Economic Geography

10 Key excerpts on "Economic Geography"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Economic Geography

  • B. W. Hodder, Roger Lee(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Finally, the concept of the economy underlies the logic of the discussion in the sections that follow. The next chapter presents a selective review of literature in the field of Economic Geography against the background of the concept of the economy developed so far. Then follows the second and longer section of the book in which there is a discussion of the mechanisms of decision making and control. This involves a study of demand, supply, price and the market mechanisms; the alternative or complementary role of government control; and the decision-making activities of consumers, firms and resource owners. The third section of the book takes a closer look at the physical expression of integration within and between economies in the form of flows of goods, people and ideas, and the spatial structure of market centres and transport networks. The final section is devoted to a brief review of the geography of economic growth and development. This is a rapidly growing field of applied Economic Geography and demonstrates the apparent inability or unwillingness of the world economy to redistribute economic power or wealth from the rich to the poor. Intolerable economic inequalities, whether structural or spatial, and the associated ecological implications of the great but highly concentrated productive power of the world economy are perhaps the two major problems facing mankind.

  Passage contains an image

  2 Geographical studies of economic activity

  The concept of the economy has rarely been used explicitly in geographical studies of economic activity; Economic Geography, in general, has been concerned with matters other than the operation of economies, the behaviour and interaction of their elements or the implications of the prevailing distribution of economic power. Within the existing literature in Economic Geography it is possible to distinguish two overlapping approaches to the study of economic activity. Systematic approaches are normally defined in terms of specific products (e.g. wheat), sectors (e.g. energy) or processes (e.g. trade), and are concerned with the spatial structure of these phenomena. Spatial approaches are defined in terms of specific two-dimensional, abstract, national or regional space and are concerned with the spatial structure of economic activity within these areas and with the effects of economic activity upon their economic and regional character.

  Systematic approaches

  An early emphasis in Economic Geography was upon the scientific study of world areas in their direct influence upon the production of goods (Götz 1882). This approach sought to lay bare the influence of the natural environment upon the occupations, products and lives of people in different regions of the world (Wooldridge and East 1966). The best-known example of this approach is Chisholm’s handbook of commercial geography

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Economic Geography

  A Critical Introduction

  • Trevor J. Barnes, Brett Christophers, Trevor J. Barnes(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  emphasizes that geography matters, knowing others are less wont to do so.

  This notion of the “materiality of geography” is what we refer to as the implication of space, place, scale, landscape, and environment in economic processes. By “implicated” we mean that the geographies in question affect the processes in question. Whether it is inflation, globalization, raw material extraction, industrial waste disposal, or whatever else, geography is integral rather than peripheral or incidental to the form and outcomes of the process. It is an active ingredient. We add the word “substantive” to make a key further point. This is, that the effects of the geographic are not trivial or marginal. They are significant to the degree of being necessary to explanation. Or, to look at things from an alternative perspective, one might say that the form and outcomes of economic processes in which space and other factors are substantively implicated would be significantly different were it not for those factors. Geography makes a (big) difference. As such, meaningful understanding and explanation of such processes requires explicit attention to and consideration of their geographical dimensions.

  This leaves just one final component of our definition to be elucidated: the nature of the “space, place, scale, landscape, and environment” upon the implications of which Economic Geography focuses. What are these things? This question, unsurprisingly, has no simple answer beyond saying that they constitute collectively the essential “stuff” of human geography. Probably at least as much ink has been spilled on each such concept and its meaning as on “economy.”

  At this point we provide no attempt at definitions or identification of general usages of these terms in Economic Geography. Definitions would be impossible. And usage in Economic Geography is in many respects what this book as a whole is about. The meaning of a term like “place” only really becomes apparent and consequential in the context of its utilization. How Economic Geography understands and invokes each key geographic term will become clearer in the following chapters. For now, therefore, we limit ourselves to a preliminary sketch of each term’s basic contours, which we think is a helpful foundation from which to proceed (Box 2.2

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Economic and Social Geography

  • R. Knowles, J. Wareing(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Made Simple

    (Publisher)

  PART ONE: THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER ONE MAN AND ENVIRONMENT Geography is currently going through an exciting period in its development as new problems are identified and new methods of analysis are formulated. It is not easy to say precisely what geography is about because geographers often hold different views of the subject, and these views change from time to time, but this is not surprising since geographers are interested in a very wide range of problems and rapid advances are being made in the subject, as they are in all branches of knowledge. Because geography involves such a wide range of knowledge, the subject has been divided into two major areas of study. The first of these is physical geography, which is concerned with the physical environment of landforms, weather and climate, soils, and plants and animals (see Physical Geography Made Simple). The second is human geography, which is concerned with man's activities over the surface of the earth. In many ways this is a false distinction since the activities of man take place within the physical environment, and the physical environment is considerably affected by these activities, but the divi-sion is a useful one and in this book the physical environment will only be considered in relation to man. Human geography can be studied in two principal ways. First, the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of regional geography, which seeks to understand the unique character of an area as produced by the interaction of human activity and the physical environment. Secondly, human activity over the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of systematic geography, which isolates particular elements such as agriculture, industry or transport, and seeks to understand their spatial patterns and the processes which have produced them.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  FTCE Social Science 6-12 (037) Book + Online

  • Cynthia Metcalf, Rhonda Atkinson(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Research & Education Association

    (Publisher)

  Human Geography focuses on humans and the cultures they create relative to their space. It encompasses population geography, economics, and political geography and looks at how people’s activities relate to the environment politically, culturally, historically, and socially.

  Physical Geography addresses Earth’s physical environment: water (hydrosphere ), air (atmosphere ), plants and animals (biosphere ), and land (lithosphere ). Physical geographers study land formation, water, weather, and climate (weather patterns, specifically precipitation and temperature, over time), as well as more specific topics such as geomorphology, biogeography, and environmental geography.

  Regional Geography organizes areas of Earth that have some degree of similarity and divides the world into different realms .

  Topical/Systemic Geography is the orderly and methodical study of climate, landforms, economics, and culture.

  The main focus of geographers, no matter the subfield, is the spatial perspective. For example, population geography deals with the relationships between geography and population patterns, including birth and death rates. Political geography concerns the effect of geography on politics, especially on national boundaries and relations between states. Economic Geography focuses on the interaction between Earth’s landscape and the economic activity of the human population.

  COMPETENCY 1.1

  Apply the six essential elements of geography. Geographic Education: 18 Standards, 6 Elements

  The National Geography Standards

  (http://nationalgeographic.org/standards/national-geography-standards/

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Routledge Companion to the Geography of International Business

  • Gary Cook, Jennifer Johns, Frank McDonald, Jonathan Beaverstock, Naresh Pandit, Gary Cook, Jennifer Johns, Frank McDonald, Jonathan Beaverstock, Naresh Pandit(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  p.175 PART III The interface between Economic Geography and International Business p.177 11 Economic Geography AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Henry Wai-chung Yeung Introduction The development and emergence of economic-geographical studies of International Business activities is an important topic. As these cross-border intra- and inter-firm activities are becoming more globally interconnected and interdependent today, their management and governance by firms, states and other institutions is much more challenging and complex. The geographical foundations and specificities of this phenomenon in a globalizing era has become a crucial research question for the academic fields of Economic Geography and International Business studies. Indeed, both fields are nested within the larger disciplines – respectively in human geography and in strategy and management studies. Both fields are primarily concerned with descriptions and explanations of real-world economic phenomena in the world. There is thus much commonality between Economic Geography and International Business studies. In this chapter, I focus on two key issues that speak well to the interface between Economic Geography and International Business studies: (1) the geographical nature of International Business and (2) the theorization of spatiality in International Business studies. The first issue is fairly obvious in a global economy characterized by densely interconnected networks of firms and economies operating at different geographical scales. In short, there are clearly visible geographical foundations to International Business activities (Yeung, 2005a, 2009a). While the role of physical location and distance has been conceptualized in some leading theoretical perspectives in International Business studies (e.g. Dunning, 1998, 2009; Buckley & Ghauri, 2004), the nature of spatiality entails much more than location as a production factor, an agglomeration economy, or a competitive advantage

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The SAGE Handbook of Human Geography, 2v

  • Roger Lee, Noel Castree, Rob Kitchin, Vicky Lawson, Anssi Paasi, Chris Philo, Sarah Radcliffe, Susan M. Roberts, Charles Withers, Roger Lee, Noel Castree, Rob Kitchin, Vicky Lawson, Anssi Paasi, Chris Philo, Sarah Radcliffe, Susan M. Roberts, Charles Withers, Author(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Insofar as Economic Geography captures or reflects the economy, it is a diverse place where the motivations, motions, and direction of individual elements and actors are less the product of an internal logic or structure and more a product of context and contingency. The economy, to the degree it is a site to be comprehended as a singularity, is inextricably linked to (and constituted by) other processes, which are generally excluded from consideration by economics. Culture and society, gender and identity, bodies and places, as well as the material processes of the environment, technology, and administration all constitute the economy that is performed by Economic Geography. Even where economic geographers focus on and theorize capitalism per se, it is a ‘variegated’ capitalism (Peck and Theodore 2007) that is differentiated across space and whose contours and trajectories are a function of myriad other processes and practices (e.g. social context, power, relations and networks, identities, gender, culture, race, sexuality, etc.). Economic Geography disrupts many of the assumed attributes and dynamics that we normally associate with the economy and, indeed, with capitalism. Its capacities and propensities are no longer seen as inevitable law-like functions but, via the empirical and theoretical work of human geographers, as outcomes of rich contexts and multiple determinants as increasingly evident, even in the work of geographers concerned with economic modeling (see, for example, the discussion in Martin and Sunley, 2010).

  Furthermore, human geographers not only work on capitalism such that it becomes other than what it was assumed to be (e.g. variegated, embedded, and contingent), they also expand the field of economics to sites and practices outside the capitalist frame. Again, at an ontological level, we see in Economic Geography a wide range of sites, which, from the perspective of orthodox economics, are thought to be outside the economy (as we have noted in our Introduction, the list of such ‘outsiders’ is open-ended). These do not just affect or condition some external economy; they themselves are sites of economic practice and, often, alternative economic performance (Leyshon, Lee, and Williams, 2003; Lee, 2006; Fuller, Jonas, and Lee 2010, also see the following). It is not that economists do not also explore these ‘margins’, but that within economics they are peripheral to a set of core concepts and theories which align with the economy. In Economic Geography, however, they appear as no more or less vital than other more traditional sites of economy (e.g. firm, etc.).

  The ontological diversity presumed and produced by Economic Geography is, we posit, a product of its epistemological and theoretical diversity, its heterodoxy (cf. St Martin and Wing, 2007). Theoretical explorations and influences that have been felt across the social sciences and have been incorporated and institutionalized within Economic Geography, such as how one might know the economy and, indeed, how one might perform it, have been multiplied. Whereas in economics, for example, such influences produced an academic culture of division, orthodoxy and dissention, and marginalization of theoretical (and hence economic) difference, in Economic Geography it resulted in a decidedly more hybridized and open academic milieu. Indeed, this is what makes Economic Geography distinct from economics, it is a site where a wealth of ontological and epistemological difference relative to economy has proliferated and multiplied, thereby allowing different economic worlds to also proliferate and multiply.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Companion to Economic Geography

  • Eric Sheppard, Trevor J. Barnes, Trevor J. Barnes, Trevor J. Barnes(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  As a result of complex spatial divisions of labor (Massey, 1984), commodities are traded between regions, both from firms to consumers and from one firm to another. A unique economic sector also exists ± transportation ± which produces the necessary com-modity of transportation services, so that commodities can be shipped from one place to another. Economic geographers examining the functioning of a spatially extensive capital-ist economy have concluded that incorporating space into our thinking poses further challenges to economic theory. First, the complexities of space mean that the decisions individual capitalists make, about where to locate, how to set prices, what to produce in which quantities, which technology to use, and who to trade with, may well have unintended consequences that undermine the functioning of competitive markets. Even when firms make decisions that seem to be economic-ally beneficial in the short run, once the ramifications of these decisions have concatenated through the geographical economy, the result may be geographies of production that are less profitable than before, not more profitable. Marx referred to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, even as capitalists work to increase it, as one of the forces undermining capitalist production. Such tendencies seem to be enhanced by the economy having a spatial dimension (Sheppard and Barnes, 1990). 176 ERIC SHEPPARD Second, geographically uneven development is not only consistent with but frequently facilitates capital accumulation. When there is uneven development, workers in wealthy regions may find that their interests correspond more with those of local capitalists than with those of workers in poorer regions. This has long been recognized at the international scale.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Dilemmas in Regional Policy

  • Antoni Kuklinski, Jan G. Lambooy, Antoni Kuklinski, Jan G. Lambooy(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Agriculture's regionalisation Shaping of territorial production complexes • Location theory •General and detailed location • Sectoral location (industry, agriculture, transport, etc.) -Branch and complex location-. Interregional intraregional location. »Settlements theory--Country's and regional networks --Urbanization -Rural settlements Infrastructure distribution theory -Country and regional infrastructure-Techno-economic and social infrastructure -•I Country and regional spatial systems [<-constitute the essence of the measure taken and decisions made within the framework of regional economics. By virtue of its interdisciplinary nature, regional economics permits taking account of a number of preconditions for social, economic and spatial developments. The scope of regional economics embraces, moreover, also spatial aspects of all the problems that are solved in practice by socio-economic and regional policies, by nationwide and regional developmental strategies, and by national and regional planning, especially in their concrete forms of plans for various time intervals. The enumeration itself, of the disciplines directly connected with regional economics and affecting significantly the character and subject of its interest, is good evidence of the necessity of many-aspect studies and researches to disclose the interrelationships and dependencies at the 52 Kazimierz Secomski interdisciplinary level. One essential distinctive feature of the specific tasks regional economics is to fulfill is the criterion of region and its needs, that is, the implicit emphasis on the solution of the problems of rational socio-economic and spatial development in the region within the scope of regional economics. This, however, is not to say that regional problems may be solved in isolation from the entire body of nationwide or international phenomena and processes of development.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Economy

  Critical Essays in Human Geography

  • Ron Martin(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Reflecting on these debates, I identify six axioms that are central to conceptualizing economic geographies. I then go on to consider issues of culture and the economy and the relationships between them. The paper explores the links between political-economic and cultural-economic approaches, suggesting that they are most productively seen as complementary both/and approaches rather than as competitive either/or ones. Key words: economic geographies, circuits, flows, spaces, capitalism, political economy, cultural economy I Introduction The last decade or so has been one of ongoing, at times heated, debate in Economic Geography as to how best to conceptualize and theorize economies and their geographies, and, relatedly, how best to practise and carry out research on such economic geographies. This debate is reflected in a number of edited volumes that seek to define the current state-of-the-art and (re)define the conceptual boundaries of Economic Geography (for example, see Amin and Thrift, 2004b; Clark et al, 2000; Lee and Wills, 1997; Sheppard and Barnes, 2000). During the 1970s and 1980s, in the wake of the critique of spatial science and views of the space economy that drew heavily on the orthodoxies of neoclassical economics, strands of heterodox political-economic approaches in general and Marxian political economy in particular rose to prominence. These were important in introducing concerns with issues of evolution, institutions and the state, alongside those of agency and structure, in seeking to develop more powerful and nuanced understandings of economies and their geographies. Much of the subsequent debate in the 1990s has been informed by poststructural critiques of such political-economic approaches, especially those that were seen (rightly or wrongly) to rely upon an overly deterministic and structural reading of the economy and its geographies (Hudson, 2001)

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Information Sources in the Social Sciences

  • David Fisher, Sandra Price, Terry Hanstock, David Fisher, Sandra Price, Terry Hanstock(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Saur

    (Publisher)

  Available electronically. 10.9.6 Economic Geography Economic Geography (ISSN 0013-0095) (Worcester, MA: Clark Univers-ity, 1925- ). Quarterly. Until recently, it was the only journal published in English specializing in Economic Geography. The journal has worldwide distribution. Available electronically. Journal of Economic Geography (ISSN 1468-2710) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001- ). Biannual. The journal aims to redefine and rein-vigorate the intersection between economics and geography and to provide a world class journal in the field for the new millennium. Available elec-tronically. 10.9.7 Urban geography Cities (ISSN 0264-2751) (Kidlington, Oxon: Elsevier, 1984- ). Bi-monthly. It offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. The primary aims of the journal are to analyse and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effec-tive, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world. Available electronically. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (ISSN 0309-1317) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977- ). Quarterly. The leading inter-national journal for urban studies. Since its inception in 1977 as a ground-breaking forum for intellectual debate, it has remained at the forefront of its field. Available electronically. Urban Geography (ISSN 0272-3638) (Columbia, MD: Bellwether Publishing, 1980- ). Eight issues a year. The journal offers original papers on problem-oriented current research by geographers and other social sci-entists on: urban policy; race, poverty and ethnicity in the city; international differences in urban form and function; historical preservation; the urban housing market; and provision of services and urban economic activity. -*436 HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Urban Studies (ISSN 0042-0980) (Basingstoke: Carfax, 1964- ).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book