2        The Centre of Gravity Shifts: Transforming the Geographies of the Global Economy

The importance of taking a long view: the imprint of past geographies

 Roller-coasters and interconnections

Global shifts: the changing contours of the global economic map

The centre of gravity has shifted

 

Ezcurra, Roberto and Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés (2013) Does economic globalization affect regional inequality? A cross-country analysis. World Development, 52: 92–103.

This paper charts how economic globalization led to increasing regional inequalities in 47 countries between 1990 and 2007. It provides a macro view on the uneven geographies of global shift.

 

Henderson, Jeffrey, Appelbaum, Richard P. and Ho, Suet Ying (2013) Globalization with Chinese characteristics: externalization, dynamics and transformations. Development and Change, 44 (6): 1221–53.

This paper introduces a special issue of the journal and examines how the rise of China presents a significant challenge to the dominant view of economic globalization.

 

Kaplinsky, Raphael and Farooki, Masuma (2011) What are the implications for global value chains when the market shifts from the North to the South? International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 4 (1–3): 13–38.

This paper identifies the recent global shift in markets from the global north to the global south and considers its implications for understanding the changing organization of the global economy.

 

Pike, Andy, Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés and Tomaney, John (2014) Local and regional development in the Global North and South. Progress in Development Studies,  14 (1): 21–30.

This paper discusses how the critical dialogue on economic development in the global north and the global south can be further stimulated. It shows how the study of the shifting centre of gravity in the global economy is important in today’s context.

3        Tangled Webs: Unravelling Complexity in the Global Economy

Connections, connections

Institutional macro-structures of the global economy

GPNs

Even in a globalizing world, economic activities are geographically localized

Networks of networks

 

Coe, Neil M. (2012) Geographies of production II: A global production networks A-Z. Progress in Human Geography, 36 (3): 389–402.

This progress report provides a concise and definite entry on the A to Z of key geographical studies of global production networks.

 

Mahutga, Matthew C. (2014) Global models of networked organization, the positional power of nations and economic development. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 157–94.

This paper explains how the global economy can be understood from the perspectives of global value chains and global production networks. Its historical analysis shows changing positionalities of national economies in a globalizing world.

 

Parrilli, Mario Davide, Nadvi, Khalid and Yeung, Henry Wai-chung (2013) Local and regional development in global value chains, production networks and innovation networks: a comparative review and the challenges for future research. European Planning Studies, 21 (7): 967–88.

This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the expanding literature on global value chains, global production networks and global innovation networks. It integrates these strands of the literature for understanding local and regional development.

 

Ponte, Stefano and Sturgeon, Tim (2014) Explaining governance in global value chains: a modular theory-building effort. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 195–223.

This theory paper argues for a new way of theorizing governance in global value chains. It explains how such theory-building effort can be more fruitfully realized through treating existing frameworks as different analytical modules.

 

4        Technological Change: ‘Gales of Creative Destruction’

Technology and economic transformation

Processes of technological change: an evolutionary perspective

Time–space shrinking technologies

Technological innovations in products, production systems and organizational forms

Geographies of innovation

 

Graham, Mark, Zook, Matthew and Boulton, Andrew (2013) Augmented reality in urban places: contested content and the duplicity of code. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38 (3): 464–79.

This paper showcases how technologies, as mediated through geographically referenced information and its regulatory code, are shaping our geographical experience in different parts of the city.

 

Morrison, Andrea, Rabellotti, Roberta and Zirulia, Lorenzo (2013) When do global pipelines enhance the diffusion of knowledge in clusters? Economic Geography, 89 (1): 77–104.

This paper explains how external actors can contribute to knowledge diffusion and technological innovations in existing clusters. The authors argue that cluster size and quality of local buzz matter in the role of these external actors.

 

Nathan, Max and Lee, Neil (2013) Cultural diversity, innovation, and entrepreneurship: firm-level evidence from London. Economic Geography, 89 (4): 367–94.

This comprehensive study shows the positive relationship between cultural diversity and innovativeness among a large sample of firms based in London, arguably the most globalized city in the world.

 

Wang, Cassandra C. and Lin, George C. S. (2013) Dynamics of innovation in a globalizing China: regional environment, inter-firm relations and firm attributes. Journal of Economic Geography, 13 (3): 397–418.

This study of information and communications technology (ICT) firms in China shows the importance of firm-specific characteristics, such as the types of innovation and corporate strategies, in shaping the dynamics of technological innovation. It complements existing geographical studies of the role of regional assets and inter-firm relations in shaping technological innovation.

 

5         Transnational Corporations: The Primary ‘Movers and Shapers’ of the Global Economy

The myth of the global corporation

Why firms transnationalize

How firms transnationalize

TNCs as ‘networks within networks’

Configuring the TNCs’ internal networks

TNCs within networks of externalized relationships

Perpetual change: reshaping TNCs’ internal and external networks

 

Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd and Mudambi, Ram (2013) MNEs as border-crossing multi-location enterprises: the role of discontinuities in geographic space. Journal of International Business Studies, 44: 413–26.

Written by management scholars, this paper argues for a more fine-grained analysis of the role of geography in shaping transnational corporations. The authors explain that such a geographic role can be subdivided into discrete international border effects and continuous distance effects known as subnational spatial heterogeneity.

 

Edgington, David W. and Hayter, Roger (2013) ‘Glocalization’ and regional headquarters: Japanese electronics firms in the ASEAN region. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103 (3): 647–68.

This empirical study of Japanese TNCs in South East Asia shows the critical importance of regional headquarters in the challenge of balancing the need to adapt foreign subsidiaries to local circumstances and to integrate corporate operations as a whole.

 

MacKinnon, Danny (2012) Beyond strategic coupling: reassessing the firm-region nexus in global production networks. Journal of Economic Geography, 12 (1): 227–45.

This theoretical paper examines the role of transnational corporations and their foreign direct investment in shaping the strategic coupling of different regions into global production networks. This role can be understood in relation to intra-TNC contests for repeat investment and differential power asymmetries between TNCs and regional institutions.

 

Mariotti, Sergio, Piscitello, Lucia and Elia, Stefano (2014) Local externalities and ownership choices in foreign acquisitions by multinational enterprises. Economic Geography, 90 (2): 187–211.

This empirical study of foreign acquisitions of local manufacturing firms in Italy between 2001 and 2010 shows that the entry mode by TNCs varies by the location of the target firm. The need for a local partner or joint venture is reduced if the target firm is located in core cities or industrial districts that provide good access to positive externalities.

 

6         The State Really Does Matter

‘The state is dead’ – oh no it isn’t!

States as containers

States as regulators

States as collaborators

 

Haberly, Daniel (2014) White Knights from the Gulf: sovereign wealth fund investment and the evolution of German industrial finance. Economic Geography, 90 (3): 293‒320.

This paper shows the important of national institutional structures in shaping corporate restructuring in Germany. The author explains the role of the state in cross-border equity investment through sovereign wealth funds and in the evolution of corporate governance.

 

Lee, Yong-Sook, Heo, Inhye and Kim, Hyungjoo (2014) The role of the state as an inter-scalar mediator in globalizing liquid crystal display industry development in South Korea. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 109–29.

This paper examines the role of the South Korean state in facilitating the challenging interactions between domestic firms and global lead firms in a liquid crystal display industrial cluster. The state serves as a container of laws and practices and as a constructor of regional innovation systems.

 

McGuirk, Pauline and O’Neill, Phil (2012) Critical geographies with the state: the problem of social vulnerability and the politics of engaged research. Antipode, 44 (4): 1374–94.

Through policy-oriented research in Australia’s Hunter Valley, this paper charts the role of state agencies in governing social vulnerability and the politics of collaborative research in shaping state practices.

 

Smith, Adrian (2014) The state, institutional frameworks and the dynamics of capital in global production networks. Progress in Human Geography, 38, doi: 10.1177/0309132513518292.

This paper explains the critical role of the state in mediating the integration of regional economies into global production networks. The author illustrates these institutional dynamics through a case study of the uneven integration of North Africa into the European Union.

 

Zhang, Jun and Peck, Jamie A. (2014) Variegated capitalism, Chinese style: regional models, multi-scalar constructions. Regional Studies, 48, doi:10.1080/00343404.2013.856514.

This paper shows how the Chinese state at the national and the regional scales has constructed a distinctively Chinese-styled variety of capitalism. The substantial degree of internal (regional) heterogeneity also points to several regional models of capitalist development in China.

7         The Uneasy Relationship Between Transnational Corporations and States:                                    Dynamics of Conflict and Collaboration

The ties that bind

Bargaining processes between TNCs and states

 

Rodrik, Dani (2013) Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—Who needs the nation-state? Economic Geography, 89 (1): 1–20.

Agnew, John (2013) Commentary on ‘Who needs the nation-state?’ Economic Geography, 89 (1): 21–6.

This paper and its commentary offer two contrasting views on the uneasy relationship between the nation-state and global capital in shaping economic governance. This relationship in turn determines how desirable economic and social outcomes can be achieved in different national economies.

 

Yeung, Henry Wai-chung (2014) Governing the market in a globalizing era: developmental states, global production networks, and inter-firm dynamics in East Asia. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 70–101.

This conceptual paper explains how the complex relationship between the development state and national lead firms has evolved in the context of emerging global production networks. Based on the recent developmental experience of East Asia, the author argues that the bargaining relationship between domestic lead firms and their home states has changed in favour of the former, which have evolved into transnational corporations in their own right.

 

8      ‘Capturing Value’ Within Global Production Networks

         Placing places in GPNs

         Creating, enhancing and capturing value in GPNs       

         Upgrading (or downgrading) of local economies within GPNs

 

Coe, Neil M. and Lee, Yong-Sook (2013) ‘We’ve learnt how to be local’: the deepening territorial embeddedness of Samsung–Tesco in South Korea. Journal of Economic Geography, 13 (2): 327–56.

This paper explains how value can be captured through the globalization of retailing. Based on the successful case of Samsung–Tesco in South Korea, the authors argue for a dynamic view of value capture through territorial embeddedness and strategic localization.

 

Horner, Rory (2014) Strategic decoupling, recoupling and global production networks: India’s pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Economic Geography, 14, doi:10.1093/jeg/lbt022.

This paper highlights the role of a selective and short-term strategic decoupling from global production networks and its subsequent recoupling in the successful development of India’s pharmaceutical industry. It argues that positive development outcomes can be attained through these dynamic processes of decoupling and recoupling.

 

Kelly, Philip F. (2013) Production networks, place and development: thinking through global production networks in Cavite, Philippines. Geoforum, 44: 82–92.

This paper argues for an alternative vision of value capture in local development that goes beyond the confine of firms’ coupling in global production networks. In particular, the author seeks to make visible hidden processes in value capture such as landscape and environmental change, households and livelihoods, and social differentiation and uneven geographical development.

 

Murphy, James T. (2012) Global production networks, relational proximity, and the socio-spatial dynamics of market internationalization in Bolivia’s wood products sector. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102 (1): 208–33.

Drawing upon the case of Bolivian manufacturers of wood products, this paper examines how value capture by local firms varies significantly across different types of production networks and networking practices such as the role of power, positionality, social interactions and local factors.

 

Werner, Marion (2012) Beyond upgrading: gendered labor and firm restructuring in the Dominican Republic. Economic Geography, 88 (4): 403–22.

This paper offers a feminist analysis of value capture in the context of workers in a large garment firm in the Dominican Republic. It shows that upgrading involves the gendered reworking of skilled and unskilled work.

 

9        ‘Destroying Value’? Environmental Impacts of Global Production Networks

Production–distribution–consumption as a system of materials flows and balances

Disturbing the delicate balance of life on earth: damaging the earth’s atmosphere

Fouling the nest: creating, disposing and recycling waste

 

Baird, Ian G. and Quastel, Noah (2011) Dolphin-safe tuna from California to Thailand: localisms in environmental certification of global commodity networks. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101 (2): 337–55.

This paper adopts a political ecology approach to examine how tuna fishing can be detrimental to dolphins and how the dolphin-safe tuna labelling scheme, one of the most successful consumer-driven global environmental campaigns ever launched, can be fraught with differences and conflicts.

 

Gregson, Nicky, Crang, Mike, Ahamed, Farid Uddin, Akter, Nasreen, Ferdous, Raihana, Foisal, Sadat and Hudson, Ray (2012) Territorial agglomeration and industrial symbiosis: Sitakunda-Bhatiary, Bangladesh, as a secondary processing complex. Economic Geography, 88 (1): 37–58.

Based on the case of ship-breaking in Bangladesh’s Sitakunda-Bhatiary, this paper shows how industrial symbiosis is intricately bound up in the global circulation of environmental wastes and their recovery through secondary processing.

 

Johnson, Leigh (2014) Geographies of securitized catastrophe risk and the implications of climate change. Economic Geography, 90 (2): 155–85.

This paper showcases how financialization has turned environmental catastrophes such as climate change into tradable assets that can offer new ‘returns on place’.

 

Lepawsky, Josh (2014) The changing geography of global trade in electronic discards: time to rethink the e-waste problem. Geographical Journal, 180, doi: 10.1111/geoj.12077.

This paper provides a comprehensive study of global trade in e-waste between 1996 and 2012. Its main finding is surprising: the vast majority of e-waste is traded between developed countries in the global north rather than dumped from these countries to the global south.

 

Mulhall, Rachel Ann and Bryson, John R. (2013) The energy hot potato and governance of value chains: power, risk, and organizational adjustment in intermediate manufacturing firms. Economic Geography, 89 (4): 395–419.

This empirical study of intermediate metal-processing firms in the British West Midlands shows the importance of energy costs in shaping their governance of value chains. This paper thus points to the important impact of environmental factors on the organization of global production networks.

 

10       Winning and Losing: Where You Live Really Matters

Location matters

Incomes and poverty

Where will the jobs come from?

Populations on the move

 

Barbu, Mirela, Dunford, Michael and Liu, Weidong (2013) Employment, entrepreneurship, and citizenship in a globalised economy: the Chinese in Prato. Environment and Planning A, 45 (10): 2420–41.

This paper examines how Chinese immigrants and their enterprises in Italy’s Prato have produced significant tensions in the local labour market in the textile and clothing sector. These tensions point to a more complex scenario of understanding the winners and losers of economic globalization.

 

Barrientos, Stephanie, Gereffi, Gary and Rossi, Arianna (2011) Economic and social upgrading in global production networks: a new paradigm for a changing world. International Labour Review, 150 (3–4): 319–40.

This framework paper shows how economic upgrading brought about by global production networks does not necessarily lead to the social upgrading of workers. It outlines several trajectories and scenarios for such social upgrading.

 

Beaverstock, Jon and Hall, Sarah (2012) Competing for talent: global mobility, immigration and the City of London’s labour market. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 5 (2): 271–88.

Drawing upon a large migration dataset, this paper confirms the critical importance of immigration and population mobility in determining the City of London’s position as a leading international financial centre. It demonstrates both how location matters and how population movement can enhance specific locations.

 

Gordon, Ian R. and Kaplanis, Yiannis (2014) Accounting for big-city growth in low-paid occupations: immigration and/or service-class consumption. Economic Geography, 90 (1): 67–90.

Using regional data spanning 1975–2008, the authors find the success of London as a global city is predicated on the highly elastic supply of cheap labour from poor countries to fill low-paid service jobs. It provides a contrasting view to the focus on highly skilled jobs in the above study by Beaverstock and Hall (2012).

 

Turner, Sarah (2012) Making a living the Hmong way: an actor-oriented livelihoods approach to everyday politics and resistance in upland Vietnam. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102 (2): 403–22.

This study of ethnic minority households in upland northern Vietnam shows how livelihoods in a global economy can be highly contingent on everyday politics and social practices. While location matters much in the developmental outcome of globalization, this paper points to actor-specific practices in resisting the perils of economic globalization.

 

  11     Making the World a Better Place

‘The best of all possible worlds’?

TNCs and CSR

States and issues of global governance

A better world?

 

Gereffi, Gary (2014)Global value chains in a post-Washington Consensus world: shifting governance structures, trade patterns and development prospects. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 9–37.

This paper provides a broad reading of five major trends in today’s global economy characterized as a post-Washington-Consensus world. These trends are reshaping the governance structures of global production networks.

 

Hamilton, Trina (2013) Beyond market signals: negotiating marketplace politics and corporate responsibilities. Economic Geography, 89 (3): 285–316.

Based on a large study of marketplace campaigns, this paper argues that corporate responsibilities change for the better because of action taken by the influential minorities of consumers, investors, and intermediaries who are often in dialogue with targeted executives. The majority of arm's length market campaigns are not effective in creating such a change.

 

Hughes, Alex (2012) Corporate ethical trading in an economic downturn: recessionary pressures and refracted responsibilities. Journal of Economic Geography, 12 (1): 33–45.

Focusing on how UK food and clothing retailers responded to recessionary pressures between 2008 and 2009, this paper accounts for the resilience of corporate ethical trading on the basis of these retailers’ embeddedness in strategies of reputational risk management.

 

Neilson, Jeff (2014) Value chains, neoliberalism and development practice: the Indonesian experience. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 38–69.

Drawing upon the specific application of value chains in Indonesian development practice, this paper argues that the discourse of value chain governance does not necessarily bring about positive development outcomes in specific places. Indeed, such selective application may even lead to deeper penetration of global capital into the local economy and the lives of the rural and urban poor.

12      ‘Making Holes in the Ground’: The Extractive Industries

Beginning at the beginning

Production circuits in the extractive industries

Global shifts in the extractive industries

Volatile demand

Technologies of exploring, extracting, refining, distributing

The centrality of state involvement in the extractive industries

Corporate strategies in the extractive industries

Resources, reserves and futures

 

Bridge, Gavin (2011) Resource geographies I: Making carbon economies, old and new. Progress in Human Geography, 35 (6): 820–34.

This progress report focuses on recent geographical studies of carbon as a common denominator for thinking about the organization of social life in relation to the environment. It illustrates how the carbon economy is indeed deeply associated with the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels.

 

Bridge, Gavin (2014) Resource geographies II: The resource-state nexus. Progress in Human Geography, 38 (1): 118–30.

As the second instalment of the author’s progress report, this report brings to the forefront the role of the state in shaping the governance of land, water and energy resources and the mobilization of these for capital accumulation.

 

Huber, Matt (2013) Fueling capitalism: oil, the regulation approach, and the ecology of capital. Economic Geography, 89 (2): 171–202.

Examining the domestic oil market in the USA from 1935 through 1972, this paper critically argues for the centrality of oil to the reproduction of modern capitalism through mass production and consumption.

 

Peck, Jamie A. (2013) Excavating the Pilbara: a Polanyian exploration. Geographical Research, 51 (3): 227–42.

This paper analyses how a leading region of extractive industries in Western Australia has gone through successive cycles of boom and bust, with all their attendant social crises and spatial fixes.

 

13       ‘We Are What We Eat’: The Agro-food Industries

Transformation of the food economy: the ‘local’ becomes ‘global’

Agro-food production circuits

Global shifts in the high-value agro-food industries

Consumer choices – and consumer resistances

Transforming technologies in agro-food production

The role of the state

Corporate strategies in the agro-food industries

 

Barrientos, Stephanie (2014) Gendered global production networks: analysis of cocoa–chocolate sourcing. Regional Studies, 48 (5): 791–803.

Taking a feminist political economy perspective, this paper examines the cocoa–chocolate value chain linking consumers in Europe and cocoa-growing regions in Ghana and India. It argues for the need to enhance the economic and social upgrading of women farmers and workers in these regions.

 

de Waroux, Yann le Polain and Lambin, Eric F. (2013) Niche commodities and rural poverty alleviation: contextualizing the contribution of argan oil to rural livelihoods in Morocco. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103 (3): 589–607.

This paper explains how the production of niche food commodities for global markets does not necessarily alleviate rural poverty in grower regions. Using the case of argan oil produced in Morocco, the authors identify the necessary conditions for this poverty alleviation effect to happen when niche commodities get commercialized through global value chains.

 

Havice, Elizabeth and Campling, Liam (2013) Articulating upgrading: island developing states and canned tuna production. Environment and Planning A, 45 (11): 2610–27.

This paper considers how small island states in the global south are articulated into canned tuna production and remain competitive in this standardized manufacturing activity in the global agro-food industry.

 

Lee, Joonkoo, Gereffi, Gary and Beauvais, Janet (2012) Global value chains and agrifood standards: challenges and possibilities for smallholders in developing countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (31): 12326–31.

This paper discusses the rise of private agro-food safety and quality standards and their role in reshaping four different upgrading possibilities for small growers in the global south.

 

14      ‘Fabric-ating Fashion’: The Clothing Industries

A highly contentious industry

The clothing production circuit

Global shifts in the clothing industries

Changing patterns of consumption

Technology and production costs

The role of the state

Corporate strategies in the clothing industries

Regionalizing production networks in the clothing industries

 

Azmeh, Shamel and Nadvi, Khalid (2013) ‘Greater Chinese’ global production networks in the Middle East: the rise of the Jordanian garment industry. Development and Change, 44 (6): 1317–40.

This paper focuses on the cross-border investment of garment firms from Greater China in Jordan and evaluates the impact of this articulation into global production networks on Jordan’s developmental trajectories.

 

Frederick, Stacey and Gereffi, Gary (2011) Upgrading and restructuring in the global apparel value chain: why China and Asia are outperforming Mexico and Central America. International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 4 (1–3): 67–95.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the end of textile and apparel quotas and the 2008 economic recession on the global apparel industry. It showcases how East Asian apparel suppliers have successfully upgraded and expanded their global market share on the back of growing domestic markets and regionally integrated production networks.

 

Smith, Adrian, Pickles, John, Bucek, Milan, Pastor, Rudolf and Begg, Bob (2014) The political economy of global production networks: regional industrial change and differential upgrading in the East European clothing industry. Journal of Economic Geography, 14, doi:10.1093/jeg/lbt039.

This paper offers an empirical analysis of the restructuring of the East European clothing industry in relation to the removal of trade quotas, increasing competitive pressures and the global economic crisis. It shows that the outcome of this restructuring and upgrading varies significantly across different regional economies.

 

Tokatli, Nebahat (2012) Old firms, new tricks and the quest for profits: Burberry’s journey from success to failure and back to success again. Journal of Economic Geography, 12 (1): 55–77.

Based on a case study of Burberry, this paper critically examines the internal operations of the firm to transform itself into a successful global luxury retailer. It shows how the ‘fabrication’ of fashion is inextricably interwoven with the ways in which luxury brands or retailers present themselves to the final consumers of this high fashion.

 

15     ‘Wheels of Change’: The Automobile Industry

All change?

The automobile production circuit

Global shifts in automobile production and trade

Changing patterns of consumption

Technological change in the automobile industry

The role of the state

Corporate strategies in the automobile industry

Regionalizing production networks in the automobile industry

 

Pavlínek, Petr (2012) The internationalization of corporate R&D and the automotive industry R&D of East and Central Europe. Economic Geography, 88 (3): 279–310.

This paper examines the role of East and Central Europe in the global production networks of the automobile industry. Tracing the large inflows of foreign direct investment into the Czech automobile industry over the past two decades, the author identifies some inherent weaknesses in the Czech drive to upgrade its R&D functions in the automobile global value chain.

 

Plum, Oliver and Hassink, Robert (2013) Analysing the knowledge base configuration that drives southwest Saxony’s automotive firms. European Urban and Regional Studies, 20 (2): 206–26.

This paper analyses the role of different knowledge bases for automobile manufacturing and innovation processes in one German automobile cluster. It questions the relevance of synthetic knowledge bases in sustaining the competitiveness of the existing cluster.

 

Siemiatycki, Elliot (2012) Forced to concede: permanent restructuring and labour’s place in the North American auto industry. Antipode, 44 (2): 453–73.

This paper documents the ‘regional race to the bottom’ in the North American auto industry and shows how permanent restructuring initiated by corporate elites serves as a mechanism to intensify the demands placed on workers in this industry.

 

Sturgeon, Timothy J. and Van Biesebroeck, Johannes (2011) Global value chains in the automotive industry: an enhanced role for developing countries? International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 4 (1–3): 181–205.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the possibilities for upgrading in the automobile global value chain for suppliers from developing countries. It shows that automobile producers from large developing countries such as China and India are able to gain greater independence and autonomy, whereas those from supplier countries tend to be dependent on regional production networks.

 

16      ‘Making the World Go Round’: Advanced Business Services

The centrality of advanced business services

The structure of ABS

Dynamics of the markets for ABS

Technological innovation and ABS

The role of the state: regulation, deregulation, reregulation

Corporate strategies in ABS

Geographies of ABS

 

Coe, Neil M., Lai, Karen and Wójcik, Dariusz (2014) Integrating finance into global production networks. Regional Studies, 48(5):761‒77.

This is the first paper that theorizes explicitly the role of finance in global production networks. It constructs global financial networks as a form of advanced business services with its peculiar spatiality in global cities and offshore jurisdictions.

 

Kleibert, Jana Maria (2014) Strategic coupling in ‘next wave cities’: local institutional actors and the offshore service sector in the Philippines. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 35 (2): 245‒60.

This paper shows how business process outsourcing is increasingly attracted to low-cost developing countries such as the Philippines and how local institutional actors can facilitate such offshoring of certain business services.

 

Taylor, Peter J., Derudder, Ben, Faulconbridge, James, Hoyler, Michael and Ni, Pengfei (2014) Advanced producer service firms as strategic networks, global cities as strategic places. Economic Geography, 90(3): 267‒91.

This paper analyses the role of global cities in coordinating the strategic networks of advanced business service firms. Two such strategic places, London and New York, have different levels of involvement respectively in coordinating consumption and innovation.

 

Wójcik, Dariusz (2013) Where governance fails advanced business services and the offshore world. Progress in Human Geography, 37 (3): 330–47.

This review paper investigates how advanced business services firms gain considerable power by operating legal and financial vehicles designed to escape the control of governmental or intergovernmental organizations through the use of offshore jurisdictions. It provides a good review of the interconnections between these service providers and the offshore world.

 

17      ‘Making the Connections, Moving the Goods’: Logistics and Distribution Services

Taking logistics and distribution for granted

The structure of logistics and distribution services

The dynamics of the market for logistics services

Technological innovation and logistics and distribution services

The role of the state: regulation and deregulation of logistics and distribution services

Corporate strategies in logistics and distribution services

Logistics ‘places’: key geographical nodes on the global logistics map

 

Bowen, John T. Jr and Leinbach, Thomas R. (2006) Competitive advantage in global production networks: air freight services and the electronics industry in Southeast Asia. Economic Geography, 82 (2): 147–66.

This classic paper provides an excellent empirical study of the critical importance of logistics services providers in shaping the competitive advantage of different lead firms and their global production networks.

 

Coe, Neil M. (2014) Missing links: logistics, governance and upgrading in a shifting global economy. Review of International Political Economy, 21 (1): 224–56.

This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the vital role of logistics services in the governance of global production networks and in the upgrading of different firms in these networks.

 

Jacobs, Wouter and Lagendijk, Arnoud (2014) Strategic coupling as capacity: how seaports connect to global flows of containerized transport. Global Networks, 14 (1): 44–62.

This empirical study of the port of Rotterdam demonstrates how local actors can enhance the articulation of a leading transport node into global networks of containerized traffic.

 

Rodrígue, Jean-Paul (2012) The geography of global supply chains: evidence from third-party logistics. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 48 (3): 15–23.

This paper describes the neglected geography of third-party logistics services providers, particularly their clustering around airport terminals and cross-border ports of entry in North America.