Methodological Problems in Economic Geography

The author uses the techniques of paleogeography and archeology to trace climatic fluctuations in inner Asia and the rise of nomadism in the 1st millennium B. C. replacing a settled mode of stock herding and agriculture. Previous papers in this series appeared in Soviet Geography, June 1964 and February 1966.     

Teaching Economic Geography in Two Contrasting Asian Contexts: Decentering Anglo-American Economic Geography in China and Singapore

Teaching economic geography outside Anglo-American countries presents a particular pedagogical challenge, as theories and concepts developed in these countries might not be directly applicable outside their intellectual and national contexts. In this paper, the authors show how the peculiar institutional and development environments in China and Singapore have shaped the ways in which the economic geography curriculum is developed and taught in institutions of higher education. They also examine how students respond to the intellectual challenges presented to them. In their view, successful pedagogy in teaching economic geography requires a significant degree of localization of the curriculum.     

A Classification of Models in Economic Geography

Models used in economic geography are classified on the basis of a general scientific classification of models which distinguishes two broad categories: ideal and material models. Ideal models are further categorized as visual, symbolic, and mathematical models, and material models as natural, physical, and mathematical models. Examples of each type are suggested. Other possible typologies of models can be devised; for example, logical, graphic, and mathematical models, representing a logical progression of scientific research. Models can be divided into general and particular models, depending on whether they treat aggregates or individual aspects. The complete model of a regional territorial-production complex would be a system of general and particular models. In terms of content, models can be classified as structural, functional, or synthetic (structural-functional) models. Finally, there could be a typology distinguishing static and dynamic models, nonoptimized and optimized models, and varying categories of prediction (models of an existing situation, planning models, predictive models).     

历史经济地理学的问题和机遇——以近代经济地理为例

对历史经济地理进行清晰的学科边界界定,既无必要,亦无可能,不妨将其视为一个研究领域.该领域关注的核心问题应是历史时期的经济活动在空间上的展开过程和空间分布.这个领域是历史学、经济学、地理学三个学科的交叉地带.     

近代经济地理的研究历程

近代经济地理学经过二十多年的发展,现已成为历史地理诸学科中重要的学科方向,并受到历史学、地理学、经济学等相关学科的重视.对近代经济地理研究进行必要的学术史回顾,为下一步的研究指出新的学术起点,意义是不言而喻的.     

An Evolutionary New Economic Geography Model

In this paper we present a general new economic geography model with multiple industries and regions, full labor and capital mobility, land use in production and consumption, and a dynamic adjustment process in which consumers maximize utility and firms respond to nonzero profits. All industries use intermediate inputs as well as land, labor, and capital. Systems of cities form endogenously within this framework, including asymmetrical urban hierarchies and cities of different sizes and industry compositions. Each urban area has a bid-rent gradient and zones with land uses and densities as in the von Thünen model. The equilibrium depends not only on initial conditions but also on speeds of adjustment. The model is a prototype for empirical implementation, as illustrated with a simulation of the effects of transportation cost reductions.     

The use of Savings-Bank Statistics in Economic Geography

Soviet savings-bank statistics are examined as a potential source of data in economic-geographic research, with particular reference to four distinctive areas of Donetsk Oblast (Yenakiyevo, a large coal-steel city; Debal'tsevo, a middle-size railroad town; a suburban rural area; and a purely rural area). The average deposit balance in rural areas tends to be larger and more stable than in cities. City dwellers view savings banks as a place for keeping temporarily available money while rural residents use the banks for savings for particular purposes (home building, automobile purchase, etc.). The coefficient of territorial concentration (the ratio of the mean deposit in the local area to the mean deposit in the oblast as a whole) reflects differences in income levels. The mean deposit tends to be highest in suburban rural areas, where employment in the central city is supplemented by the sale of produce from private garden plots. Income levels in Yenakiyevo, with its high-paid labor force in the coal and steel industries, are higher than among the railroad workers of Debal'tsevo. Changes in deposit balances through the year also reflect urban and rural peculiarities in family incomes and expenditures.     

Re-emerging China and Consequences for Economic Geography

A noted specialist on the spatial dimensions of China's economy surveys questions and opportunities for economic geography raised by the re-emergence of China. He explores the ways in which the rise of China may alter economic geography's object of study (the organization of the world economy), force re-conceptualization of some fundamental concepts and theories, and affect the way the discipline conducts its work. The paper argues that cooperation of Western and Chinese scholars in forging a new economic geography is contingent on a redirected focus away from concerns relevant only to the West and the discarding of research frameworks that bracket China off from experiences in the West.     

Applications of Mathematics to Some Problems in Economic Geography

The author, a staff member of the Institute of Scientific Information of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, discusses some aspects of the use of mathematics in research on settlement geography. He develops a number of methods originated abroad, such as the nearest-neighbor distance and the Zipf rule on city-size distribution, and applies them to the study of patterns of urban settlements and the size and spacing of cities in national and regional systems.     

On new Directions in the Development of Soviet Economic Geography

A review of new research areas in Soviet economic geography distinguishes three categories of topics in terms of the level of advance and the volume of research being done. The most viable new areas, with a large number of studies, include the resource-oriented approach to economic geography and the systems approach to settlement geography. In other research areas, such as the geography of services and the geography of land use, only the first steps are being made. The lag in land-use studies behind the West is explained in terms of the large territory of the USSR, which is said to have made this type of research unnecessary until recently. The potentialities of some research areas are only just beginning to be perceived, notably in the case of studies on spatial value relationships, involving regional accounts and balance of payments.     

The Geography of Economic Development and Racial Discrimination in Brazil

This study investigates the relationship between unequal resource and population distribution and racial wage inequality in Brazil. Using sample data from the 1980 Brazilian census, monthly wages were estimated for white and Afro-Brazilian men working in nine metropolitan areas. Estimates showed that racial disparities in wages existed across all regional labour markets. Regression-based decomposition analysis found that a substantial portion of the racial wage gap was due to discrimination (unequal pay), while estimates of the magnitude of labour market discrimination indicated considerable variation by geographical area. Discrimination was higher in the predominantly white and highly developed areas of the South than in the former slave and underdeveloped regions of the Northeast.     

Economic Geography at the 1960 International Geographical Congress

The author compares the scope of economic-geography papers at the Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm congresses, discusses William William-Olsson's book on Stockholm, and analyzes a number of congress papers with an economic-geographic content.     

On Some Problems of Theory and Practice in Economic Geography

The author, an opponent of Anuchin's views, charges that the discussion around the theory of a unified geography has been diverting the attention of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University away from practical tasks contributing to the growth of the national economy. Vol'skiy restates the Marxist theory of economic geography and calls on economic geographers for more constructive contributions to Communist economic development.     

Socialist Geography in England: J. F. Horrabin and a Workers' Economic and Political Geography

This paper examines the life and geographical writings of the English socialist J.F.("Frank") Horrabin (1884–1962) and his attempts to construct a socialist geography. Horrabin was an active socialist in the Labour Party, Fabian Society, and other leftwing groups and very involved in working-class education through the Plebs League and National Council of Labour Colleges. He was also a journalist, cartoonist, and gifted cartographer. His 1923 text An Outline of Economic Geography , which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois "pure geography" but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework. Unlike Germany and some other countries, England did not have a strong Marxist theoretical tradition, and Horrabin's approach does not develop theory (though it did attract the admiration of the German Marxist Karl Wittfogel). Rather, it sets out to be engaged in practical political education. Horrabin's work was developed within a particular context, but his geographical writings (and pioneering political cartography) exemplify one way of linking geography with political practice, and this paper examines these relationships. Many of Horrabin's concerns find echoes in current radical geography, and his work deserves belated recognition and a place in the history of geography.     

The Industrial District and the 'New' Italian Economic Geography

The industrial district is one of the theoretical concepts by which Italian economic geography has redefined a large part of its scientific and methodological status. The successful of industrial district is linked to the explanation of the Italian model of light industrialization, that is to the role played by small firms in Italian manufacturing industry. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to know that industrial district was introduced as a theoretical paradigm to stress the territoriality of the production process and the gain of productiveness and innovativeness for the firm which sources from the embedding of economic activity within the local society where the production takes place. Support for this approach is found in the Marshallian external economies. This article addresses the importance of industrial district from the point of view of this neo-Marshallian reading of the organization of production. This framework of reference provides the basis for the formulation and implementation of local policies which recast traditional economic, social and infrastructural ones as specialist policies aimed at the creation of the institutional and environmental conditions for the competitiveness of places.     

Recent Doctoral Dissertations in Human and Economic Geography at Nordic Universities

Ivarsson, I. (1996), Integrated International Production. A Study of Foreign Transnational Corporations in Sweden