Global Investments and Regional Development Trajectories: The Missing Links

Abstract

Global investments and regional development trajectories: the missing links. Regional Studies. Regional economic development has been long conceptualized as a non-linear, interactive and socially embedded process: these features were traditionally regarded as spatially mediated and highly localized. However, unprecedentedly fast technological change coupled with the intensification of global economic integration has spurred the need to place regional development in a truly open and interdependent framework. Despite substantial progress in the academic literature, rethinking regional development in this perspective still presents a number of challenges in terms of concepts, empirical evidence and policy approaches. Following an interdisciplinary assessment of how openness and connectivity -proxied by one of the many cross-border flows, i.e., global investments -interact with regional economic development trajectories, this paper presents a picture of the geography of foreign investments from and to the European regions and its change after the financial and economic crisis in 2008. This simple exercise sheds some initial light on how the operationalization of regional connectivity can improve one's empirical understanding of the evolution of regional economies and the policy approach needed to support their reaction to change. RÉSUMÉLes investissements mondiaux et les trajectoires de l'aménagement du territoire: les chaînons manquants. Regional Studies. Depuis longtemps le développement économique régional a été conceptualisé comme un processus interactif non-linéaire qui est bien intégré sur le plan social: par le passé ces caractéristiques-là étaient considérées très influencées par l'espace et par la localisation. Cependant, l'évolution technologique à un rythme sans précédent conjointement avec l'intensification de l'intégration économique mondiale a stimulé la nécessité de mettre l'aménagement du territoire au sein d'un cadre vraiment ouvert et interdépendant. En dépit du progrès significatif évident dans la litérature spécialisée, repenser l'aménagement du territoire de ce point de vue pose un nombre de défis en termes des notions, des preuves RESUMENTrayectorias de inversiones globales y desarrollo regional: los eslabones perdidos. Regional Studies. El desarrollo económico regional suele ser conceptualizado como un proceso no lineal, interactivo y socialmente integrado: estas características se solían considerar como espacialmente mediadas y altamente localizadas. Sin embargo, debido al rápido cambio técnico sin precedentes junto con la intensificación de la integración económica global, ha surgido la necesidad de colocar el desarrollo regional en un marco realmente abierto e interdependiente. Aunque en la bibliografía académica se han realizado grandes avances, el replanteamiento del desarrollo regional a este respecto todavía presenta una serie de retos en términos de conceptos, evidencia empírica y enfoques políticos. Tras una valoración interdisciplinaria sobre cómo la transparencia y la cone...

To make or to serve-industrial specialization drivers of foreign subsidiaries in service and manufacturing sectors across agglomerations in a transition economy

“…Further, the results of this study support the earlier findings relating to emerging regions in the Eastern border of Poland. Similarly, to the study of Crescenzi and Iammarino (2016) we see that an increasing share of foreign direct investment from Western Europe which previously was targeting the periphery of the EU, or new accessing countries into the Union, has directed it is an investment toward the markets outside of the EU. They also concluded that the periphery is losing its attractiveness not only for the European investment but also for foreign investment from outside of Europe.…”

“…They also concluded that the periphery is losing its attractiveness not only for the European investment but also for foreign investment from outside of Europe. Their study also finds that the declining regions within the peripheral countries of the EU that they call "slippers" are experiencing the most significant change in the nature of the incoming FDI, namely the regions tend to attract less investment in manufacturing-related activities and become more attractive to the services retail and logistics type of activities Crescenzi and Iammarino (2016). The results of this study show that the southwestern regions in Poland are an example of such a trend.…”

“…This offers a background where the new firms entering a country face a heterogeneous landscape of the host economy and are to choose as to the location of their operations. Similarly, according to the study of Crescenzi and Iammarino (2016) corporate networks have significantly changed regional connectivity and interdependence of firms around the world.…”

International business, cities and competitiveness: recent trends and future challenges

“…Acs et al 2015), and the quality of local governance systems (Charron et al 2013;Ascani et al 2016), are all nowadays regarded as being important influences on both the MNE location decision and also the decisions regarding the specific role of each MNE subsidiary. In turn, the renewed interest on the role played by tradeables as well as connectivity in driving the performance of places has also spurred interest on the part of economic geographers regarding the investment drivers of MNEs (Dimitropoulou et al 2013;Wren and Jones 2012) and the consequence for local economic development and territorial equality (Crescenzi and Iammarino 2017). These growing two-way exchanges of knowledge between the fields of international business and economic geography in some ways themselves mirror the modern locational dynamics of MNEs.…”

“…Yet the local pressure on land prices and availability, infrastructure bottlenecks, and tight labour markets in most global cities would suggest that many second and third-tier emerging cities and city-regions may actually be the real winners of further globalization in the coming decades. In particular, those second and third-tier cities and regions with open and internationalist cultures and a strong local knowledge and skills base are likely to provide ideal investment locations for many foreign MNE activities, at the same time promoting connectivity through the internationalization of domestic firms, both large and small (Crescenzi and Iammarino 2017).…”