Economic Geography and International Business

Territorial (and individual) inequality has been rising due to the concentration of employment, value creation and power in certain cities and regions, both in the Global North and South. In the most advanced industrial economies this has resulted in a finely-grained, multi-scale, territorial patchwork of diverging real incomes, skill demand and supply, and rates of labour force participation: between and within nation-states and, within regions, between core and peripheral areas. Once regions and their advantages become unequal in this way, global connectivity ought to be considered in policy making amongst the crucial determinants of economic development and territorial equity. International business (IB) activities – through multinational enterprises (MNEs), Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), international outsourcing and offshoring, and participation to global production networks and value chains – are attracted by the connectivity of territories and thus contribute to reinforce agglomeration patterns and territorial inequality. At the same time, they can create connections across space thus offering opportunities for accessing geographically dispersed knowledge and catching-up in peripheral regions. This track aims to foster the academic and policy debate on the link between regional connectivity and local economic development dynamics in advanced and emerging economies. We invite papers based on both quantitative and mixed methods at the intersection of the fields of economic geography, regional science, and international business studies. Papers that highlight implications for territorial equity, regional economic development and the challenges ahead in the analysis of global-local interdependence are particularly welcome.

Keywords:
territorial inequality; connectivity; agglomeration economies; firm location; cities; regional development.