GEOG 32.01 - Economic Geography & Globalization

The new global economy has become integrated across national boundaries, profoundly altering the fortunes of countries, regions, and cities. This course addresses questions that stem from these changes: for example, why do industries locate where they do? What is the impact of foreign investment on local and regional economies? Why are rates of international migration increasing? What can workers and communities do after disinvestment and deindustrialization has occurred? Particular attention is devoted to the United States and the effects on minorities and labor of differential regional economic expansion, renewal, and decline.

 [Source: ORC/Catalog, 01/13/2023]; Dist:SOC

The analysis of the spatial distribution of the transportation and consumption of resources, goods, and services, and their effects on the landscape; ‘taking seriously the relations between economic and other social and bio-physical processes, rather than analyzing the economic as either separable from or foundational to such other processes’ (Sheppard in S. Bagchi-Sen and H. Lawton Smith 2006).

There are two distinct new economic geographies in the Anglo-American literature. The first uses sophisticated spatial modelling to explain uneven development and the emergence of industrial clusters—by considering centripetal and centrifugal forces, especially economies of scale and transport costs. See Krugman (1998) Oxford Review of Economic Policy 14, 2; for a critical review, see Martin (1999) Camb. J. Econ. 23.   ...

Mayhew, S. (2015). Economic geography. In A Dictionary of Geography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 29 May. 2023

A subdiscipline of geography that seeks to describe and explain the absolute and relative location of economic activities, and the flows of information, raw materials, goods, and people that connect otherwise separate local, regional, and national economies. It originated in the late 19th century but, unlike its academic cousin, economics, did not initially favour theory. In the form of commercial geography, it tended to be highly empirical, attending to the relations between a location’s natural and human resource base and the character of its economy. The geography of the production of specific commodities was thus based on observation, not deductions from first economic principles. However, this changed from the mid-1950s. Economic geography was, along with urban geography, at the leading edge of the Quantitative and Scientific Revolution in Anglophone human geography. Partly inspired by the earlier research of Alfred Weber and Walter Christaller, a new generation of economic geographers began to look for consistent patterns in the economic landscape that could be explained with reference to producers acting rationally on the basis of their existing resources, the location of their markets, the transportation costs of moving inputs and finished goods, and so on. Location theory in various forms became a major preoccupation, with economic geographers gathering and analysing quantitative data about all manner of commodity producers in order to identity spatial regularities and departures therefrom. There was an emphasis on describing and seeking to explain spatial decision-making by firms, commuters, labour migrants, and so on. This approach bled into what was called ‘*regional science’, which was linked to government planning and problem-solving.   ...

Rogers, A., Castree, N., & Kitchin, R. (2013). Economic geography. In A Dictionary of Human Geography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 29 May. 2023

Economic geography can be found in different areas of the library's collections. The main 2 areas include the call number range HF 1021 through HF 1027 (general information) and HC 94 through HC 1085.2 (specific countries and regions). These ranges can be found on Berry Level 3.

You can use one of these subject headings to start your research in the library's online catalog:

Our collections include several journals covering economic geography. A small selection are listed below. You can use Web of Science to find articles or search in the box at the top of the page.

Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Geography? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.