摘要：While most regional scientists feel the neoclassical approach is too limited, it nonetheless is implicit in much of the conventional wisdom and approach (Leven 1985) so that "...both the mechanisms for developing peripheral areas, and the variables used for measuring the success achieved, have essentially been borrowed from neoclassical economics" (St.hr 1982: 71). To an extent perhaps unusual in other countries, Canadian policy discussions and even the academic literature on regional problems are dominated by the neoclassical paradigm. A conventional treatment of the role of technological diffusion in a regional context is to attribute low wages in a region to slowness to adopt new production techniques (Batra and Scully 1972; Economic Council of Canada 1977, 1980; Macdonald Royal Commission 1985; Mansell and Copithorne 1986; Pereira and Seabra 1994). The link assumed is that management's failure to adopt new techniques in some regions is one cause of low wages. However, this is not, in itself, an explanation because it implies that entrepreneurial ability is an immobile resource. Otherwise, entrepreneurs from other regions should move into the technologically backward, low wage region (Bradfield 1976).
