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Economic Geography: Toward a Conceptual Framework

(http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/207/concepts/)

Why Do We Need Conceptual Frameworks?

• What is a "concept"; what is a "conceptual framework"?
• Why do we need conceptual frameworks?

• Some students tend to be unhappy that we are not specific enough, while others worry about "what we are after", i.e. about the links which hold all these specific concepts together. We want to move from "jargon" to "terms" (or "words") to "concepts" to "conceptual relations" to "conceptual constructs" (including conceptual relations and theoretical propositions) as quickly as possible. All of you should by now have ample access to glossaries (including Goodall!!!) to take care of the "jargon" (i.e. fill it with conceptual meaning). Next will be the gradual construction of a conceptual skeleton or frame of reference which we draw from the outline for the class and texts and a variety of other building blocks.

  There are numerous plausible ways of dividing up the materials which could potentially represent the content of this class. I strongly recommend that you have a good look at one or more of the Economic Geography texts which are available on Reserve in OUGL and explore to what extent they organize chapters by

  1. Natural & human resources (Minerals, energy, population etc.)
  2. Economic activites (Agriculture, manufacturing, services, transportation, etc.) etc.) or by
  3. Methodological distinctions (Factual backgrounds, explanatory theories, analytical methods, etc.)

  For this class, we will use a very simple and straight-forward focus on three perspectives which have guided economic-geographic discovery in this department in the past and which still represent a viable and forward-looking "taxonomy" (categorization) of interests of economic geographers, namely

  1. the locational perspective (or, in the aggregate, a view which permits us to look at "spatial distributions" or "locational patterns") This includes a discussion of the spatial attributes of "factors of production".
  2. the spatial interaction perspective, i.e. a view which emphasizes transactions, exchanges, and interdependencies across space. From a strictly spatial point view, we are interested in communication, transportation and migration.
  3. Finally, even as "geographers" we are interested in the processes which give rise to change in our locational and transaction patterns and which may lead to "development", most specifically "economic development" within "regions" of development.

• Basic Table of Important Dependent and Independent Variables

1. more differentiation is needed, particularly within the tertiary sector (what kind? why?)
2. that the forces underlying the proposed employment shifts can be divided into
   1. productivity-related forces and
   2. demand related forces. On the demand side we attribute importance to Engel's Law type factors. Here we want to understand the role of (what economists call) the "income elasticity of demand", namely the quantitative response of demand levels for a commodity or service to changes in income levels.

Components of the conceptual frameworks presented in class (Geography 207) can be traced to or reread in the following papers and books:

Beensen, Reimar. Komplexitätsbeherrschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Eine Heuristik. Berlin Verlag, 1970. [HB71.B45]

Bell, Daniel. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. Basic Books, 1973/76.

Boulding, K.E. "Toward a General Theory of Growth," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, August 1953, 326-40.

Böventer, Edwin von, "Towards a United Theory of Spatial Economic Structure," Papers, Regional science Association, Vol.10, 1962.

Bunge, The Myth of Simplicity. Prentice Hall 1963.

Castells, Manual. The Rise of the Nework Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996.

Casti, John L., Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World Through the Science of Surprise. HarperCollins, 1994.

Cyert, Richard and James March. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice Hall, 1963.

Dicken, Peter. Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy. 3rd ed., N.Y.: Guilford, 1998.

Emery & Trist, The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments," Human Relations, Vol.18, 1965, pp.21-32.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. various editions since 1967.

Gertler versus Schoenberger, "The Limits to Flexibility," Papers and Replies, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1988 and 1989.

Hägerstrand, Torsten, "What about People in Regional Science?" Papers, Regional Science Association, European Vol. 1970.

Hayter, Roger. The Dynamics of Industrial Location: The Factory, the Firm and the Production System. Chichester: Wiley 1997.

Isard, Walter. General Theory. 1969.B

Kepner, Charles H. and Benjamin B. Tregoe, The Rational Manager: A Systematic Approach to Problem Solving and Decision Making. (Editions since 1965)

Leigh, R. and D.J. North, "The Potential of the Microbehavioral Approach to Regional Analysis," in: P.W.J. Batey, ed., Theory and Method in Urban and Regional Analysis. London Papers in Regional Science, Vol.8, London: Pion 1978, pp.46ff.

Lawrence, Paul R. and Jay W. Lorsch, Organization and Environment. Homewood: Irwin, 1967.

Machlup, Fritz, "Structure and Structural Change: Weaselwords and Jargon," Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie 18(3), 1958.

Machlup, Fritz, "Theories of the Firm: Marginalist, Behavioral, Managerial," American Economic Review 57(1), March 1967, pp.1-33.

Malecki, Edward J., Technology & Economic Development: The Dynamics of Local, Regional and National Competitiveness. 2nd ed., Longman, 1997.

Mensch, Gerhard O., Stalemate in Technology: Innovations Overcome the Depression. Ballinger 1979 (Das Technologische Patt, 1975)

Nonaka, Ikujiro and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. N.Y.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. 1995.

Sandler, Todd, Economic Concepts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 2001. [HB87.S234.2001/Suzz]