Local purchasing schemes and rural development: an evaluation of local exchange and trading systems (LETS).

摘要

Through a critical review of economic base theory, the paper argues that the ability to prevent income leaking out of an area is as important to rural development as the capacity to generate external income. The problem at present, however, is thatfew effective policy instruments exist to contain such seepage. An innovative approach to facilitate local purchasing amongst rural dwellers is evaluated: Local Exchange and Trading Systems (LETS). Reporting empirical evidence from both a national surveyof UK LETS and a membership survey of Totnes LETS in Devon, the paper finds that LETS are rapidly growing in rural areas and are not only encouraging local purchasing, but are also rebuilding local social networks and enabling some of those marginalizedfrom employment to gain access to work and credit. As such, they amalgamate both economic and community development. To further improve their effectiveness, several barriers to their development are identified and solutions offered as to how these may be overcome.