![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Human geography > Economic geography
Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking thinking about space, place, politics and economy changed not only geography but the critical social sciences, initiating new ways of seeing, understanding and indeed transforming the world. This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey's long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey's key ideas and contributions - such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place - and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia. Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey's formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more. Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey's work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey's own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.
In the context of great economic turmoil and uncertainty, the emergent conflict between continued globalisation and growing economic nationalism means that a geographical economic perspective has never been so important. An Introduction to Economic Geography guides students through the key debates of this vibrant area, exploring the range of ideas and approaches that invigorate the wider discipline. This third edition includes new chapters on finance, cities and the digital economy, consumption and the environment. Underpinned by the themes of globalisation, uneven development and place, the text conveys the diversity of contemporary economic geography and explores the social and spatial effects of global economic restructuring. It combines a critical geographical perspective on the changing economic landscape with an appreciation of contemporary themes such as neoliberalism, financialisation, innovation and the growth of new technologies. An Introduction to Economic Geography is an essential textbook for undergraduate students taking courses in Economic Geography, Globalisation Studies and more broadly in Human Geography. It will also be of much interest to those in Planning, Business and Management Studies and Economics.
The COVID-9 pandemic has generated human suffering and economic devastation across the world - but these reflect not just the impact of the disease but the policy failures of governments. Further, the trajectory of the disease and the human and economic outcomes has varied greatly, again because of how governments have responded and the institutional context. This volume brings together analyses of the public policy responses from many different countries, to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't, what has been done and what could have been done - and the potential directions for the future.
The Geography of the World Economy provides an in-depth and stimulating introduction to the globalization of the world economy. The book offers a consideration of local, regional, national and global economic development over the long historical term. The theory and practice of economic and political geography provide a basis for understanding the interactions within and among the developed and developing countries of the world. Illustrated in color throughout, this new edition has been completely reworked and updated to take account of recent significant changes in the world economy. A new companion website also accompanies the book, with additional resources for each chapter including multiple choice and short essay questions and links to relevant websites. Figures and tables are also available for download located at www.routledge.com/cw/knox The text is signposted throughout with an glossary of key terms, and is richly illustrated with full-color maps, diagrams and illustrations. It is ideal for upper level university undergraduates and for post-graduates in a variety of specializations including geography, economics, political science, international relations and global studies.
Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization has emerged: Global Production Networks (GPNs). This brings together a wide array of economic actors, most notably capitalist firms, state institutions, labour unions, consumers and non-government organizations, in the transnational production of economic value. National and sub-national economic development in this highly interdependent global economy can no longer be conceived of, and understood within, the distinct territorial boundaries of individual countries and regions. Instead, global production networks are organizational platforms through which actors in these different national or regional economies compete and cooperate for a larger share of the creation, transformation, and capture of value through transnational economic activity. They are also vehicles for transferring the value captured between different places. This book ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. While primarily theoretical in nature, it is well grounded in cutting-edge empirical work in the parallel and highly impactful strands of social science literature on the changing organization of the global economy relating to global commodity chains (GCC), global value chains (GVC), and global production networks (GPN).
Cultural Values and Entrepreneurship aims to broaden and deepen our understanding of which elements of 'culture' influence, or are influenced by, entrepreneurial activity. Differences in entrepreneurial activity among countries, and regions within those countries, are persistent and cannot be fully explained by institutional and economic variables. A substantial number of these differences have been attributed to culture, and it is clear that some socio-cultural practices, values and norms are more conducive to driving or inhibiting entrepreneurial intentions and activity. However, we need to dig deeper into 'how' and 'why' cultural practices, and underlying values and norms, matter in entrepreneurial action, in order to more fully understand the complexities of the processes, without making cross-cultural or cross-national generalisations. Unique cultural, national, and institutional contexts present different practices in terms of opportunities and challenges for driving entrepreneurial action. The contributions in this book consider some of the many different facets of the culture-entrepreneurship relationship, and offer valuable insights to our understanding of the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.
This book assesses India's role as a major power in the Indian Ocean. Many see the Indian Ocean as naturally falling within India's sphere of influence but, as this book demonstrates, India has a long way to go before it could achieve regional dominance. The book outlines the development of Indian thinking on its role in the Indian Ocean and examines India's strategic relationships in the region, including with maritime South Asia, the Indian Ocean islands, East Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia. The book then discusses India's ambivalent relationship with the United States and explores its attitude towards China's growing power in the Indian Ocean. It concludes by discussing the region's evolving strategic order - does India have what it takes to become the leading power in the region?
Focusing on the geographies between the Mekong and the Indus, this book brings objects to the centre of enquiry in the understanding of modern Asian frontiers. It explores how a range of objects have historically been significant bearers and agents of frontier making. For instance, how are objects connected to aspects of state making, social change, everyday life, diplomacy, political and ecological worlds, capital, forms of violence, resistances, circulations, and aesthetic expressions? This book seeks to interrogate and understand the dynamism of frontiers from the vantage point of objects such as salt, rubber, tea, guns, silk scarves, horses, and opium. It attempts to explore objects as sites of encounter, mediation, or dislocation between the social and the spatial. The book not only locates objects in the specificities of frontier spaces, but it also looks at how they are produced, circulated, and come to be intricately linked to a wide range of people, institutions, networks, and geographies. In the process, it explores how objects traverse and come to inhabit multiple historical, cultural, and geographical scales. This book will be of interest to researchers and academics working in areas of history, social and cultural anthropology, Asian studies, frontiers and borderland studies, cultural studies, political and economic studies, and museum studies.
Globalization is a dominant feature and force in the contemporary world, impacting all areas of business, economics, and society. This accessibly written overview of contemporary capitalism shows how the development of global supply chains, the global division of labour, and, in particular, the globalization of financial markets have become the drivers of this process, and assesses the consequences. Not only does this affect the way firms operate, it also presents challenges for the nation state. The changing geography of capitalism underpinned by an expanding global division of labour and the integration of financial markets has undercut the bordering logics necessary for the maintenance of national systems of production, national varieties of capitalism, and national systems of social protection. Reviewing a range of debates and theories across the contemporary social sciences - varieties of capitalism, financialization, global production networks - the book shows how the insights of economic geography can be usefully brought to bear in understanding current trends, and the changing relationships between global financial markets, multinational firms, and contemporary welfare states. Wide-ranging, accessibly written, and inter-disciplinary, this short book is a most useful guide for researchers and students across the social sciences.
South Asia today is among the most unstable regions in the world, riddled by both intra- and inter-state conflict. This book presents a comprehensive technical analysis of the trade conflict relationship within the region, and explores how South Asia demonstrates underperformance of its potential for economic integration. Using the gravity model framework, the book highlights quantitative estimates of the cost of conflict in terms of loss of trade for South Asia. Other variables representative of political and economic regimes are also included to make the model comprehensive, and the book goes on to discuss how the analysis reveals the overriding significance of the India Pakistan relationship in the regional landscape. It looks at how the results of the econometric exercise reveal the extent to which a common border, when disputed, becomes a barrier rather than a facilitator to trade and, additionally, the extent to which long standing and persistent conflict can debilitate trade relationships. The book is a useful contribution for students and scholars of South Asian studies and international political economy, and assists in formulating policy to correct the anti-home bias that is evident in trade patterns of the South Asian economies.
Spatial econometrics deals with spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, critical aspects of the data used by regional scientists. These characteristics may cause standard econometric techniques to become inappropriate. In this book, I combine several recent research results to construct a comprehensive approach to the incorporation of spatial effects in econometrics. My primary focus is to demonstrate how these spatial effects can be considered as special cases of general frameworks in standard econometrics, and to outline how they necessitate a separate set of methods and techniques, encompassed within the field of spatial econometrics. My viewpoint differs from that taken in the discussion of spatial autocorrelation in spatial statistics - e.g., most recently by Cliff and Ord (1981) and Upton and Fingleton (1985) - in that I am mostly concerned with the relevance of spatial effects on model specification, estimation and other inference, in what I caIl a model-driven approach, as opposed to a data-driven approach in spatial statistics. I attempt to combine a rigorous econometric perspective with a comprehensive treatment of methodological issues in spatial analysis.
The development of clusters of economic activity is an important feature of industrial policy. Industry clusters have long fascinated economists and geographers alike, the most renowned being Silicon Valley which is seen by many as the blueprint for regional development, innovation, and growth. Several clusters have also developed across Europe, including SiliconFen in Cambridge and Minalogic in Grenoble, and in recent years cluster policies have become popular among policy makers as a useful tool for informing decisions on industrial, regional, and public policy. This book looks at the mechanisms at work behind cluster dynamics, the gains that can be expected from increased clustering, and the determinants of cluster policies. Focusing on France, it provides a theoretical and empirical study of clusters, their success and failures, and the policy lessons that can be applied to the wider international community. France is particularly interesting because there is a long tradition of strong government intervention regarding the location of economic activity, and cluster initiatives are relatively unified across the country. This book shows that, whilst gains from clusters do exist, some firms tend to cluster too much and that spatial agglomeration is only successful to a point, after which congestion effects can offset these gains. It questions the need and the feasibility of cluster policies aimed at interfering directly in the concentration process of firms, and thus looks beyond the general enthusiasm for clusters.
Das vorliegende Handbuch bietet einen umfassenden systematischen UEberblick uber das Themenfeld Lokale OEkonomie in Bezug auf Konzepte, Quartierskontexte und Interventionen. In pragnanten Kurzkapiteln diskutieren Wissenschaftler aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen (Humangeographie, Soziologie, Wirtschaftswissenschaften etc.) sowie Akteure aus der Stadtentwicklungspraxis grundlegende Konzepte der lokalen OEkonomie und verwandte Ansatze, Dynamiken und Prozesse in unterschiedlichen Quartieren sowie Gestaltungsoptionen zur Starkung lokal-oekonomischer Strukturen in Deutschland. Das Handbuch richtet sich gleichermassen an Studierende, Wissenschaftler und Praktiker aus der integrierten Stadt- und Quartiersentwicklung.
This book is about the renaissance of cities in the twenty first
century and their increasing role as centers of creative economic
activity. It attempts to put some conceptual and descriptive order
around issues of urbanization in the contemporary world,
emphasizing the idea of the social economy of the metropolis, which
is to say, a view of the urban organism as an intertwined system of
social and economic life played out through the arena of urban
space.
Die zunehmende Bedeutung von Informationsflussen fur die Wertschopfung geht einher mit einer wachsenden Koharenz der Wertschopfungsketten. Kenntnisse daruber sind fur die strategische Planung in der Politik wie in Unternehmen gleichermassen wichtig. Die Beitrage des Buchs untersuchen die Auswirkungen von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien auf Guter- und Informationsflusse zwischen Herstellern und Endverbrauchern. Dazu werden Guter- und Informationsflusse entlang von Produktions- und Distributionsprozessen dargestellt und analysiert."
As well as marking the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the consequent unleashing of the global financial crisis, 2018 is also the year of negotiations on the terms of the UK's exit from the European Union. Within a decade the banking world has witnessed two epochal events with potential to redraw the map of international financial centres: but how much has this map actually changed since 2008, and how is it likely to change in the near future? International Financial Centres after the Global Financial Crisis and Brexit gathers together leading economic historians, geographers, and other social scientists to focus on the post-2008 developments in key international financial centres. It focuses on the shifting hierarchies of New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo to question whether Asian financial centres have taken advantage of the crisis in the West. It also examines the medium-effects of the crisis, the level of regulation, and the rise of new technology (fintech). By exploring these crucial changes, it questions whether shifts in the financial industry and the global landscape will render these centres unnecessary for the functioning of the global economy, and which cities are likely to emerge as hubs of new financial technology.
How do borders affect trade? Are cultural and institutional differences important for trade? Is environmental policy relevant to trade? How does one's income or wage relate to the fact that trade partners are nearby or far away? These are just some of the important questions that can be answered using the gravity model of international trade. This model predicts and explains bilateral trade flows in terms of the economic size and distance between trading partners (e.g. states, regions, countries, trading blocs). In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in this model and it is now one of the most widely applied tools in applied international economics. This book traces the history of the gravity model and takes stock of recent methodological and theoretical advances, including new approximations for multilateral trade resistance, insightful analyses of the measurement of economic distance and analyses of foreign direct investment.
What happens when previously autonomous firms from different countries, each with their own identities, routines, and capabilities, come together inside a single multinational corporation? Can a cooperative strategy be established that advances the development of the multinational as a whole, or do mutual misunderstandings and the unintended consequences of strategic interaction among the players lead instead to endemic conflict and disintegration? This book tackles these novel and important questions through an empirical study of the strategic constitution of an 'actually existing' multinational. It does so by tracing the historical construction of the multinational corporation from the confluence of multiple formerly independent firms and analyzing the interacting web of strategies pursued by different actors within it. The analysis reveals how workers, unionists, subsidiary managers, and corporate executives pursue separate strategic games rooted in their local contexts, whose global outcome contrasts sharply with idealized views of the multinational as an integrated and coordinated organization. By comparing these findings to those of the broader literature, the book proceeds to a theoretical examination of the challenges of managing the multinational, and the difficulties of resolving them through conventional organizational means. The authors propose new procedural solutions aimed at fostering mutual recognition and knowledge exchange within the multinational corporation, and explore how a multinational public may be created to press for the necessary reforms in corporate governance. As the success of such reforms is far from preordained, the book concludes with a series of alternative scenarios that illustrate the many obstacles to a smooth continuation of the globalization process. This is an important and original study of significance for researchers, academics, and advanced students of international business, business strategy, economics, organizational studies, economic sociology, economic geography, and international political economy.
This book contains a collection of studies on the interactions between businesses in Africa and Global Value Chains (GVCs) in terms of social, environmental and economic sustainability. This is particularly pertinent given the asymmetrical power distribution between the global buyer and the African supplier, their governance relationships and the ongoing competitive pressures to reduce costs and increase flexibility to meet GVC demands. Rather than focusing on the sustainability of a single organization, GVCs address the sustainability of inter-firm value chains and global industries as a whole. With little differentiation between value chain creation and social / environmental degradation extending to people and raw material extraction (upstream) and disposal or recycling (downstream), sustainability issues need to be at the forefront of African business research interests. Nowadays, sustainability is considered a competitive advantage for a firm looking to join a GVC. Whether sustainability is approached from the viewpoint of an exporting firm motivated to join a GVC in its respective industry or whether a firm's continuing contractual or collaborative relationship with a buyer depends on its compliance with sustainability standards, both approaches focus on the ability of firms in Africa to benefit from joining sustainable GVCs.
Governments in some democracies target economic policies, like industrial subsidies, to small groups at the expense of many. Why do some governments redistribute more narrowly than others? Their willingness to selectively target economic benefits, like subsidies to businesses, depends on the way politicians are elected and the geographic distribution of economic activities. Based on interviews with government ministers and bureaucrats, as well as parliamentary records, industry publications, local media coverage, and new quantitative data, Spending to Win: Political Institutions, Economic Geography, and Government Subsidies demonstrates that government policy-making can be explained by the combination of electoral institutions and economic geography. Specifically, it shows how institutions interact with economic geography to influence countries' economic policies and international economic relations. Identical institutions have wide-ranging effects depending on the context in which they operate. No single institution is a panacea for issues, such as income inequality, international economic conflict, or minority representation.
Provides a grounded analysis of globalization and urban change in the late twentieth century. Drawing upon multi-locale fieldwork, Kris Olds examines the role of two elite transnational cultures - ethnic Chinese property developers and modernist architects - in the planning and development of Pacific Rim mega-projects.
Much of the debate on the future of work has focused on responses to technological trends in the Global North, with little evidence on how these trends are impacting work and workers in the Global South. Drawing on a rich selection of ethnographic studies of precarious work in Africa, this innovative book discusses how globalisation and digitalisation are drivers for structural change and examines their implications for labour. Bringing together global labour studies and inequality studies, it explores the role of digital technology in new business models, and ways in which digitalisation can be harnessed for counter mobilisation by the new worker.
Human capital is of utmost importance for the future of our knowledge economies and societies. However, it is unequally distributed in Europe, contributing to marked spatial patterns of economic prosperity within and across countries. In many cases, these patterns have a long history. To understand them better, it requires to go back in time, when mass schooling was starting to become a reality across Europe. Taking a long-run perspective over more than 150 years, this book shows the development and the distribution of human capital in the regions of Europe and its connections with the economy. It provides insights into recent research findings in this area, including theoretical advances and the use of new empirical data.
Forced to embrace a post-carbon future, or risk serious damage to the planet, we have begun a race for alternatives to the scarce resources that previous generations relied on. In this book, Jonathan Moses and Anne Brigham consider how best we might negotiate the world’s scarce pool of natural resources, and avoid the pitfalls of the past. In order to shift the world’s consumption from one set of scarce natural resources to another, they show the need for management regimes that are both politically, as well as environmentally, sustainable. They propose an alternative way to think about resource management for the future, one based on the collective ownership of (stewardship over) nature, and one where the rents resulting from this ownership, like the resources that produce them, belong to the people. Using case studies from particular markets, they demonstrate how such a management model might work to protect our common heritage and allow communities to secure the benefits we can and should expect from scarce resources – our natural dividend.
This book provides a significant contribution to the literature on land reform in various African contexts. While the economic evidence is clear that secure property rights are a necessary condition for catalysing broad-based economic development, the governance process by which those rights are secured is less clear. This book details the historical complexity of land rights and the importance of understanding this history in the process of trying to improve tenure security. Through a combination of single country case studies, comparative case studies and regional comparisons, the book is unequivocal that good governance is paramount for improving the performance of land reform programmes. All attempts at moving towards more formal secure tenure require congruence with informal norms, beliefs and values, and a set of clear systems and processes to avoid corruption and unintended negative consequences. |
You may like...
California Tiki - A History of…
Jason Henderson, Adam Foshko
Paperback
|