An Evaluation of the Economic Approaches Used by Policy Actors towards Investment in Place‐Based Partnerships in Victoria

Place‐based partnerships are supported by the state and include various organisations and interests within particular geographic areas. The Victorian government has established place‐based partnerships to plan and coordinate resource allocation decisions to meet objectives such as economic development and social inclusion. In the literature there are positive and negative views of these partnerships. One view is that they allow regions to build competitive advantage, while another is that they are a means of pursuing a neoliberal policy agenda that seeks to reduce government protection and investment. We help clarify the tensions between positive and negative views of partnerships by examining the economic approaches used by policy actors toward place‐based partnerships in Victoria. We find that policy actors combine neoclassical and institutionalist approaches to argue that partnerships generate networks that enable more efficient and equitable resource allocation within places .