Registration
PKU/Harvard Workshop 1
Nov 16, 5-7 pm, Beijing
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7P7vr8syRe6oUGp3jKNCDQ
PKU/Harvard Workshop 2
Nov 24, 9-11 am Beijing
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bdSt0Y9zRw69ou7bWFUN7A
Introduction
The long-term development paths of countries and regions are shaped by a never-ending process of restructuring, with some countries and regions achieving fast growth over longer periods while others lock into a trajectory of relative and sometimes absolute decline. Nonetheless, in some cases, some lagging regions and countries find renewed growth and previously vibrant countries and regions may lose momentum. It appears that economic restructuring benefits some countries and regions and put others at a disadvantage. The set of existing economic, political, and social and cultural activities and functions in a countries or region is important in this regard, and will determine whether a country or region can be at the forefront of such restructurings, can position itself to benefit from new rounds of investment and innovation, and can achieve more sustainable development, or instead will lose out and become marginalized. The variety in the development of countries and regions in the context of constant restructuring in the economy defies predictions of a clear-cut convergence or divergence, and instead leads to an intricate pattern of uneven development depending on a multitude of factors. Such combined and uneven development between countries and regions has of course long been a central research topic within economic geography, regional science and urban studies.
The aim of this workshop is to think about how to better conceptualize and empirically explore the development of (and between) countries and regions. This is particularly timely for several reasons. First, countries and regions have assumed increasing prominence over the past few decades in discussions about economic development, and with this there is a renewed interest in explaining deep-rooted differences in performance. Second, evolutionary perspectives and transitions to sustainable development have established themselves as key reference points in theorizing current economic, social and environmental challenges. Yet more work needs to be done to further develop these conceptual advances for understanding the long-term development of countries and regions and the necessary spatial governance, and for working out relevant policy implications. Finally, a new round of restructuring in the world economy, triggered by the 2007/8 global economic crisis and the outbreak of COVID-19, has been taking place. Consequently, we have reached a critical juncture to rethink our conceptualization of the world economy and regional economic development. At this juncture, there also appears scope for more interaction between scholars from different parts of the world.
Conference Organizers
Canfei He
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University
Shengjun Zhu
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University
Frank Neffke
Harvard Growth Lab, Harvard University
Conference Details
Presentation details
30 minutes of presentation, followed by 10 minutes of short Q&A.
Registration
PKU/Harvard Workshop 1
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7P7vr8syRe6oUGp3jKNCDQ
PKU/Harvard Workshop 2
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bdSt0Y9zRw69ou7bWFUN7A
Time
Workshop 1
Nov 16, 5-7 pm, Beijing
Nov 16, 9-11 am, London
Nov 16, 10-12 am, Netherlands
Nov 16, 4-6 am, Boston
Workshop 2
Nov 24, 9-11 am Beijing
Nov 23, 8-10 pm Boston/Durhan
Nov 23, 5-7pm LA
Nov 24, 1-3am London
Schedules
Speakers Introduction
Simona Iammarino is Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Geography & Environment of the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). She was Head of Department (01/01/2014 – 31/08/2017), and academic member of the LSE Council (2016-2020). Since 01/09/ 2016 she has been affiliate faculty member at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila, Italy. She was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (FeRSA) in 2017, and Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA) in 2018. She has published more than 50 articles in major peer-reviewed journals, two co-authored books, around 30 book chapters, and numerous working papers, policy reports and other publications. She will be co-editor of the Journal of Economic Geography from 01/01/2021, she was co-editors of Regional Studies (2008-2013), and she is currently member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Publication Committee and of the RSA Research Committee.
Philip McCann is Professor of Urban and Regional Economics in the University of Sheffield Management School. Philip is also the Tagliaferri Research Fellow in the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge 2015-2018 and Honorary Professor of Economic Geography in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 2017-2022. Philip has been a Special Adviser to two European Commissioners (Commissioner Johannes Hahn 2010-2013 and Commissioner Corina Creţu 2015-2016), Chief Independent Economic Advisor on the EU Sixth Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion, an advisor to the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy at the European Commission, four different directorates at the OECD Paris, the European Investment Bank, as well as government ministries and research institutes in several countries. He is also the author of The Regional and Urban Policy of the European Union: Cohesion, Results-Orientation and Smart Specialisation, 2015, Edward Elgar, the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the European regional and urban economic and policy landscape.
Frank Neffke is the Research Director of the Growth Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research focuses on economic transformation and growth. He has written on a variety of topics, such as structural transformation and new growth paths in regional economies, economic complexity, division of labor and teams, the consequences of job displacement and the future of work. Before joining the Growth Lab, Frank worked as an assistant professor at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Ricardo Hausmann is the founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. Under his leadership, the Growth Lab has grown into one of the most well regarded and influential hubs for research on international development. His scholarly contributions have had a significant impact on the study and practice of development. These include the development of the Growth Diagnostics and Economic Complexity methodologies, as well as several widely used economic concepts, such as Dark Matter, Original Sin, and Self-discovery. His work has been published in some of the top journals in the world, including Science, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of International Money and Finance, Economic Policy and the Journal of Economic Growth, among many others. These publications have been cited more than 34,000 times, and their main findings have been highlighted in mass media outlets such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Gary Gereffi is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Value Chains Center at Duke University (https://gvcc.duke.edu/). He received his B.A. degree from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. degree from Yale University. Gereffi has published over a dozen books and numerous articles on globalization, industrial upgrading, and social and economic development, and he is one of the originators of the global value chains framework. Recent books include: Global Value Chains, Governance and Globalization Strategy (Gary Gereffi, Pavida Pananond and Torben Pedersen, co-editors), special issue of Global Strategy Journal, 10(3), 2020; Handbook on Global Value Chains (Stefano Ponte, Gary Gereffi and Gale Raj-Reichert, co-editors), Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019; Global Value Chains and Development: Redefining the Contours of 21st Century Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2018); and Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World: A Development Perspective (The World Bank, 2010).
David Rigby is a Professor in the Geography Department at University of California Los Angeles, with research interests in evolutionary economic geography, geographies of innovation and knowledge flow, technological change and regional economic growth. Dr. Rigby teaches classes on geographies of technological change and economic growth and on globalization.
Abstracts
Frank Neffke: Innovation catalysts: How multinationals reshape the global geography of innovation
We study whether and when Research and Development (R&D) activities by foreign multinationals help in the formation and development of new innovation clusters. Combining information on nearly four decades worth of patents with socio-economic data for regions that cover virtually the entire globe, we use matched difference-in-differences estimation to show that R&D activities by foreign multinationals have a positive causal effect on local innovation rates. This effect is sizeable: foreign research activities help a region climb 14 percentiles in the global innovation ranks within five years. This effect materializes through a combination of knowledge spillovers to domestic firms and the attraction of new foreign firms to the region. However, not all multinationals generate equal benefits. In spite of their advanced technological capabilities, technology leaders generate fewer spillovers than technologically less advanced multinationals. A closer inspection reveals that technology leaders also engage in fewer technological alliances and exchange fewer workers in local labor markets abroad than less advanced firms. Moreover, technology leaders tend to set up their foreign R&D activities in regions with relatively low absorptive capacity. We attribute these differences to that fact that the trade-off between costs and benefits of local spillovers a multinational faces depends on the multinational’s technological sophistication. This illustrates the importance of understanding corporate strategy when analyzing innovation clusters.
Simona Iammarino: Regional income disparities, monopoly and finance
The overall rise in inequality in the U.S. since 1980 has been matched by a rise in inequality between places; local and regional development policies aimed at reversing this polarization have seen limited success. We propose an explanation for the spatial polarization of prosperity and the failure of the policies to remedy it. Our explanation is based on the interaction of monopoly power, agglomeration economies in technology clusters, and the power of financial sector actors over non-financial firms – all phenomena characteristic of the post-1980 economy. We review evidence for each of these elements and propose some causal relationships between them, as an outline of an ongoing research program.
Gary Gereffi: Global Value Chains in the Post-COVID-19 Era: China, the United States, and Medical Supplies
The COVID-19 global pandemic created an unprecedented public health crisis and an international economic crisis in a matter of several months during the first half of 2020. A key outcome associated with the COVID-19 pandemic were acute shortages of medical supplies in virtually all affected countries. China was the world’s leading supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) prior to COVID-19 and it was also the first country affected by the novel coronavirus following its outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019. China’s role in the production and export of PPE will be examined, along with the U.S. response to supply shortages of two key COVID-19 medical goods: face masks and ventilators. Scenarios for post-COVID-19 medical supply global value chains will be discussed.
