledge’: its definition, economic significance and role in shaping regional development trajectories. After outlining a conceptual framework for the analysis of traditional knowledge, the paper examines the changing position of traditional knowledge in two Italian regions that have followed since the 1950s quite different development trajectories: the ‘Sibillini Mountain Region’, hosting one of the most complex human landscape in Europe, and the ‘Marche Region footwear industrial district’, the largest in Italy. The analysis seems to corroborated the hypothesis that the position of traditional knowledge is determined by a complex interplay between meta-preferences, relatives prices and technologies co-evolving in time