How has globalization changed the kinds of questions studied by economic geographers?

Globalization has significantly shifted the focus of economic geography, moving the discipline away from the spatial analysis and idealized economic models that dominated the 1960s and 1970s.1

As globalization has intensified, economic geographers have increasingly moved toward the following areas of study:

• Corporate Decision-Making: Research now emphasizes the role of transnational corporations in shaping global activity. Geographers analyze how these entities make locational decisions based on profitability, labor costs, and the regulatory regimes of individual states.1
• Global City Networks: Scholars investigate global cities as command-and-coordination hubs within global networks of finance and services. This includes studying how these cities compete for capital and innovation while often experiencing internal social inequalities and deindustrialization.2
• Cultural-Economic Intertwining: There is a growing focus on how economic decisions—such as consumption patterns—are driven by culturally induced preferences rather than basic needs. Geographers examine how markets for goods and services are culturally constructed and the resulting impacts on where production occurs and jobs are created.1
• Regulatory Environments: Contemporary work explores how individual states implement policies to attract and retain investment, reflecting the complex interplay between national governance and global economic forces.1