University of California Transportation Center

This dissertation asks what role local public agencies might play in regional economic development through the market-shaping institutions they create and sustain. Recent economic geography literature has sought to account for patterns of regional development in terms of institutional differences across space. Research has sought to identify and understand these institutions, defined as taken for granted formal and informal rules, practices, norms and patterns of behavior. However, the current literature is vague about the role of public policy, and often ignores extra-regional economic forces.