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Site selection processes whereby companies choose a location for an expansion or relocation have changed substantially over the past several decades. One key shift has been the emergence of collaboration among both individual economic developers and cooperation among the communities they represent. The rise in collaborative practices has also been increasingly reflected in the contemporary economic development literature outside the discipline of geography. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of economic development studies of collaboration and then to suggest ways that geographers might use concepts from that scholarship to inform and extend the limited number of studies exploring site selection practices. The paper begins by offering a context for the emergence of collaboration trends by highlighting the ways that information asymmetry in site selection processes create a demand for greater collaboration among industry practitioners. It then turns to an overview of the burgeoning literature on collaboration that has evolved over the last decade in the interdisciplinary scholarship on economic development. Next, the paper shifts to a discussion of the ways that geographers might use the literature on collaboration to inform studies of site selection, specifically focusing on geographic scale and research on site selection consultants as possible areas for future investigation. The article concludes by arguing that studying collaboration in the context of geographies of site selection holds the potential for greater insights into the broader outcomes of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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There is a growing interest in exploring contemporary financialisation in terms of the geographies of debt. Many economic geographers have adopted a financial ecologies approach to explain these geographies. While this approach provides analytical benefits, it nonetheless analyses debt almost exclusively in terms of consumer finance, thereby overlooking the relations of production in which many indebted households engage. To address this issue, I develop the agrarian financial ecologies concept, which both directs analysis towards the diversity of credit–debt relations in rural economies, and highlights the relationship between land, labour and debt in the process of agricultural production. I apply this concept to study farm household debt in Cambodia, where indebtedness has become a widespread problem among farmers facing rapid economic transformation in the countryside. By focusing on land and labour, I demonstrate how diverse credit–debt relations within Cambodia's agrarian financial ecology have produced uneven socio‐spatial outcomes, namely debt‐driven land dispossession. This paper advances geographic theory about the dynamics of value production, circulation and appropriation within geographies of debt. It also extends the empirical remit of existing financial ecologies scholarship by attending to the credit–debt relations that characterise many agrarian livelihoods today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes the case for the conceptual use of the everyday in economic geography. It does this by firstly demonstrating the explanatory potential that lies in attending to the lived experience of economic development and, secondly, the ability of the everyday to occupy a meso-level analytical position that is sensitive to the agency of economic agents without undermining the role of structural forces. As a result of the in-depth, and detailed nature of the everyday, the explanatory powers offered by this initial focus on the micro-scale is useful to those economic geographers wishing to pursue a more qualitative and holistic understanding of the economy and of economic processes. Therefore, this paper contributes to a much longer project in economic geography concerned with broadening how the economy is defined and therefore studied. Specifically, it compliments and builds on the work of economic geographers engaged in practice-orientated research before turning to the work of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau in demonstrating the analytical richness of the everyday beyond a focus on social practice. In other words, the paper argues the need for economic geography to also attend to the lived experience of everyday life, the meanings and values ascribed to it, and not just socio-economic practices themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the geographic characteristics of a country can explain cross-country variations in income levels through their ability to explain cross-country variations in cultural traits that enhance economic development. In other words, this paper attempts to determine whether the geographic endowment can serve as an instrument in examining the effect of culture on economic development. The paper conducts two-stage least-squares regressions. The second stage is a regression of the logarithm of real gross domestic product per capita on each of the cultural attributes that are considered in this study. In the first stage, the geographic factors that statistically explain a cultural aspect are used as instrumental variables. The results of the empirical estimation show that the cultural variables, instrumented by the geographic variables, explain cross-country variations in economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we outline how evolutionary economic geography (EEG) explains peripheral economic development by comparing two peripheries over extended time periods. This comparison involves critically appraising EEG's capacity to account for peripheral evolution. For geographical, historical, and political reasons, peripheries lack resources that lead to path creation and renewal. The hyper‐peripheral regions of the Pilbara in north‐west Australia and of Buryatia in south‐east Russia provide excellent comparative case studies for understanding how peripheral regional development evolves in ways contingent upon time, state institutions, natural resource endowments, and region/firm dynamics. Our analysis shows that EEG is well equipped to deal with historical factors and capitalist economies but it struggles to reconcile these regions' resilience and ability to sustain both Indigenous and non‐Indigenous socio‐economies. Development in these regions over extended periods of time invites questions about whether it is appropriate to apply EEG and its constituent parts: path creation, renewal, and exhaustion; regional resilience; and institutional thinness and thickness. In addressing those questions, we show that EEG can incorporate temporal development, stretching over long periods and economic analysis. We also critique the extent to which EEG can be used to consider how state activities influence path creation and renewal, the importance of extra‐regional contexts, and heterodox and Indigenous perspectives. This paper compares the long histories of the Pilbara, Australia, and Buryatia, Russia, to examine the economic development of hyper‐peripheries. We use Evolutionary Economic Geography over extended time periods, as well as Indigenous perspectives, to show how peripherality is both ingrained over time and also defined based on core‐periphery power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the structural change in small-island economies-sometimes labeled offshore financial centers ( OFCs)-that have seen wealth-generating activities through offshore financial services decrease in value since 2008. At the same time, OFCs have come under increasing scrutiny from supranational organizations such Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and European Union for perceived unfair tax practices and money laundering activities. Some OFCs have proactively adjusted to this sea change by broadening the economic base through development of new offshore business activities such as e-gaming, film industry, and niche manufacturing. Most have increased co-operation with onshore regulatory bodies to promote service and product legitimacy. Econometric analysis explores the assertion that OFCs that do not have a political link to the onshore may be exposed to greater capital inflows volatility than OFCs that have such a link. Case study analysis using the theoretical lens of evolutionary economic geography illustrates that a small OFC is creating spatialities of economic novelty by adapting economic development strategies deployed during the successful development of the center prior to the recent recession. Our findings reveal the importance of political links to the onshore to reduce capital inflow volatility and the importance of local public-private interaction to legitimize post-recession development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the evolution of China Mobile - one of China's pioneer 'national champions', and one of the world's largest telecom companies - through the lens of global financial networks, focusing on the role of advanced business services, financial centres and offshore jurisdictions in economic development. It demonstrates that despite being a domestic company, China Mobile is plugged firmly into the global financial networks, with incorporation in Hong Kong, cross-listing in Hong Kong and New York, and opaque offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. Global advanced business services firms, with Goldman Sachs in the lead, have been instrumental in the very conception of China Mobile in 1997 and its subsequent expansion, thus helping the Chinese government consolidate and modernise the whole telecom sector. The study highlights the position of Hong Kong as an onshore-offshore financial centre intermediating between global financial markets and mainland China, and underwriting the reputation of China's 'national champions'. The analysis also points to the advantages of Beijing over Shanghai as a command centre of state-owned and controlled enterprises, acting as a magnet for advanced business services. The relevance of global financial networks to China, a latecomer on the stage of financial globalisation, highlights the scope for applying the concept to the rest of the world, and its potential contribution to economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new economic geography ( NEG) has been tested to explain the spatial concentration of wages in developed countries, but it has not been evaluated for developing countries where the excessive spatial concentration seems to be related with negative consequences on the economic development. This paper covers this gap in the literature estimating by first time a NEG model for a developing country such as Chile, pursuing two research question: (1) Can the NEG explain the spatial distribution of wages in a developing country as Chile?; and (2) How can the NEG be used to infer information about the future level of spatial concentration of wages in Chile? The results suggest that the case of Chile is poorly explained by the NEG and even higher level of spatial concentration should be expected in the future. These results indicate that the empirical application of NEG is not trivial for developing countries, and some considerations such as inclusion of the first nature or analysis at micro data level must be incorporated by future researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that there is no alternative to capitalism. Over the last two decades however, the critical geography literature on diverse economies has demonstrated the existence of alternatives to capitalism by revealing the persistence of non-capitalist forms of work and organisation. The aim in this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of continuing to frame these non-capitalist practices as 'alternatives'. Positioning non-capitalist economic practices as 'alternatives' fails to capture not only the ubiquity of such practices in everyday life, but also how those engaging in them do not see them as 'alternatives' in the sense of a second choice, or less desirable option, to capitalist practices. The intention in doing so is to reveal that it is not non-capitalist practices that are 'alternative' but rather, capitalist practices themselves, thus opening up the future to the possibility of a non-capitalist world more fully than has so far been the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many economists have long held that market failures create a gap between social and private returns to research and development (R&D), thereby limiting private incentives to invest in R&D. However, this common belief that firms significantly underinvest in R&D is increasingly being challenged, leading the rationale behind public support for private R&D to be questioned. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the perspectives of two sources: the theoretical literature on endogenous growth, and its recent developments in integrating a geographical dimension, and the empirical literature that measures the social returns to R&D in relation to the private returns. Ultimately, we are able to clearly distinguish among different types of market failures and compare their relative impact on the gap between the private and social returns to R&D. Two main conclusions are reached. First, systematic firm underinvestment in R&D is not demonstrated. Second, even though instances of underinvestment do occur, they are mainly explained by surplus appropriability problems rather than by knowledge externalities. This suggests the need for a new policy mix that employs more demand-oriented instruments and is more concentrated on identifying efficient allocations among activities rather than merely increasing global private R&D investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By critically reviewing different strands of literature on institutional change and development, this essay argues that, in order to fully understand subnational economic development, we need to move away from 'good governance' explanations in which geography‐specific analyses of power structures and elite interests are largely absent. Using findings for Colombia and insights from economic geography and heterodox political economy theories, this essay gives theoretical and conceptual guidelines and approximations for future studies on regional economic development. The contribution provides a place‐based discussion of how the historically evolved distribution of power balances, context‐specific elite interests, and the interaction between place‐bound actors and place‐less dynamics affect subnational institutional arrangements shaping policies and development outcomes. The conclusions drawn are not limited to Colombia and will prove beneficial to researchers studying regional economic development in subnational contexts elsewhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We consider information aggregation in national and local elections when voters are mobile and might sort themselves into local districts. Using a standard model of private information for voters in elections in combination with a new economic geography model, agglomeration occurs for economic reasons, whereas voter stratification occurs due to political preferences. When trade is more costly, people tend to agglomerate for economic reasons, resulting in full information equivalence in the political sector. Under free trade, people sort themselves into districts, most of which are polarized, resulting in no full information equivalence in these districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reviews research on the national institutional inf luence on firm practice in economic geography, in particular the "varieties of capitalism" school (VoC) and national business systems, in order to promote a deeper examination of the role of corporate agency in contemporary institutionalist approaches. In order to do so, it invokes a growing segment of the contemporary economy - design-intensive manufacturing - and draws on the knowledge base framework developed by Asheim and Gertler (2005) to identify a core set of industrial practices that enable design-intensive manufacturing firms to integrate diverse knowledge bases (synthetic and symbolic) in order to compete effectively in global markets. In integrating these knowledge bases, firms are pressured to both align with, yet also deviate from, the dominant national institutional environment in which they operate. In the case of the latter, they may be prompted to develop local and sectoral forms of economic governance that compensate for an apparent disjunction at the national scale in order to adapt to certain aspects of the sectorally specific terms of competition. The case of design-intensive manufacturing emphasizes the importance of hybrid institutions and practices in the global knowledge economy and demonstrates that an agency-centered perspective is critical to our understanding of a more nuanced theory of firm practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]