Economy

Economic geographers have always argued that space is key to understanding the economy that the processes of economic growth and development do not occur uniformly across geographic space but rather differ in degree and form as between different nations regions cities and localities with major implications for the geographies of wealth and welfare. This was true in the industrial phase of global capitalism and is no less true in the contemporary era of post-industrial knowledge-driven global capitalism. Indeed the marked changes occurring in the structure and operation of the economy in the sources of wealth creation in the organisation of the firm in the nature of work in the boundaries between market and state and in the regulation of the socio-economy have stimulated an unprecedented wave of theoretical conceptual and empirical enquiry by economic geographers. Even economists who traditionally have viewed the economy in non-spatial terms as existing on the head of the proverbial pin are increasingly recognising the importance of space place and location to understanding economic growth technological innovation competitiveness and globalisation. This collection of previously published work though containing but a fraction of the huge explosion in research and publication that has occurred over the past two decades seeks to convey a sense of this exciting phase in the intellectual development of the discipline and its importance in grasping the spatialities of contemporary economic life.