Concepts In Economic Geography Research Articles

An ideational turn in economic geography?

Over the last years, economic geography has witnessed a growing interest in the role of imaginaries, narratives, visions, and similar ideational concepts. This article sketches the contours of what might be seen as an emerging ideational turn in economic geography by discussing how ideational concepts have been retheorized and applied in the field. The article elaborates on open questions about the state of research on ideational concepts in economic geography and related fields and lays out avenues for future research that an ideational turn could enable.

Unresolved issues in regional economic resilience: Conceptual ways forward

Regional economic resilience (RER) remains the state-of-the-art concept in economic geography to investigate regional development in times of disturbance. We seek to contribute to a transformative notion of RER, which unfolds in light of global environmental change. In our review of conceptual and empirical RER applications, we reveal three unresolved issues: a focus on firms rather than diverse actors, trivial reflections on social–ecological interdependencies, and the need for more fluid understandings of socio-spatial relations. Based on these insights from neighboring geographical disciplines, we provide concrete propositions for theoretical enhancement to make RER fit for purpose.

Towards an evolutionary economic geography research agenda to study migration and innovation

Abstract Different strands of literature have provided important insights into the economic effects of high-skilled migration. Evolutionary economic approaches have provided robust evidence and theories to explain how innovation unfolds in regions. However, with few exceptions they have been silent with regard to the role of migration in this process. This paper, while building on the insights of the above streams of literature, will elaborate a conceptual framework which applies evolutionary economic geography concepts to explore the link between migration, knowledge diffusion and regional diversification. By bringing together all the above arguments, this paper brings evolutionary economic geography (EEG) into an unchartered terrain, one where regional innovation meets migration studies. By engaging in these debates, EEG can prove its interpretative power and provide further insights into the drivers of regional economic dynamics and innovation.

Geographies of COVID‐19

Geographies of COVID‐19

European cooperation in maintaining defence equipment in operational condition: an analytical framework derived from economic geography

ABSTRACT Based on economic geography concepts, this article proposes an original analytical framework to understand co-operation between countries in the Maintenance in Operational Condition (MOC) of defence equipment in Europe. European countries are facing problems of MOC cost growth under strong budgetary and usage constraints. A possible solution is to share costs to benefit from economies of scale. However, as the number of participating countries increases, the “distances” (geographical, normative, political) multiply and generate new costs. These costs are likely to weigh on the choices made by countries and therefore constitute a brake on pooling and sharing initiatives. This article proposes to understand the mutualisation of MOC in Europe through a set of centripetal forces (all the advantages offered by mutualisation) and centrifugal forces (all the costs generated by mutualisation). Such a reading grid makes it possible to consider the multidimensional trade-offs underlying the organisation of MOC in Europe.

‘What is industrial culture anyway?’ Theoretical framing of the concept in economic geography

AbstractIn geography, industrial culture is a surprisingly understudied concept. Even when it is considered to play a role in the transformation processes of industrial cities or regions, it is not only terminologically diverse, but also lacks a firm theoretical and conceptual basis. This study conceptualises industrial culture and relates it to ongoing debates in various fields of geography by examining a range of literature from geography and related disciplines. This review structures the existing knowledge into four theoretical approaches: social class (Bourdieusian view), anthropological, institutional and evolutionary. Industrial culture is defined as a dynamic phenomenon in which past and present industrial production is embedded in the human physical environment, social structures, cognitive abilities, and institutions that may influence the future development choices of (post)industrial communities. This concept brings a more nuanced view of the less tangible aspects of culture to economic geography to strengthen its theoretical and empirical basis. This study explores how this concept can be integrated into current geographical research, focussing on the interaction between industrial culture and regional development through different approaches in economic geography (e.g., studies of regional assets, evolution of development paths, agency, deindustrialisation, innovation, entrepreneurship).

Urban Scaling and the Benefits of Living in Cities

Complexity science offers tools to better understand the processes underlying city development, which is particularly important for building cities that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. Urban scaling laws are empirically observed power-law relationships between population (i.e., city size) and other characteristics of cities in the same country. The theoretical underpinnings of these relationships have been proposed in The Origins of Scaling in Cities model, which derives scaling exponents from fundamental concepts in economic geography and general first principles of physics. The model introduces a parameter called net urban benefit, defined as a city’s social output minus the dissipative costs of infrastructure, representing a new metric relevant to city sustainability. Here we present a new derivation for a functional form of the metric, as well as new derivations that reveal how cities behave when the metric is maximized. We show results for U.S. cities and discuss the implications for the sustainability of the U.S. urban system, including the feedback mechanisms that keep cities on their current trajectories toward maximizing their socioeconomic output while minimizing infrastructure costs.

Context sensitivity and economic-geographic (re)theorising

AbstractDrawing upon critical realism and the literature on theorising in social sciences, this article contributes to the understanding of theorising in economic geography by highlighting the role of context throughout the theory development process. By critically reviewing two key concepts in economic geography—related variety and knowledge bases—from a critical realist theory development perspective, scholars’ sensitivity to local context through the whole theorising process is examined. We argue that the particular strength of economic geography with regard to advancing theory lies in the continuous application of concepts and theories (that is, generalities) within new contexts (that is, confrontation with new particularities).

Developing Analytical Skills in Economic Geography: Portuguese Clusters and Their Export Potential

Regional agglomerations of industry have been a focus of economic geography research, especially in terms of how these clusters form and remain successful. Such a core topic should be explored in economic geography coursework. Economic geography education itself has been the topic of debate, particularly in terms of how to make important concepts relevant to students, especially those with little or no exposure to geography. This paper presents results from a project in an upper-level, undergraduate geography course that centered on an assessment of Portuguese clusters and their export potential, employed to explore and integrate core concepts in economic geography.

Diverse paths of upgrading in high-tech manufacturing: Costa Rica in the electronics and medical devices global value chains

Costa Rica has sought to improve its position in the global economy by prioritizing export growth in two high-tech manufacturing industries led by foreign direct investment (FDI): electronics and medical devices. We use a global value chain (GVC) perspective to identify key commonalities and contrasts in Costa Rica’s performance in upgrading these two sectors. Because the electronics and medical devices GVCs have very different structures in Costa Rica (electronics is dominated by a single large firm, Intel, whereas medical devices has a highly diversified set of foreign manufacturers), multiple forms of upgrading, downgrading and knowledge spillovers are possible. Although the experience of these two industries illustrates different paths to upgrading, developing backward linkages in Costa Rica was not the preferred nor the only way of moving up the value chain. The medical devices sector exhibited more traditional knowledge spillovers and labor market features of local industrial agglomerations, whereas the electronics sector demonstrated significant wage and skill-level gains because of the incorporation of high-value service activities due to the evolving global strategy of its GVC lead firm, Intel. By combining a GVC perspective with a focus on knowledge flows and value creation at the local level, we seek to promote more explicit integration of international business and economic geography concepts and methods.

Towards a comprehensive understanding of new regional industrial path development

ABSTRACT Path creation is a key concept in economic geography. So far, particularly scholars within evolutionary economic geography have pioneered research on this topic. This paper critically discusses their work and proposes a broader understanding of how new economic activities emerge in regions, which is referred to here as ‘new regional industrial path development’. The paper develops a future research agenda, which stresses the need to develop a multi-actor and multi-scalar approach, to integrate the future into analyses of path development, and to offer a broader view on inter-path relations.

Heading down to the local? Australian rural development and the evolving spatiality of the craft beer sector

Rural geographical and regional development scholarship over the past two decades has increasingly focused on the capacities of local towns and regions to overcome chronic spirals of employment, business and demographic decline. In this context, this paper assesses the local development impacts of a once ubiquitous industry in rural Australia – beer brewing. Via a case study of 16 rural Australian craft breweries, the paper examines the factors underlying their establishment, and investigates the contribution that these new firms make to local and regional development. Applying evolutionary economic geography concepts such as place dependence and lock-in, and related ideas of embeddedness and ‘regulatory space’, the paper finds that the 16 brewers follow a variety of business models and most are small scale producers. For most, place dependence manifested as a form of embeddedness, reflected in their attachment to place, a desire to foster local and regional development and, for a minority, to create beers from local ingredients as far as possible. Evidence from the case study reported on in this paper suggests that local craft breweries are playing positive roles in engendering social, symbolic and, to a lesser extent, financial capital in their home towns and regions.

New perspectives on restructuring of old industrial areas in China: A critical review and research agenda

The restructuring of old industrial areas has been receiving much attention in regional development studies both in industrial- ized and emerging economies. Although ample Chinese-speaking studies have been published on the topic, most of them suffer from paying too little attention to dynamic multi-scalar interactions between firms, institutions, policies and places, as well as a too strong focus on individual cases. They also mostly disregard internationally recognized concepts and theories in the field. Based on these in- ternationally recognized modern concepts, this paper therefore puts forward some potential avenues for future research on the evolution of old industrial areas in China, which should overcome existing deficits in the Chinese-speaking literature. It suggests that some evolu- tionary economic geography concepts such as path dependence, lock-in, path creation, relatedness, as well as multi-scalar institutional and leadership approaches have useful potentials to better understand the evolutionary processes and mechanisms of old industrial areas

Employing SWOT Analysis in Coursework on the Geographies of Regional Economic Development and Trade

The use of SWOT analysis is a means through which geography students can investigate key concepts in economic geography and essential topics in regional economic development. This article discusses the results of a course project where economic geography students employed SWOT analysis to explore medium-sized metropolitan areas across the southern United States and their suitability for export-led development. The results suggest that students were able to critically evaluate these urban regions and their potential for integration into the global economy. This case also intimates that the SWOT concept could be applied to other situations and regions in geography coursework.

Examining the Geographies of Supply Chains in Introductory Coursework

Supply chains and other trade networks are of interest to geographers, due to their ability to connect economic processes at various scales. Relatively recent research, however, suggests that core concepts and topics in economic geography are not being fully and effectively engaged in the classroom environment. With such findings as a motivation, this article explores the integration of an online case study on the geographies of supply chains and their vulnerability to natural disasters into introductory human geography and world regional geography courses. Post-lesson survey results intimate that there are differences between the two courses with respect to understanding some economic geography concepts but relative agreement in interpreting how regionalized natural phenomena can disrupt international business networks.

Aoyama, Y., Murphy, J. T. and Hanson, S.: Key Concepts in Economic Geography (Translated by Oda, H., Kato, A., Endo, K. and Komuro, J.)

Aoyama, Y., Murphy, J. T. and Hanson, S.: Key Concepts in Economic Geography (Translated by Oda, H., Kato, A., Endo, K. and Komuro, J.)

Key Concepts in Economic Geography

Key Concepts in Economic Geography

Strategic Coupling and Regional Development in Resource Economies: the case of the Pilbara

ABSTRACTThe relationship between regions and external capital has been a topic of recurring interest in economic geography and regional development studies since the 1970s. This relationship has recently been re-conceptualised in terms of strategic coupling, a concept that is closely associated with the adoption of a Global Production Networks (GPNs) approach among economic geographers. Like many other concepts in economic geography, strategic coupling has been informed by the experiences of manufacturing and service-orientated regions in developed countries. As such, the question of the applicability of strategic coupling to resource economies in semi-peripheral regions of the world economy remains unexamined, despite the emergence of critical work seeking to unpack and evaluate the concept. This paper aims to extend this embryonic strand of research by providing a critical appraisal of the meaning and relevance of strategic coupling in the Pilbara mining region of Western Australia. My argument is that the relationship between mining capital and regional actors in the Pilbara is more akin to an unbalanced form of structural coupling than the balanced process of strategic coupling depicted in the GPN literature. This underlines the enduring relevance of some long-standing themes of geographical political economy such as external domination, uneven development, conflicts over value and the distinction between development ‘of’ a region and development ‘in’ a region.

My Networking Is Not Working! Conceptualizing the Latent and Dysfunctional Dimensions of the Network Paradigm

Networks have become a major analytical concept in economic geography and have served to extend both empirical and theoretical research agendas. However, much of the literature on networks is characterized as associative, considering them only as cumulative constructs through the constant enrollment of additional actors. Through the lens of social capital and a discussion of the limitations of the networking paradigm in economic geography, this article aims to move beyond this associative nature and introduce variance in network practices in the form of nonworking and not working. By presenting a hypothetical example of a project-based network, we introduce the concepts of nonworking and not working as latency and disassociation as dimensions of network practices. In doing so, we present a more nuanced approach to the networking paradigm in relational economic geography, one that moves beyond a purely associative understanding to incorporate nonworking and not working.

Key Concepts in Economic Geography * Yuko Aoyama, James T. Murphy and Susan Hanson

Key Concepts in Economic Geography * Yuko Aoyama, James T. Murphy and Susan Hanson