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

Beckley, M. (2011/12) China’s century: why America’s edge will endure. International Security, 36: 41–78. [Extensive literature review questioning the inevitability of China’s rise and the USA’s decline.]

Findlay, R. and O’Rourke, K.H. (2007) Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Explores the history of trade and geopolitics and their relationship with economic globalization and today’s distribution of economic power and wealth.]

Garside, W.R. (2014) Japan’s Great Stagnation: Forging Ahead, Falling Behind. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. [Narrates the story of Japan’s post-war economic ‘miracle’, its stagnation in the 1990s and 2000s, and speculates about the future of this enigmatic nation.]

Laqueur, W. (2012) After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent. New York: St. Martin’s Press. [Probably overly pessimistic about Europe’s future but a timely and accessible warning about the problems facing the continent’s established social, political and economic models in the twenty-first century.]

Maddison, A. (2007) Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macroeconomic History. New York: Oxford University Press. [A compelling account of global economic activity over the past 2000 years and why some parts of the world have grown rich while others are left behind.]

Subramanian, A. (2011) The inevitable superpower: why China’s rise is a sure thing. Foreign Affairs, 90: 66–78. [Prophesises that political and economic power will move inexorably east until China displaces the USA as hegemon.]

Zakaria, F. (2011) The Post-American World: Release 2.0. New York: W.W. Norton. [Argues that although the USA will remain powerful its pre-eminence is challenged by other powers rising around it.]

3          Tangled Webs: Unravelling Complexity in the Global Economy

Braithwaite, J. and Drahos, P. (2000) Global Business Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Demonstrates that business regulation has shifted away from national to global institutions including those from the private sector.]

Coe, N.M. (2011) Geographies of production II: A global production network A–Z. Progress in Human Geography, 36: 389–402. [Excellent review of the global production networks literature and key associated ideas, concepts and theories.]

Fransen, L. (2012) Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Labour Standards: Firms and Activists in the Making of Private Regulation. New York: Routledge. [This book studies whether efforts by private actors, especially transnational corporations, can deliver improved working conditions.]

McDonald, K. (2014) The Politics of Global Supply Chains. Cambridge: Polity. [Reveals how the increased involvement of non-state actors in supply chain governance is transforming established relationships between transnational corporations, states and other actors.]

Mosley, L. (2011) Labor Rights and Multinational Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Critical examination of the factors affecting whether global production networks negatively or positively affect labour rights.]

Porter, M.E. (1990) The Competitive Advantage of Nations. London: Macmillan. [Enormously influential text, particularly notable for identifying the importance of clusters to a nation’s competitive advantage.]

Richet, X., Delteil, V. and Dieuaide, P. (eds) (2014) Strategies of Multinational Corporations and Social Regulations. Dordrecht: Springer. [Examines how FDI has affected the pursuit of public policy in European and Asian countries and the challenges transnational corporations pose to national and international regulators.]

Stiglitz, J. (2007) Regulating multinational corporations: towards principles of cross-border legal frameworks in a globalized world balancing rights with responsibilities. American University International Law Review, 23: 451–558. [Examines the contested arenas in global production networks and expounds some principles for managing these tensions in the public interest.]

 

4          Technological Change: ‘Gales of Creative Destruction’

Abernathy, F.H., Dunlop, J.T, Hammond, J.H. and Weil, D. (1999) A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the Transformation of Manufacturing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Explains how information technology transformed the retail clothing industry.]

Dunning, J.H. (1981) International Production and Multinational Enterprise. London: Allen & Unwin. [Discusses the rise and spread of the TNC since 1945 and assesses some of the theoretical explanations for the transnationalization of production.]

Freeman, C. (1995) The ‘National System of Innovation’ in historical perspective. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 19: 5–24. [Argues that despite the intensification of globalization, national and regional systems of innovation and their related institutions are critical to explanations of how firms innovate.]

Levinson, M. (2006) How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [The intriguing story of how containerization transformed economic geography.]

Morgan, K. (2004) The exaggerated death of geography: learning, proximity and territorial innovation systems. Journal of Economic Geography, 4: 3–21. [Challenges the conventional wisdom that technology is undermining the need for geographic proximity and charts the importance of territorial innovation systems.]

Scerri, M. and Lastres, H.M.M. (eds) (2013) The Role of the State: BRICS National Systems of Innovation. London: Routledge. [Comparative exploration of the state’s role in national systems of innovation in the global economy’s rising powers.]

Vernon, R. (1966) International investment and international trade in the product cycle. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 80: 190–207. [Original exposition of Vernon’s highly influential product life-cycle theory.]

 

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

Belderbos, R., Leten, B. and Suzuki, S. (2013) How global is R & D? Firm-level determinants of home country bias in R & D. Journal of International Business Studies, 44: 765–86. [Demonstrates that much high-value TNC activity such as R&D remains in the ‘home’ country and explores why some firms are more ‘transnational’ than others.]

Chandler, A.D. and Mazlish, B. (eds) (2005) Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Goes beyond the discussion of transnational corporations as economic entities to consider their developmental, cultural and social implications and how they have invaded almost every facet of our everyday existence.]

Doremus, P.N., Keller, W.W., Pauly, L.W. and Reich, S. (1999) The Myth of the Global Corporation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Argues that TNCs are overwhelmingly tied to and shaped by their home countries and markets.]

Gereffi, G. (2014) Global value chains in a post-Washington Consensus world. Review of International Political Economy, 21: 9–37. [Discusses the evolving governance structures within global value chains and their relationship to wider changes in the organization and structure of the global economy.]

OECD–WTO–UNCTAD (2013) Implications of Global Value Chains for Trade, Investment, Development and Jobs (http://www.oecd.org/trade/G20-Global-Value-Chains-2013.pdf). [Three leading international organizations present their latest research on global production networks to the G20.]

UNCTAD (annual) World Investment Report. New York: UNCTAD. [Annual review of patterns and trends in foreign direct investment with comprehensive statistics on transnational corporations.]

 

6          The State Really Does Matter

Hall, P.A. and Soskice, D. (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Probes the variations among national economies through examining their institutional differences. Demonstrates there are many roles for the state and many competing routes to economic success.]

Lynch, D.A. (2010) Trade and Globalization: An Introduction to Regional Trade Agreements. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield. [Accounts for the growth of regional trading arrangements, the role of states in promoting them, and their relationship with the global multilateral trade regime housed at the WTO.]

Mazzucato, M. (2013) The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths. London: Anthem Press. [Emphasizes the state’s catalytic role in innovation, often taking the vital first steps in high-risk areas later colonized by private investors.]

Palan, R. and Abbott, J. (1996) State Strategies in the Global Political Economy. London: Pinter. [Challenges the view that states are retreating in the face of globalization or converging on one economic model and argues instead that states have evoked a spectrum of adjustment strategies to ensure their national economic competitiveness.]

Taylor, P.J. (1994) The state as container: territoriality in the modern world-system. Progress in Human Geography, 18: 151–62. [Challenges the conventional link between the state, politics and territoriality and the assumption that the state and state-based institutions are eternal features of the macro-structure of the global economy.]

Wade, R. (1990) Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialisation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Seminal work demonstrating the importance of systematic state intervention to the success of the late industrializing economies of East Asia after 1945.]

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

Berger, S. (2006) How We Compete: What Companies Around the World are Doing to Make it in Today’s Global Economy. New York: Currency Doubleday. [Examines the strategies states and corporations are employing in response to the globalization of production.]

Hertz, N. (2001) The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy. London: Arrow Books. [Argues that power is shifting inexorably from states to private corporations. However, is the process silent and is it really a takeover?]

Jensen, N.M. (2006) Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation: A Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Asks what makes a state attractive to foreign investors with some surprising results.]

Moosa, I.A. (2002) Foreign Direct Investment: Theory, evidence and practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave. [Covers the rationale for FDI and the factors conditioning its implementation. Also assesses the impact of FDI on economic development and the growth of multinational corporations.]

Murphy, R. (2013) Over Here and Undertaxed: Multinationals, Tax Avoidance and You. Kindle e-book. [Examines the corporate tax avoidance scandals involving Amazon, Starbucks and Google, and explains why they are possible and how governments should respond.]

Stopford, J. and Strange, S. (1991) Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Using research from Brazil, Kenya and Malaysia this book outlines an analytical matrix for understanding the mutual interdependence of states and TNCs.]

The Economist (2012) Special Report: State Capitalism. 21 January. [Contrasts the malaise seemingly engulfing Western liberal capitalist models with the emergence of a vibrant state capitalism in emerging markets.]

The Economist (2014) Special Report: Companies and the State. 22 January. [Using a variety of contemporary case studies argues that state/TNC relationships are becoming more antagonistic.]

 

8          ‘Capturing Value’ Within Global Production Networks

Cohen, S.D. (2007) Multinational Corporations and Foreign Direct Investment: Avoiding Simplicity, Embracing Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Touches upon many themes relevant to Global Shift, but Parts III and IV specifically explore the impact of transnational corporations on issues of labour, investment, local firms and dependency.]

Gill, S. and Law, D. (1988) The Global Political Economy: Perspectives, Problems and Policies. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press. [A general text on global political economy with some excellent critical chapters on the power of capital, the role of national economies in global production, and the dangers of states relying on external capital.]

Kafouros, M.I. (2008) Industrial Innovation and Firm Performance: The Impact of Scientific Knowledge on Multinational Corporations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. [Thought-provoking account of the conditions under which transnational corporations benefit from innovation and knowledge and how multinationals build on external ideas and knowledge from local firms.]

Rugraff, E. and Hansen, M.W. (eds) (2011) Multinational Corporations and Local Firms in Emerging Economies. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. [Using cases studies from emerging economies, demonstrates the mutually beneficial relationships between transnational corporations and local firms and the policies used to support them.]

 

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

Alexander, C. and Reno, J. (eds) (2012) Economies of Recycling: Global Transformations of Materials, Values and Social Relations. New York: Zed Books. [A groundbreaking analysis of global material chains and how recycling economies are challenging established understandings of north–south relationships.]

Berners-Lee, M. (2010) How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. London: Profile Books. [Stimulating and often surprising analysis of the carbon footprint of everyday items. Defies existing thinking on sustainable living.]

Crang, M., Hughes, A., Gregson, N., Norris, L. and Ahmed, F. (2013) Rethinking governance and value in commodity chains through global recycling networks. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38: 12–24. [Using the examples of clothing and merchant ships this article illustrates how discarded goods flow from north to south to fuel new production networks in the latter.]

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch). [Homepage of the leading international body for assessing climate change. Its Fifth Assessment Report contains the clearest evidence yet of the extent of human-induced climate change and its potential repercussions.]

Minter, A. (2013) Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade. London: Bloomsbury Books. [Journeys through the global recycling industry to expose the export of US recyclables and those profiting from it in the global south.]

The Economist (2009) Special Report: Waste. 28 February. [Report summarizing the origins of waste, methods to deal with it and the burgeoning recycling industry.]

 

10         Winning and Losing: Where You Live Really Matters

Castles, S., de Haas, H. and Miller, M.J. (2013) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, 5th edn. [Detailed discussion of the theories explaining migration, its history and effects on societies. Interesting overview of different regions and modern issues surrounding migration and how to control it.]

ILO (annual) Global Employment Trends. Geneva: ILO. [Annual report of the International Labour Organization detailing developments in global and regional employment.]

OECD (2014) International migration (www.oecd.org/migration). [OECD portal on international migration issues replete with statistical databases, reports on migration trends, international migration policies, and research detailing the linkages between migration and other policy issues such as health, employment and education.]

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (2014) Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2013 (http://www.ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/mpi-2013/). [Index measuring different dimensions of poverty in over 100 developing countries.]

Sassen, S.J. (2012) Cities in a World Economy, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [For the first time in human history, most people live in cities. This comprehensive volume introduces students to the nature of the urban environment, the role of cities in global production networks, and the problems of urbanization.]

Selwyn, B. (2014) The Global Development Crisis. Cambridge: Polity. [Using the ideas of political economists from the last two centuries, this book challenges the orthodox assumption that the solution to the problems covered in this chapter is for developing countries to integrate into the global capitalist system.]

UN (2014) UN Millennium Development Goals Indicators (http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx). [Official portal for statistics measuring progress against the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000.]

 

11         Making the World a Better Place

Callinicos, A. (2003) An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity. [Proceeding from the premise that global capitalism is doomed to collapse, this book examines a number of possible alternatives.]

Hale, T., Held, D. and Young, K. (2013) Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing When We Need It Most. Cambridge: Polity. [Argues that the main international institutions created after 1945 and the nature of their decision-making structures are now key impediments to humankind’s ability to cooperate to solve global problems.]

OECD (2014) Corporate governance (http://www.oecd.org/corporate/). [Portal to the research being undertaken and the standards promulgated by the world’s leading international organization working in the field of corporate governance.]

Sandel, M. (2012) What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. London: Penguin. [Argues that markets have a moral impact on the goods traded in them and establishes principles to protect the civic and public goods that markets do not supply.]

Weiss, T. (2013) Global Governance: Why What Wither? Cambridge: Polity. [Explores the emergence and meaning of global governance and the growing disjunction between the scale of global threats and the ability of existing mechanisms of global governance to manage them.]

Weiss, T. and Wilkinson, R. (eds) (2013) International Organization and Global Governance. Abingdon: Routledge. [Magisterial collection of essays covering the role of states, international organizations and non-governmental organizations in governing an array of contemporary subjects.]

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

Bridge, G. and Le Billon, P. (2012) Oil. Cambridge: Polity. [Demonstrates the essential links between oil and everyday life and the reordering of the industry prompted by internationalized state-owned oil companies.]

Dashwood, H.S. (2012) The Rise of Global Corporate Social Responsibility: Mining and the Spread of Global Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Assesses the rise and spread of corporate social responsibility in the mining industry and seeks to account for the significant variations between firms in the sector.]

Economy, E.C. and Levi, M. (2014) By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest Is Changing the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Discusses how China’s thirst for resources is leading a global shift in the global extractive industries and altering Chinese corporations now forced to operate overseas.]

Sawyer, S. and Gomez, E.T. (2012) The Politics of Resource Extraction: Indigenous Peoples, Multinational Corporations and the State. Basingstoke: Palgrave. [Using a range of case studies this book explores the enormous problems confronting populations affected by mega-resource extraction projects and why states and international institutions appear unwilling or unable to resist projects led by transnational corporations.]

Simons, P. and Macklin, A. (2014) The Governance Gap: Extractive industries, human rights, and the home state advantage. London: Routledge. [Assesses the ineffectiveness of efforts to prevent human rights violations by transnational corporations and the vital role that home states should play in addressing these deficiencies.]

Singh, J.N. and Bourgouin, F. (eds) (2013) Resource Governance and Developmental States in the Global South: Critical International Political Economy Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave. [Examines the role for the state in governing extractive industries in the global south and how the wider project of global liberalism has constrained and enabled this role.]

 

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

Clapp, J. (2012) Food. Cambridge: Polity. [Discusses how corporate control, agricultural trade rules and the financialization of farm commodities have built volatility and vulnerability into the global food production network.]

Clapp, J. and Fuchs, D. (eds) (2009) Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Exposes how efforts by states and international organizations to govern global food production networks have been hijacked by multinational agribusiness.]  

McMahon, P. (2013) Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food: Land Grabs, price rises and the geopolitics of food. London: Profile Books. [Discusses how states and corporations are seeking to control global food production networks and the controversial, if not historically unprecedented, land grabs by powerful actors.]

OECD–FAO (2013) Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022. Paris: OECD. [Evaluates likely agricultural trends for the coming decade.]

Patel, R. (2013) Stuffed and Starved: From Farm to Fork, the Hidden Battle for the World Food System. London: Portobello Books. [Examines the negative implications of allowing transnational corporations to dominate global food production networks.]

Stuart, T. (2009) Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. New York: W.W. Norton. [Demonstrates how flaws in global food production networks and the policies of Western corporations combine to cause food waste on an epic scale.]

Timmerman, K. (2013) Where Am I Eating: An Adventure Through the Global Food Economy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. [A book demonstrating how the global food production network links what Americans choose to eat with those who produce their food.]

 

14 ‘Fabric-ating Fashion’: The Clothing Industries

Cline, E.L. (2012) Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. New York: Penguin Books. [Makes an explicit link between rapid consumption cycles, environmental degradation and human rights abuses. Interesting for the linkages made between global production/consumption and everyday life.]

Ghori, U.H. (2012) Global Textiles and Clothing Trade: Trade Policy Perspectives. AH Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer. [Considers how recent changes in global trade rules related to clothing are affecting garment production in developing countries and how remaining rules continue to distort global production networks.]

Lane, C. and Probert, J. (2009) National Capitalisms, Global Production Networks: Fashioning the Value Chain in the UK, US and Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Analyses the organization and governance of global production networks by clothing firms in three leading states.]

Siegel, L. (2011) To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? London: Fourth Estate. [Exposé of the environmentally calamitous and inhumane conditions underpinning global garment production networks.]

Snyder, R.L. (2008) Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade. New York: W.W. Norton. [Follows the story of people employed in the global garment production network now grappling with changes to global trading rules, most notably the demise of the Multi-Fibre Agreement.]

Timmerman, K. (2012) Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. [Journalistic account narrating how the global garment production network links consumers of clothes in the West with producers worldwide.]

 

15         ‘Wheels of Change’: The Automobile Industry

Abrenica, J.V. (1998) The Asian automotive industry: assessing the roles of state and market in the age of global competition. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 12: 12–26. [Examines the importance of the state in facilitating the emergence of the Asian automobile industry and how the state’s role is evolving as these industries are exposed to global competition.]

Conybeare, J.A.C. (2003) Merging Traffic: The Consolidation of the International Automobile Industry. London: Rowman & Littlefield. [Tells the story of the concentration of the automobile industry as it has sought to cope with an increasingly saturated marketplace. However, the book argues mergers do not always achieve their objectives, something amply demonstrated by events subsequent to this book’s publication.]

Holweg, M. and Pil, F.K. (2004) The Second Century: Reconnecting Customer and Value Chain through Build-to Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Diagnoses the malaise facing much of the car industry at the turn of the century and advocates systematic change to the automobile production network to better meet customer demand.]

The Economist (2013) Special Report: Cars. 20 April. [Assesses the challenges facing the world’s car makers, the changing locus of vehicle production and consumption, the role of the state in pushing for higher tougher safety and efficiency standards, and speculates about the evolution of the industry over the next two decades.]

Wells, C.W. and Cronon, W. (2013) Car Country: An Environmental History. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. [Demonstrates how car executives convinced US policy makers to devise policies to promote car-dependent development.]

 

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

Beaverstock, J.V., Faulconbridge, J.R. and Hall, S. (2014) The Globalization of the Executive Search Industry: Professional Services Strategy and Dynamics in the Contemporary World. London: Routledge. [Examines the emergence of an industry devoted to recruiting elite professionals for other industries and how selection technologies are winning the ‘war for talent’.]

McDonald, D. (2014) The Firm: The Inside Story of McKinsey, the World’s Most Controversial Management Consultancy. London: One World. [Reveals the power of transnational management consultancy firms to drive changes among other transnational corporations and production networks.]

McKeen-Edwards, H. and Porter, T. (2013) Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance: Assembling Wealth and Power. Abingdon: Routledge. [Demonstrates how regulation of financial services is shifting further towards private organizations.]

Sassen, S. (2001) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Explains why, in a world of globalization, financial services firms still cluster in cities.]

Venzin, M. (2009) Building an International Financial Services Firm: How Successful Firms Design and Execute Cross-Border Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Takes issue with conventional approaches to understanding how financial services firms transnationalize and suggests that strategic decisions about when and where to enter markets are of paramount importance.]

 

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

Bonacich, E. and Wilson, J.B. (2008) Getting the Goods: Ports, Labour, and the Logistics Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Examines the impact of the logistics revolution on those employed in transport and distribution. Finds that changes in production and distribution systems sometimes gives labour new opportunities to enhance its power.]

Coe, N.M. (2014) Missing links: logistics, governance and upgrading in a shifting global economy. Review of International Political Economy, 21: 224–56. [Argues that logistics services firms are vital to modern global production networks and deserve greater attention from political economists.]

Sheffi, Y. (2012) Logistics Clusters: Delivering Value and Driving Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Explores what makes logistics clusters distinctive from those in other industrial centres, why logistics cultures are thriving and why particular locations have succeeded as venues for these activities.]

The Economist (2006) Special Report: Logistics. 17 June. [Outlines the greater efficiency with which goods are moved around the globe and pinpoints some of the dangers of modern supply chains.]

Waters, D. (ed.) (2010) Global Logistics: New Directions in Supply Chain Management, 6th edn. London: Kogan Page. [Expert chapters dealing with the evolution of the global logistics industry and the forces conditioning it.]