50th Anniversary European Congress of the Regional Science Association International "Sustainable Regional Growth and Development in the Creative Knowledge Economy" 19 - 23 August 2010 - Jonkoping, Sweden Industrial districts in rural areas of Italy and Spain* Rafael Boix† and Yancy Vaillant‡ Abstract. The industrial district is a model of production mainly related to medium and small cities characterized by industrial specializations in small and medium enterprises. However, the mapping of the phenomenon in countries as Italy and Spain suggest that industrial districts are also present in rural areas. The objective of this contribution is the identification, mapping and characterization of industrial districts located in rural areas as well as to evaluate the extent in which industrial districts in predominantly rural areas have contributed to the dynamism of these areas. The analysis allows evaluating the importance of industrial districts for the development of rural areas and to provide some recommendations regarding policy strategies. * The present has its origins in the author’s contributions to the OECD Rural Reviews of Italy and Spain (2009a; 2009b). The authors thank the comments of Raffaele Trapasso, José Antonio Ardavin and Enrique Garcilazo to the initial results. † Universitat de València, Edifici Departamental Oriental, Campus dels Tarongers, Avda. dels Tarongers, S/N (4P15) 46022 - València (Spain). Email:
[email protected]. ‡ Departament d’Economia de l’Empresa. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Campus de Bellaterra, Edifici B, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès. Email:
[email protected]. 1 1. INTRODUCTION Rural economic development policy in most OECD countries has traditionally been the equivalent to Agricultural policy and has mostly been based on developing primary industries and the extraction of raw resources.