Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG)

New York, 24-28 February, 2012

Special Series of Sessions co-organized with the Regional Studies Association: Evolutionary Economic Geography, Agglomeration, and Geographies of Knowledge Production

Call for Abstracts

The spatial clustering or agglomeration of economic activity is generally viewed as a sign of increasing returns and competitive advantage. While geographers have explored why agglomeration and knowledge production occur in some places rather than others, they have said little about the emergence of agglomerations, how the benefits of agglomeration may shift over time, and about what kinds of firms and other economic agents are most likely to capture different returns to co-location. Similarly, we know relatively little about changes in processes of invention and innovation within knowledge clusters. What types of knowledge are produced in different types of economic clusters, and how does the nature of that knowledge change as clusters evolve?

The arguments of evolutionary economic geography seem well-suited for the analysis of these issues, linking the heterogeneity of economic agents, knowledge-systems, political, institutional, and organizational forms to the competitive environments that give rise to that heterogeneity just as they are shaped by it. We seek papers that investigate the evolution of agglomeration and changing geographies of knowledge production. Research papers of a theoretical or applied nature are welcome and might focus on the following issues, or on related topics:

• Do all firms and workers benefit from agglomeration? Are some types of firms more reliant on external economies than others?
• Do agglomeration economies change over time? How do agglomeration economies change over the life-cycles of industries and agglomerations?
• What kinds of clusters produce what kinds of knowledge? How does the knowledge/technology foundation of a region shape the production of future knowledge/technology bases?
• How is the geography of patenting changing, i.e. collaboration, production, and citation patterns? Does patent data provide an opportunity to investigate technological heterogeneity and the formation of technological trajectories within industries and regions?
• Do some types of knowledge escape clusters/jump spaces more readily than others? What are the characteristics of such knowledge types and how do they reorder historical geographies of competition in different places and at different spatial scales?
• Back to the future: how do regions/nations get locked into specific technological trajectories/regimes? How can they escape them?
• Is agglomeration a viable platform for development? What do we know about international knowledge flows, economic growth and competition?
• Is evolutionary economic geography a useful theoretical framework for exploring the questions above?

The organizers welcome abstracts of no more than 250 words by 14 September 2011. Please send inquiries and abstracts to Dieter F. Kogler (University College Dublin) dieter.kogler@ucd.ie or David L. Rigby (UCLA) rigby@geog.ucla.edu.