Israel’s Silicon Wadi: The forces behind cluster formation

Abstract

Industry clusters consist of agglomerations of competing and collaborating industries in a region networking into horizontal and vertical relationships, involving strong common buyer-supplier linkages, and relying on a shared foundation of specialized economic institutions. "Cluster Based Economic Development: A Key to Regional Competitiveness," Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, October 1997 INTRODUCTION: ISRAEL AS AN ICT CLUSTER By the end of the 1990s Israel was generally acknowledged to have developed a cluster of high-technology industries. For instance, Wired magazine (Hillner 2000), ranking locations by the strength of cluster effects, gave the Israeli h..