| George Chisholm’s Handbook of Commercial Geography, the very first economic geography text, was first published in 1988. | False |
| Who was the first economic geographer to suggest the unit of analysis should be the country rather than the commodity? | Whitbeck |
| Ellsworth Huntington is most associated with… | Environmental Determinism |
| How did John Maynard Keynes and the invention of spatial science influence the trajectory of economic geography through the twentieth century? | With spatial science, the use of theory and the use of empirical data and statistical techniques of analysis were introduced. Keynes and the invention of spatial science helped identify buttons needing to be pressed and levers pulled for governments to produce particular economic outcomes. They both created “the military-industrial complex” in which an assemblage of tight interlinkages among the state, private businesses, and universities were created. They were able to develop different tools to accomplish state intervention and intervene practically in the spatial economy. |
| Explain why Hartshorne’s 1939 argument for for an economic geography based on the descriptive study of unique regions was harmful to the discipline in a larger academic context. | It was harmful to the discipline in a larger academic context because in Hartshorne’s argument, geographers only described regions. So, since every region was different, no laws or near laws could be discovered. Thus, geographers could not do any of the things that natural science accomplished by its recourse to physical laws; that is, to explain, to predict, and knowingly to intervene. At the time application of laws were important and therefore economic geography held back a little since it was seen as less reliable. |
| Economic Geography important periods | Late 18th Century- Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Political Economy Late nineteenth Century- Neoclassical economics 1930s to 1940s- Emergence of national accounting |
| What is one reason a student studying economic activity would benefit from considering the spatial aspects of that activity? | A student studying economic activity would benefit from considering the spatial aspects of that activity because knowing this would affect the processes in question. Knowing the spatial arrangement of a society would allow the student to see how different locations are connected to one another. For example, ” a total lack of connection would represent one (extreme) spatial configuration, tight and rapid connection (technology/ transportation) another.” It would also allow the student to see why in some locations, space might be “more punctuated or more slowly traversed” and why that might be. |
| Globalization includes the ever‐increasing economic geographic integration of the world as measured by the movements across national borders of: | Goods, services, capital Cultural goods and activitiesKnowledge and information Labor |
| How does our textbook define economic geography? | In the textbook, economic geography is proposed as “an analytical attentiveness to, and an explanatory emphasis upon, the substantive implication of space, place, scale, landscape, and environment in (what are deemed to be) “economic” processes.” |
| How have technological improvements in transportation changed the economic functioning of the world? | Technological improvements in transportation have caused its costs to reduce immensely. With transportation nowadays being faster, more efficient, and larger, the supply of goods and services has increased around the world and so caused plenty of cheap commodities. The book mentions this as “they colossally reduced freight costs, facilitating the current cornucopia of cheap commodities from around the world.” |
| What is the most important question in geography? | Where? |
| Homer’s The Odyssey is an early example of a text about globalization. | True |
| Who was the father of Regional Science? | Walter Isard |
| Which is not a form of Heterodox Economics? | Scientific Realism |
| Geographical Economics is inherently… | positivist |
| What is meant when we describe causal theory as abstract? | None of these if it says It is indecipherable to non-scientists It is undefined It is vague |
| Explain Institutional Economics. | Institutional economics originally arose with the work of the American maverick economist Thorstein Veblen . Reacting against both an imported neoclassical economics and a domestic industrial system that spawned massive inequalities in levels of wealth and consumption. Drawing particularly on Darwin, he emphasized the close relation between individual economic behavior and evolving institutions. So, institutional economics started to focus more on understanding how institutions played a role in shaping the behavior of the economy. |
| Why has Regional Science as a field of study faded in use/popularity? | Its success was partly a consequence of its institutionalization but in the late 1970s it started to loose its institutional backers; past supportive disciplines such as economic geography; funders of its research such as the US government; and high-level university administrators and so since it no longer resonated and engaged, it faded away.Without institutionalization it became exentially dead. |
| Explain Neo-Ricardian Economics. | Neo-ricardian economics is a school of economics initiated by the Cambridge Italian economist Piero Sraffa and his slim 1960 monograph, The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. He demonstrated that a determinant mathematical solution required reference to a set of historically contingent, non‐economic relationships that lay outside the equations. Said local context mattered even in economics. |
| What is not part of a proper research paradigm? | None of these EpistemologyMethods Ontology |
| Who advocated for a methodology based in empirical cataloging? | Chisholm |
| What are the two primary reasons people conduct research? | filling a knowledge gap and problem solving |
| What is the difference between epistemology and ontology? | On the book, epistemology is a theory of knowledge defining what counts as a true statement of the world and how we understand it while ontology is a theory about what exists. So in other words, epistemology is how we understand the world around us and ontology describes and explains what something is. On the video we saw for example, when filling the knowledge gap, the ontology would be being an objectivist were you’re looking from the outside and its a single reality while epistemology would be being an empiricist and coming up with a hypothesis. |
| Based on the dollar value of exports, which has been more globalized? | Merchandise |
| What is the core principle of the WTO? | non-discrimination |
| Annually, how many tee shirts are bought globally? | 2 billion |
| When a specific country has a comparative advantage, gains to trade will be minimized, therefore benefiting all trading nations. | False |
| Globalization occurs naturally and is therefore unstoppable. | False |
| Comparative advantage is when countries specialize in goods in which they have a relative cost advantage. | True |
| How is Publix an example of a globalized company? Use at least 3 examples of products, activities, or policies in your explanation. | According to Barnes and Christophers, economic globalization is ultimately about economic integration and interconnectivity at expanding geographic scales. In this way Publix is an example of a globalized company because they import many of the products (food and non-food) they sale at their stores. Examples of this are avocados they import from Mexico and cheese they sell in the deli imported from countries like Switzerland. Furthermore, they even have a multicultural foods section in which there is a variety of foods imported from all around the world. Lastly, almost all Publix’s have Western Unions inside the stores which allow customers to send money to other countries. All in all, the examples above show that the store is connected with other countries and other countries are connected to the store. |
| Given an unlimited amount of time and holding all other variables stable, Zimbabwe will eventually become a rich country. | True |
| Who labeled economic globalization as the “latest stage of uneven development”? | Neil Smith |
| What type of comparative advantage would lead a country to become comparatively wealthy? Why? | In chapter 8, I learned that comparative advantage is “the theory that when countries specialize in goods in which they have a relative cost advantage, gains to trade will be maximized”. Additionally, in one of these weeks videos I also learned that there are 3 factors that can affect a countries comparative advantage and whether they are wealthy or not. These factors are institutions, culture, and geography. First, having institutions that are not corrupt and seek employment based on merit are important to the wealth of a country because they allow for the distribution of money among the population rather than just one small group. An example of why uncorrupt institutions need to be in place, is that of The Republic of Congo where although they have a lot of coal, with corrupt institutions they fell into a resource trap and the country remained poor. Second, culture especially religion can also affect a countries wealth. Countries that are less religious tend to be wealthier because instead of putting their faith in God to solve problems they themselves try to fix it. Third, geography is a factor too because hot temperatures affect agriculture and landlocked nations run into problems when trying to trade. All in all, a country can become comparatively wealthy when they have the advantage of institutions with no corruption, are located in cooler climates, are not landlocked and don’t base all of their decisions on religion. |
| Who wrote The Wealth of Nations? | Adam Smith |
| What was the rise of mass production called? | Fordism |
| What concept is the labor process of deskilling, or disassociating the labor process from the skills of the laborer, a part of? | Taylorism |
| Match the entrepreneur with their transformative technological innovation. | Edison- Light Bulb Zuckerberg- FacebookDisney- Full-length animated filmsJobs- Apple ComputerPage- Google Search Engine |
| What is an example of an industry that has been impacted by technological change? Explain the change, and how the industry has been impacted by it. | An example of an industry that has been impacted by technological change is the video rentals industry. During the early 2000s, this industry was booming with stores open everywhere and people wanting to go and rent movies from them. The most popular company in the United States was Blockbusters, however, with the invention of streaming they became less and less popular and today there’s only one store left. Blockbusters was almost forced out of business because streaming made it possible to download and watch movies from the comfort of your home. To conclude, the impact of streaming is that nowadays instead of renting a movie from a brick and mortar store, people rent them online or pay monthly subscriptions to have access to them. |
Economic Geography
April 22, 2020