Key Concepts in Economic Geography

Citation

Aoyama, Y., Murphy, J. T., & Hanson, S. (2010). Key Concepts in Economic Geography. SAGE Publications.

Chapter Summary

The book runs to about 290 pages: an introduction followed by twenty-three short concept chapters in six sections. According to the introduction, each chapter traces a concept's origins, its initial and later conceptualisations and how it has changed, then shows how it is used today to address contemporary problems. SAGE lists figures, diagrams and further reading among its features. The three authors worked collectively; each chapter was drafted by one of them and then revised by all, and the introduction names the primary author of each.

Introduction

The introduction asks what economic geography is: the study of economic processes as territorial processes, and in particular of uneven development within and between regions. It then traces the field's lineages: commercial geography linked to British colonialism, German location theory from von Thünen and Weber to Christaller and Lösch, Alfred Marshall's industrial agglomerations, and North American human-environment geography. It follows the quantitative revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, the diverging Marxian, institutional, regulationist and cultural approaches from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the period since the 1990s, including the economists' "new economic geography" and the turn to emerging economies. The authors explain that their aim is to reconnect classical ideas with new phenomena, so that students see the long intellectual traditions behind apparently new themes.

Section 1: Key Agents in Economic Geography (Labour; Firm; State)

The three agents of economic change. The introduction notes that labour has long been a key input to production, that firms became a central focus in the 1970s and 1980s under the influence of behavioural geography and business studies, and that the state has been treated as a key agent of growth, from core–periphery debates to the rise of East Asia's newly industrialising economies.

Section 2: Key Drivers of Economic Change (Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Accessibility)

Innovation is discussed through neo-classical, Schumpeterian and evolutionary economics; together with entrepreneurship it forms a link to economic development policy. Accessibility is presented as perhaps the most fundamental socio-geographic concept affecting mobility, given new meaning by the internet.

Section 3: Industries and Regions in Economic Change (Industrial Location; Industrial Clusters; Regional Disparity; Post-Fordism)

Industrial location covers the work of the field's founders; regional disparity is described as one of the oldest policy concerns; industrial clusters are shown to have deep historical roots; and post-Fordism traces Taylorism, Fordism and their successors, drawing mainly on evidence from the automobile industry.

Section 4: Global Economic Geographies (Core-Periphery; Globalization; Circuits of Capital; Global Value Chains)

Four ways of understanding inequality in the world economy: world-system theory (core–periphery), the global organisation and strategies of multinational corporations and critiques of globalisation, a Marxian reading of capital flows in urban and regional development, and commodity-chain analysis, mainly of the garment and agro-food industries, including whether suppliers in developing countries can upgrade.

Section 5: Socio-Cultural Contexts of Economic Change (Culture; Gender; Institutions; Embeddedness; Networks)

The analytical tools of the cultural and institutional turns: the cultural turn and the cultural economy, feminist economic geography and access to economic opportunity, economic and sociological views of institutions, embeddedness in social relations, and networks as horizontal, flexible and shaped by power.

Section 6: Emerging Themes in Economic Geography (Knowledge Economy; Financialization; Consumption; Sustainable Development)

Four concepts of growing importance in the twenty-first century: the knowledge economy, financialisation (given new urgency by the 2008 crisis), consumption as a relatively new focus for a field long preoccupied with production, and sustainable development, including the intersection of climate change and economic change. The authors present these chapters as more exploratory.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Sections 1–2

• Uneven development: differences in growth and prosperity within and between regions, the field's central concern.
• Location theory: models of the optimal location of farms, factories and cities given resources and transport costs.
• Agents of economic change: labour, firms and the state as the actors whose decisions shape economic geographies.
• Accessibility: the ease of reaching people, markets and opportunities, treated as a driver of change.

Sections 3–4

• Industrial clusters: concentrations of related firms that benefit from shared labour pools, infrastructure and knowledge.
• Post-Fordism: the shift from mass production towards more flexible forms of industrial organisation.
• Core–periphery: a structural view of the world economy as divided between dominant and dependent regions.
• Global value chains: the organisation of production and sourcing by lead firms across countries, and the chances of upgrading for suppliers.

Sections 5–6

• Embeddedness: the idea that economic action is rooted in social relations.
• Institutions: formal and informal rules that shape economic behaviour and growth.
• Financialisation: the growing role of financial markets and motives in the economy.
• Sustainable development: economic development that respects environmental limits.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• History linked to the present. The book's stated aim is to show that apparently new themes have long intellectual traditions, and every chapter moves from a concept's origins to its current use. Sarah Hall (University of Nottingham), in an endorsement on SAGE's site, called it a readable synthesis of contemporary debates that is also sensitive to the history of the sub-discipline.
• A full map of the field. Twenty-three concepts across agents, drivers, regional change, global economies, socio-cultural contexts and emerging themes span classical location theory to financialisation and consumption. Allen J. Scott (UCLA) described it as a comprehensive review of the field's conceptual underpinnings, useful both as a reference and as a guide to its theoretical debates.
• Clear about traditions. The introduction distinguishes economic geography from economists' geographical economics and identifies which concepts draw on which branch of economics, sociology or critical theory, which helps students place the readings they meet elsewhere.
• Collectively written. The authors agreed an outline for each chapter together, and all three commented on and edited every draft, so the entries share a common structure.

Limitations

• Pitched above the first year. SAGE describes it as a companion text for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and the introduction moves quickly through a long list of schools and theorists; beginners will need a general textbook first.
• Evidence from a few industries. The authors themselves note that some grand theories rest on a few industries, such as automobiles for Fordism and post-Fordism and garments for global value chains. Readers should keep that narrow empirical base in mind when applying those chapters to other sectors.
• Emerging themes are exploratory. The authors present the final section's chapters as exploratory discussions of concepts that are still evolving, written shortly after the 2008 financial crisis; students should add more recent work on these topics.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a companion to the course textbooks rather than a replacement. Coe, Kelly and Yeung's Economic Geography and MacKinnon and Cumbers's An Introduction to Economic Geography give systematic coverage of globalisation, industrial location and uneven development; read one of them first and use Key Concepts to go deeper into individual ideas and their history. Peter Dicken's Global Shift applies global production network analysis to industry case studies, so it pairs naturally with Section 4.

Combes, Mayer and Thisse's Economic Geography is a graduate text on the economists' models that the introduction calls geographical economics; read this book's introduction first to see how that approach differs from geographers' economic geography. Rodrigue's The Geography of Transport Systems develops the transport and accessibility themes that the Accessibility and Industrial Location chapters introduce.

How to Use This Book

The book suits second- and third-year undergraduates and master's students in geography, planning, development studies or regional economics; it helps to have taken an introductory human or economic geography course.

A practical approach:

• Read the Introduction first. Its history of the field is the backbone that the concept chapters refer back to.
• Read Sections 1–3 as a sequence if you are building foundations, since later concepts build on agents, drivers and regional change.
• Use Sections 4–6 by topic, alongside lectures on globalisation, institutions, finance or sustainability.
• For each concept, write a short timeline of how it was first defined and how its meaning changed, then add one current example from a region you know.
• Use the further reading to choose sources for essays, and use the course textbook for data and case studies.

For seminars, pairing two concepts that pull in different directions, such as industrial clusters and global value chains, or institutions and embeddedness, makes good use of the book's cross-references.