Economic geographers have always argued that space is key to understanding the economy, that the processes of economic growth and development do not occur uniformly across geographic space, but rather differ in degree and form as between different nations, regions, cities and localities, with major implications for the geographies of wealth and welfare. This was true in the industrial phase of global capitalism, and is no less true in the contemporary era of post-industrial, knowledge-driven global capitalism. Indeed, the marked changes occurring in the structure and operation of the economy, in the sources of wealth creation, in the organisation of the firm, in the nature of work, in the boundaries between market and state, and in the regulation of the socio-economy, have stimulated an unprecedented wave of theoretical, conceptual and empirical enquiry by economic geographers. Even economists, who traditionally have viewed the economy in non-spatial terms, as existing on the head of the proverbial pin, are increasingly recognising the importance of space, place and location to understanding economic growth, technological innovation, competitiveness and globalisation. This collection of previously published work, though containing but a fraction of the huge explosion in research and publication that has occurred over the past two decades, seeks to convey a sense of this exciting phase in the intellectual development of the discipline and its importance in grasping the spatialities of contemporary economic life.
Contents: Introduction; Part I Conceptual Developments in Economic Geography: A perspective of economic geography, Allen J. Scott; Paul Krugman's geographical economics and its implications for regional development theory: a critical assessment, Ron Martin and Peter Sunley; A institutionalist perspective on regional economic development, Ash Amin; Toward a relational economic geography, Harald Bathelt and Johannes Glückler; Conceptualizing economies and their geographies: spaces, flows and circuits, Ray Hudson; Why is economic geography not an evolutionary science? Towards an evolutionary economic geography, Ron A. Boschma and Koen Frenken. Part II The Localization of Global Economic Space: Neo-Marshallian nodes in global networks, Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift; Sticky places in slippery space: a typology of industrial districts, Ann Markusen; 'Globalizing' regional development: a global production networks perspective, Neil M. Coe, Martin Hess, Henry Wai-chung Yeung, Peter Dicken and Jeffrey Henderson; Theorizing economic geographies of Asia, Henry Wai-chung Yeung and George C.S. Lin. Part III Firms, Workers and Places: Sunk costs: a framework for economic geography, Gordon L. Clark and Neil Wrigley; Firms in territories: a relational perspective, Peter Dicken and Anders Malmberg; Labor and agglomeration: control and flexibility in local labor markets, Jamie Peck; The economic geography of talent, Richard Florida. Part IV Culture, Technology and the Geographies of Knowledge: Telecommunications and the changing geographies of knowledge transmission in the late-20th century, Barney Warf; The cultural economy: geography and the creative field, Allen J. Scott; 'Being there': proximity, organization and culture in the development and adoption of advance manufacturing technologies, Meric S. Gertler; Towards a knowledge-based theory of the geographical cluster, Peter Maskell; The evolution of technologies in time and space: from national and regional to spatial innovation systems, Päivi Oinas and Edward J. Malecki; The economic geography of the internet age, Edward E. Leamer and Michael Storper. Part V Regulating Economic Spaces: The post-Keynesian state and the space economy, Ron Martin and Peter Sunley; Neoliberalizing space, Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell; Globalization and the politics of local and regional development: the question of convergence, Kevin R. Cox; The global trend towards devolution and its implications, Andrés Rodriguez-Pose and Nicholas Gill; Name index.
About the Editor: About the Author: Ron Martin is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Cambridge-MIT Institute there. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Business Research attached to the Judge Business School. He holds a Professorial Fellowship at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Academician of the Academy for Social Science, and holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2007-2010).
Reviews: '...if you really want to grasp the arguments underpinning modern spatial development theory, you really need to get this book for your office library.' Economic Development