Regional Strategies In A Global Economy

Winner of the 2009 Regional Studies Association Best Book Award! Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change. This book is both a critique of the "new regionalism" and a return to the "regional question," including all of its concerns with equity and uneven development. It will challenge researchers and students to consider the region as a central scale of action in the global economy, and at the core of the book are case studies of two industries that rely on skilled, innovative, and flexible workers - the optics and imaging industry and the film and television industry. Combined with this is a discussion of the regions that constitute their production centers. The authors’ intensive research on photonics and entertainment media firms, both large and small, leads them to question some basic assumptions behind the new regionalism and to develop an alternative framework for understanding regional economic development policy. Finally, there is a re-examination of what the regional question means for the concept of the learning region. This book draws on the rich contemporary literature on the region but also addresses theoretical questions that preceded "the new regionalism." It will contribute to teaching and research in a range of social science disciplines and this new paperback edition will also make the book more accessible to students and researchers in those disciplines, those individuals who will influence the re-structuring economies of the 21st century.

Despite three decades of continuous globalization, transitional economies in many countries remain marginalized. In order to maximize the positive growth of employment creation opportunities in various sectors, including agriculture, existing patterns of long-run sustainable equilibrium relationships, technology transfers, and trade to promote export-led economic growth must be examined and identified. Regional Trade and Development Strategies in the Era of Globalization provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and regional initiative trends of trade and development through the examination of theoretical and practical experiences of their underpinning principles through approaches to overcome the obstacles of globalization and its positive and negative impacts on global trade and economic development. The content within this publication examines economic integration, foreign investment, and financial risk. It is designed for trade specialists, government officials, students, researchers, policymakers, business professionals, academicians, and economists.

Regional economic arrangements such as free trade areas (FTAs), customs unions, and currency blocs, have become increasingly prevalent in the world economy. Both pervasive and controversial, regionalization has some economists optimistic about the opportunities it creates and others fearful that it may corrupt fragile efforts to encourage global free trade. Including both empirical and theoretical studies, this volume addresses several important questions: Why do countries adopt FTAs and other regional trading arrangements? To what extent have existing regional arrangements actually affected patterns of trade? What are the welfare effects of such arrangements? Several chapters explore the economic effects of regional arrangements on patterns of trade, either on price differentials or via the gravity model on bilateral trade flows. In addition, this book examines the theoretical foundation of the gravity model. Making extensive use of the gravity model of bilateral trade, several chapters explore the economic effects of regional arrangements. In addition, this book examines the theoretical foundation of the gravity model.

Both proponents and opponents of globalization assume it is a process that sweeps across national borders. Indeed, over the last twenty years, the key features of globalization provide prima facie evidence for this conventional wisdom. Dramatic developments in information and communications technology, the rise of global companies and production networks, the unstoppable internationalization of financial markets, and the deregulation and privatization of service sectors are all important examples of how this process unfolds in its raw form. Nevertheless, the increase in regional economic activity is another striking feature of this process. As multinational corporations extend their global reach, regional networks also emerge in the global trading system. Globalization therefore does not only mean a global convolution of economies, but could also lead to a spatial concentration of economic activity. All through the 1990s and at the beginning of the new century, East Asia experienced numerous structural changes leading to interesting market developments. South Korea’s rise to developed country status, the integration of the Southeast Asian economies, and the rise of China have made this region the manufacturing center of the global economy. Considering the economic importance of Japan and the other East Asian nations in the world, the crucial questions that arise include: What are the linkages between the global strategies of multinational corporations and their regional business operations? Why do subregional strategies emerge, especially recently to take advantage of China as a production base and market? Are the modern business practices in a multinational corporation’s home country easily transferred to their overseas operations and are they readily absorbed by local employees? Finally, which strategic directions are Japanese, American, East Asian and European enterprises going in this important business area of the world? To answer these questions, this book takes a closer look at several structural features of the East Asian economy and the corporate and business strategies of multinational corporations. The volume assembles up-to-date research by a number of European, Australian and Japanese scholars, and presents analysis of various business aspects of regional strategies in a global economy.

This pioneering volume proposes a compelling new theory of how regions have sustained their economic viability in the era of multinational corporations. Unlike traditional approaches, which analyze economic systems in terms of their mechanics (inputs, outputs, prices, technology, etc.), this work views them as systems for coordinating human actions and relationships. Reconceptualizing the role of learning, technology, and local institutions in development, Storper illuminates the key role of regional economies as building blocks of the increasingly connected world. A thought-provoking and timely work, The Regional World carries resounding implications for educators, students, and policymakers in economic geography, economic sociology, and international business. It is an essential primary or supplementary text for graduate-level courses on economic, regional, or industrial development and policy and international business.

Regional economic development has attracted the interest of economists, geographers, planners and regional scientists for a long time. And, of course, it is a field that has developed a large practitioner cohort in government and business agencies from the national down to the state and local levels. In planning for cities and regions, both large and small, economic development issues now tend to be integrated into strategic planning processes. For at least the last 50 years, scholars from various disciplines have theorised about the nature of regional economic development, developing a range of models seeking to explain the process of regional economic development, and why it is that regions vary so much in their economic structure and performance and how these aspects of a region can change dramatically over time. Regional scientists in particular have developed a comprehensive tool-kit of methodologies to measure and monitor regional economic characteristics such as industry sectors, employment, income, value of production, investment, and the like, using both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, and focusing on both static and dynamic analysis. The 'father of regional science', Walter lsard, was the first to put together a comprehensive volume on techniques of regional analysis (Isard 1960), and since then a huge literature has emerged, including the many titles in the series published by Springer in which this book is published.

The politics and economics of the United States are wedded in the political economy of the nation state and the nationalist economic policies. This `nationalist paradigm' is, however, showing the following signs of fatigue: the role of the nation state is diminishing as the economy globalizes; US national accounting systems are less effective, technology forces change; trading blocs are emerging; there is less control of exchange rates; regional economies are restructuring; and competitive environments are changing. This book proposes that political jurisdictions are not economies but polities, and explores the complex and important economic implications of this thesis.

All is not well in the World Trade Organization. Does a global economy require global institutions? One possible alternative is interregionalism: Economic integration between two distinct regions. This book explores the logic of interregionalism by focusing on the European Union, which has pursued agreements with Latin America, East Asia, and the Southern Mediterranean, among others. Why has the EU pursued this strategy? Based on a novel theoretical framework, the authors in this book explore EU interregionalism to provide us with insight into this new emerging face of the international political economy.