This proposal requests funds to permit Dr. Ann R. Markusen, Center for Urban Policy Research Planning and Policy Development, Rutgers University, to pursue with Dr. Sam Ock Park, Department of Geography, Seoul National University, Korea, for a period of 24 months, a program of cooperative research on regional development theory and practice in the United States and Korea. These collaborators will examine the following five approaches to regional development theory as practiced in the U.S. and Korea: product/profit cycle theories; seedbeds of innovation; new districts; trade- induced development; and state-induced development. Most empirical tests of regional development theories have been confined to analysis within a particular country. In the present project, however, theoretical framework will be compared and tested against the postwar experience of Korean and American regions. The validity of previous research results on a single national experience will be reviewed in an attempt to improve the various theories via comparative results. The two collaborators are highly regarded scientists who have made significant contributions to the literature i/n the field of this project. This project is relevant to the objectives of the U.S.-Korea Cooperative Science Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. and Korean scientists and engineers through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual benefits.
