Endogenous growth policies for lagging cities and regions

Economic disparities among cities and regions persist and in some cases are increasing. To promote development of lagging economies, extant policies focus on the lagging regions and attempt to create conditions that are attractive to the immigration of capital, labor and above all knowledge. We study a variety of policies in the context of self-organizing economy in a prolonged far from equilibrium state. We utilize a dedicated agent-based model with local positive feedbacks that tend to possess a multiplicity of asymptotic states or possible emergent structures. Our model includes several types of agents including, firms that make decisions what to produce and whether to hire additional workers and individuals that make decisions whether to migrate and become entrepreneurs as an alternative to working for existing firms. We focus on the effects of different levels of globalization, understanding the term as a three-dimensional concept. Globalization of “work”, “technology” and “education” created by specific policies are assessed separately leading to different outcomes for lagging cities and regions. An interpretation of the results through the lens of entropy theory is discussed.