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Across advanced industrialized democracies, the political centre is collapsing as politicians on the far right and far left enjoy increasing electoral success. Recent research links import shocks to voter support for far-right parties. However, we know comparatively less about how these shocks impact individual legislator ideology, especially that of mainstream politicians. Do import shocks drive economic or cultural ideological shifts among mainstream legislators? If so, to what extent do local competitive contexts shape these shifts? Using a dataset of French Senate roll call votes, we find that localized increases in import exposure moves elite ideology to the left economically; this is magnified in departments with majoritarian electoral systems. We show that legislators shift their cultural positions in response to import shocks, but only when faced with extremist political competitors focused on cultural issues. Our results suggest the value of attending to how political and economic geography intersect to shape elite policy positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the dawn of Madagascar's independence in 1960, political entrepreneurs harnessed the enduring significance of Malagasy cattle, known as zebu , and declared them integral to the new national identity. From 1960–1972, President Philibert Tsiranana led the country through the period known as the First Republic, in which officials and technocrats launched development projects around breeding and constructing abattoirs and feedlots, in the hopes of creating a viable international meat export economy. For elites, zebu served as speculative vessels for remaking economic and political geographies and shifting away from dependence on French interests. Malagasy government officials and technical experts saw pastoralists as key to actualizing the economic potential of cattle and they sought to combat "peasant idleness" as a hindrance to Madagascar's flourishing. Pastoralists, though, challenged the bounds of top-down authority and debated the kinds of knowledge that could and should inform modernization projects in the new nation-state. Cattle ranchers' critiques of the logics and encroachment of prescriptive modernization schemes during the 1960s and 1970s can be understood as their insistence on sharing in the fruits of independence, and that they, with their deep knowledge of cattle behavior, had a role to play in forging meaningful, prosperous lives in broader ancestor-focused cosmologies. Investigating the twinned history of Madagascar's beef exportation and cattle modernization plans reveals how cattle were enlisted in the project of nation-making and a crucial moment of possibility, in which state-crafters ambitiously pursued a path toward self-determination while navigating oscillating geopolitics and asymmetrical global economic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This terrestrial and underwater archaeological research project around a Mediterranean islet identifies that it was a commercial centre during the fifth century AD. The results shed light on Late Roman island occupation dynamics. Keywords: Southern Spain, underwater archaeology, island archaeology, stratigraphy, Roman amphorae, Introduction Islands constitute a microcosm for studying the development of human communities in physically isolated but intensely connected environments (Boomert & Bright 2007; Dawson 2019). Isla del Fraile is a [...]

This article examines the economic influence activities (EIAs) of firms. We argue that firms invest in jobs and establishments in districts of congressional committee members that have oversight over their businesses and industries. This investment increases as legislators' power rises in Congress. Our theory makes three predictions. First, EIAs by firms will be higher in congressional districts where the legislators have substantial political influence over the firm, relative to districts where legislators have little influence over the firm. Second, EIAs will increase with the legislators' power on the focal committee. Third, when a legislator exits the committee, EIAs will diminish, but previous investments in the district will remain. We test these predictions by analyzing the Trinet census of establishments, mapped into the committee structure of the US Congress, by tracking the investment and employment of firms in each industry in each congressional district over time. Using fixed-effects models, we show the predictions of the theory find substantial support in the US Senate but not the House. We explore causality by using exogenous exits of politicians by death and scandals to further complement our analysis, and discuss why EIAs may be less likely to occur and detect in the House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the degree to which the concept of 'internal colonialism' accurately describes the political economy of Nunavut's commercial fisheries. Offshore fisheries adjacent to Nunavut were initially dominated by institutions based in southern Canada, and most economic benefits were captured by southern jurisdictions. Decades of political struggle have resulted in Nunavut establishing a role for itself in both the management of offshore resources and the operation of the offshore fishing industry. However, key decisions about fishery management are made by the federal government, and many benefits from Nunavut's offshore fisheries continue to accrue to southern jurisdictions. The concept of internal colonialism is therefore a useful concept for understanding the historical development and contemporary conflicts over offshore fisheries. By contrast, Nunavut's inshore fisheries were established as community development initiatives intended to promote economic well-being and stability. While inshore fisheries primarily benefit Inuit community economies, the growth of inshore fisheries has been hampered by small profit margins, inadequate marine infrastructure, and a dearth of baseline data. The federal government's failure to support the expansion of inshore fisheries is a manifestation of internal colonialism, insofar as it reflects an unequal distribution of public infrastructure and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I draw from organizational imprinting theory to illuminate the impact of the Soviet legacy on contemporary Russian economic geography and regional policy. I argue that central coordination in the creation and regulation of Russian urban agglomerations is connected to a socialist imprinted paradigm associated with the Soviet economic regionalization model and territorial-production complexes (TPCs). I conduct a qualitative historical study to analyze the role of the foundational environment and the dynamics in the development of this imprint. I propose that this imprint effect is prone to reproduction in contemporary regional development strategies and community-based paradigms due to exaptation and cultural-cognitive persistence. The article extends the literature of socialist imprinting by demonstrating how imprints may emerge, transform, and affect localized organizational communities in transition economies and highlights the role of imprinted paradigms in policymaking and regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore disciplinary boundary-making in geographical economics or "the new economic geography" with attention to the approaches taken by, and attempts at communication among, scholars with primary affiliations in economics, geography, and regional science. The Dixit-Stiglitz general equilibrium approach to monopolistic competition and increasing returns was applied to agglomeration and location by Paul Krugman, who had previously pioneered the "new trade theory" building on the Dixit-Stiglitz model, and, independently and slightly earlier, by Masahisa Fujita and his student Heshem Abdel-Rahman, starting from regional science, a tradition with its own departments, doctorates, conferences, and journals distinct from economics and geography. Economic geography, as studied by geographers, had already taken a quantitative and theoretical turn in the 1960s, reviving an earlier tradition of German location theory overshadowed within geography after World War II by areal differentiation. Another strand of economic geography pursued by geographers was influenced by economic theory but by non-neoclassical Marxian and Sraffian economics. Debates between these scholars raised questions whether these analyses were multidisciplinary, drawing on distinct disciplines, or crossed disciplinary boundaries (as when geographical economics in the style of economists is undertaken in geography departments) or transcends disciplinary boundaries, or involved the emergence of a new discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an overview to the special issue entitled New Tools for Global Analysis of Economic Dynamics by detailing the main aim of each contribution being part of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Digital Continent: placing Africa in planetary networks of work" by Mohammad Amir Anwar and Mark Graham explores the economic geographies of digital work in Africa and its implications for workers. The book highlights the opportunities and challenges of the digital gig economy, emphasizing the potential for economic inclusion and empowerment of marginalized groups such as women, youth, and migrant workers. It also examines the rise of regional players and value chains in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, which can lead to higher value-added activities and increased benefits for African firms. However, the authors also discuss the risks associated with digital work, including the expansion of informality, increased managerial control, and reduced worker agency. The book provides valuable insights into the uneven distribution of digital work and calls for updated legal frameworks and policies to ensure fair and inclusive digital labor practices in Africa. [Extracted from the article]

We examine the impact of economic development and the role of political alignment on the fatalities and damages due to floods using state-level panel data for 19 Indian states over the period 1980–2011. The empirical results confirm that economic development leads to a decline in flood fatalities and damages due to floods across Indian states. This study also examines the role of politics in the prevention of flood fatalities. We find that both state election years and political alignment influence the extent of flood fatalities. The results suggest that not only economic development but also healthy political coordination between the central government and the states is essential to mitigate the impact of floods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient Greek history can have no serious future in which the study of slavery does not play a prominent role. But in order to fulfil this role, the study of slavery is in urgent need of new approaches and perspectives. David Lewis' new book is a splendid contribution in this direction. Lewis stresses the fact that slavery is primarily a relationship of property, and develops a cross-cultural framework for approaching slavery in this manner. Using this framework, he shows that Greek slavery cannot be equated with slavery in classical Athens, but consisted of various epichoric systems of slavery. Spartan helots and Cretan woikeis were not serfs or dependent peasants, but slave property with peculiar characteristics, as a result of the peculiar development of these communities. These findings have major implications for the study of Greek slavery. At the same time, he presents a comparative examination of Greek slave systems with slave systems in the ancient Near East (Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Carthage). While previous scholarship assumed that slavery in the Near East was marginal, Lewis shows that slaves constituted a major part of elite portfolios in many of these societies. This has revolutionary implications for the comparative study of Mediterranean and Near Eastern history in antiquity. Finally, he presents a model for explaining the role and significance of slavery in different ancient societies, which includes the factors that determine the choice of labour force, as well as the impact of political and economic geography. It is remarkable that an approach to slavery based on a cross-cultural and ahistorical definition of property does not lead to a homogenizing and static account, but on the contrary opens the way for a perspective that highlights geographical diversity and chronological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown a strong link between the complexity of economies and their economic development. There remain gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning these links, in part because they are difficult to analyse with highly aggregated, official data sources that do not capture the emergence of new industrial activities, a potential benefit from complexity. We seek to address some of these gaps by calculating two indices of economic complexity for functional local economies (Travel to Work Areas) in Great Britain, and explore their link with these locations' economic performance. Seeking to gain a better understanding of the mechanism connecting economic complexity with economic performance, we create a measure of emergent technological activity in a location based on a combination of novel data sources including text from UK business websites and CrunchBase, a technology company directory, and study its link with economic complexity. Our results highlight the potential value of novel, unstructured data sources for the analysis of the links between economic complexity and regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that white Americans oppose welfare spending in part due to their racial prejudices. Yet, this conventional wisdom ignores the importance of local geography in determining whether whites are likely to view welfare in racialized terms. This article demonstrates that the effect of prejudice on whites' welfare preferences depends on the salience of welfare's racialized image in a given geographic context. I present a novel application of the racial threat hypothesis—conceptualizing both prejudice and place as multidimensional—to argue that the racial geography of an area amplifies the effect of traditional racial stereotypes on welfare preferences, whereas economic geography amplifies the effect of symbolically racist attitudes. I test these propositions using geocoded data from the years following the 1996 U.S. welfare policy reforms. My analysis reveals that racial attitudes are more predictive of welfare preferences not simply where the stigmas of welfare are salient due to a large black population or high poverty rate, but more specifically where residential segregation makes black or poor households more visible from the viewpoint of whites. These findings highlight the subjectivity of the white perspective, and call for more scholarship theorizing whites' agency in seeing racialized issues as threatening to white interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal has fueled China's rapid growth in recent decades, but it also severely pollutes the air and causes many health issues. The magnitude of the health damage caused by air pollution depends on the location of emission sources. In this paper, we look into the spatial distribution of coal-fired power plants, which are the major emission sources in China, and investigate the determining factors behind the distribution. We find that the driving factors are economic development and expansion of electricity grid coverage; the latter factor plays a key role in provinces that are less developed but have abundant coal resources. This suggests a way to reduce health damages caused by air pollution without harming the economy: attracting coal-fired plants to less populated areas by developing trans-province electricity trade and grid coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]