Road infrastructure and intra-community trade in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community

We examine the contribution of domestic and interstates road infrastructures to trade flow between member countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). Theories of international economics as well as those of the new economic geography suggest a positive contribution of both road infrastructures to intraregional trade. A gravity model of international trade is estimated to evaluate this theoretical prediction in the CEMAC zone. Results confirm a positive contribution of interstate road infrastructure to intra-Community trade, but show no evidence of a positive contribution of domestic road infrastructure to intra- CEMAC trade.

Different roots, intertwined branches: linking International Business and Economic Geography through the Uppsala Model and Global Production Network

PurposeThe aim of this study is to propose a link between international business (IB) and economic geography, which are two streams of thought that have developed without one acknowledging the other. We use the Uppsala model and the Global Production Network as pillars to sustain this link. We expect that this research triggers a collaboration with allied social sciences in important debates surrounding the business-societal interface.Design/methodology/approachWe selected papers produced by Johanson and Vahlne to understand the development of the Uppsala model over 40 years. The same was done with the Global Production Network, where we scrutinized the work of Henderson, Coe, Dicken, Hess and Yeung – scholars from the Manchester School of Geography – in the last twenty years. Based on Humphrey et al. (2019), we applied an inductive and inferential approach to uncover similarities and differences between the Uppsala model and Global Production Network.FindingsThe Uppsala model reinforces the strategic role of network position in the internationalization process, while the Global Production Network aims to explain how the governance of global firms scattered world-wide affects the development and upgrading opportunities of the various regions and firms involved. Despite these clear differences, the geographical nature of IB and shared similarities accounting the network as a channel to foster and provide access to important resources and practices regarding management, coordination and governance of dispersed parts of multinational enterprises give room to using these two theories as pillars to link IB and economic geography.Originality/valueWhile attempts to link IB and economic geography are not new, none of these studies have focused on the Uppsala model and Global Production Network as pillars to create a link. We foresee an intense cross collaboration and an even possible renaissance of IB and economic geography to target the ever-changing business environment and its impact on social and economic development.

Labour, Efficiency, Critique: writing the plantation into the technological present-future

In this commentary, we call upon critical labour scholars, including labour geographers, to feature what sociologist Palmer called the ‘thrust of efficiency’ more centrally in their work. We put forth that the push for efficiency, as made possible by digital technology, needs to be analysed in terms of its historical lineage as well as in terms of its geographical scope. Centreing efficiency in critical labour studies, necessitates three scholarly moves. These are particularly relevant for labour geography, a field that has so far tended to circumvent questions of coloniality/labour, digital Taylorism, and the politics of (re-)writing economic geographies, in by-passing the literatures that deal with them. The plantation, an analytical category and ontic reality that stretches across several yet often unconnected bodies of literature – literary studies, Black Geographies, Caribbean studies, and the Black Radical Tradition, as well as in Global History – is central to our effort. Eventually, writing the plantation into the technological present-future can be the starting point for a larger and historico-geographically informed critique, in economic geography and beyond, of efficiency, a mode of thinking-cum-praxis based on input–output calculations, objectifying practices, violent value extraction and the removal of undesired ‘social frictions’ for the sake of capital accumulation.

From crisis to the everyday: Shouldn't we all be writing economies?

This commentary explores the politics of writing about the economy in a culture, society, and discipline that tends to prioritize masculinist (and white) theories and definitions of economy over embodied experiences of people living their everyday lives. Inspired by Timothy Mitchell's problematization of the economy as an object of analysis, we press further on the seemingly singular unit of “the” economy and who is allowed to define it as such. We are animated by questions of who is considered an expert on the economy and how, or by whom, crises in the economy are recognized. Drawing from our own writing experiences during the pandemic and from social movements we research, we argue for alternate ways of thinking about experiences of and expertise on the economy. In reckoning with how social movements speak to power in a bid to transform economies, we consider the role of economic geography in the economy of writing and knowledge production surrounding “the economy” itself. We make the case for a more public economic geography grounded in the social and economic embeddedness of knowledge production, the material consequences of who gets to define what is economically “important,” and the potential for this expertise to be located anywhere.

Development Model of China’s Regional Economic Cooperation Based on Network Analysis and Multimedia Data Visualization

As for the problem of large amount and complex structure of network forum data, we analyze the means of data visualization and association analysis, explain the specific interpretation of association rules, explain the feelings and objectives of multimedia data visualization, and explain the corresponding technical application. This paper uses the relevant theories of new economic geography to analyze and compare China’s unique economic development. In particular, it studies the development and changes of the World Trade Organization. Through the results, it can be seen that, after China’s accession to the WTO, the industrial location coefficient shows a downward trend, and the change of economic differences is slow.

Spatial Interactions in Business and Housing Location Models

The paper combines theoretical models of housing and business locations and shows that they have the same determinants. It evidences that classical, behavioural, new economic geography, evolutionary and co-evolutionary frameworks apply simultaneously, and one should consider them jointly when explaining urban structure. We use quantitative tools in a theory-guided factors induction approach to show the complexity of location models. The paper discusses and measures spatial phenomena as distance-decaying gradients, spatial discontinuities, densities, spillovers, spatial interactions, agglomerations, and as multimodal processes. We illustrate the theoretical discussion with an empirical case of interacting point-patterns for business, housing, and population. The analysis reveals strong links between housing valuation and business location and profitability, accompanied by the related spatial phenomena. It also shows that assumptions concerning unimodal spatial urban structure, the existence of rational maximisers, distance-decaying externalities, and a single pattern of behaviour, do not hold. Instead, the reality entails consideration of multimodality, a mixture of maximisers and satisfiers, incomplete information, appearance of spatial interactions, feed-back loops, as well as the existence of persistence of behaviour, with slow and costly adjustments of location.

Emergence of Socio-economic Geography and Spatial Management as a Scientific Discipline in the New Classification of Science in Poland1

The aim of the article is to present the chronology of activities that led to the emergence of the discipline ‘socio-economic geography and spatial management’ in the new classification of science in Poland which has been in force since 2018. The path of emergence of the discussed discipline is analysed from the standpoint of one of the participants of this process. The article also presents positive and negative consequences of implementing this classification in the context of two different structural models of geography as a science. Among positive consequences one can mention (1) preservation of the name ‘geography’ on the list of scientific disciplines, and (2) a favourable formal and legal ‘empowerment’ of socio-economic geography in the system of the organisation and evaluation of science in Poland. Among the greatest threats one can see (1) a reduction in the importance of socio-economic geography in favour of spatial management, and (2) the organisational disintegration of some geographical communities, institutions and research units. However, there are also attempts at the reintegration of geography around two of its basic segments, i.e. physical geography and human geography. In the author's opinion, future activities should focus on the means to strengthen realistically (and not only declaratively) the position of the new discipline and its constituent subdisciplines against other scientific disciplines.