Urban Systems Between National and Global: Recent Reconfiguration Through Transnational Networks (original) (raw)

World City Networks and Multinational Firms: An Analysis of Economic Ties Over a Decade

Networks and Spatial Economics, 2023

One perspective to view the economic development of cities is through the presence of multinational firms; how subsidiaries of various organizations are set up throughout the globe and how cities are connected to each other through these networks of multinational firms. Analysis of these networks can reveal interesting economical and spatial trends, as well as help us understand the importance of cities in national and regional economic development. This paper aims to study networks of cities formed due to the linkages of multinational firms over a decade (from 2010 to 2019). More specifically we are interested in analyzing the growth and stability of various cities in terms of the connections they form with other cities over time. Our results can be summarized into two key findings: First, we ascertain the central position of several cities due to their economically stable connections; Second, we successfully identify cities that have evolved over the past decade as the presence of multinational firms has increased in these cities.

Analyzing Diversity, Strength and Centrality of Cities Using Networks of Multinational Firms

Networks and Spatial Economics

Cities play an important role in the regional, national and continental development of economies, as well as global trade and infrastructure. Most of this development revolves around the presence of multinational firms and the interconnected systems formed by their linkages. Analyzing the networks formed by these multinational firms can uncover many interesting trends and patterns providing insight into not only the development of individual cities, but also the various world regions they belong to. In this paper, we are particularly interested in networks of cities from the year 2010 and 2013 in order to understand how cities have changed in the context of networks of multinational firms. We consider diversity, strength and centrality as the key indicators to measure the importance of a city and based on these indicators analyze how cities have changed their roles in the networks of multinational firms overtime. We also introduce a cumulative ranking based on these three indicators to position cities in terms of their importance in the world. This study not only strengthens previous findings from a network analysis perspective but it also reveals the cities with considerable growth and/or significant decline over the periods studied.

Inter-Cities' Multinational Firm Networks and Gravitation Model(International Forum)

Annals of the Association of Economic Geographers, 2015

The capacity of cities to operate in global networks of firms is usually measured based on the degree of centrality of their position within networks of rnultinational firms across the globe, Howevez we assume that regional greups of cities that interact more intensively with each other llre rnore relevnnt to define central pesitions. This paper aims to identify these regions and assess their relative influence on the globalization of cities through multinational firrn networks. A global database has been generated for the network of 1 million direct and indirect ownership ]inks bctween the 800,OOO subsidiaries of the tup 3,OOO rnultinational firms of the wor]d, which are located within 1,205 metrepo]itan areas. One f{nding that emerges from this research is that globalization occurs mostty through intra-continental linkages but is also facilitated by strong intru-llutional and even intra-urban sub-networks. Local intra-urban network cornplexity is shown to infiuence the process of global integration. Distance still infiuences globulization, but not with the same intensity within different parts of the world, The multi-scale centrality of cities is discussed based on the concepts of geographic and economic integration within rnultinational firrn networks.

Socio-spatial relations observed in the global city network of firms

PLOS ONE, 2021

One of the prevailing approaches to the study of the global economy is the analysis of global city networks based on the activities of multinational firms. Research in this vein generally conceptualises cities as nodes, and the intra-firm relations between them as ties, forming the building blocks for globally scaled interurban networks. While such an approach has provided a valuable heuristic for understanding how cities are globally connected, and how the global economy can be conceived of as a network of cities, there is a lack of understanding as to how and why cities are connected, and which factors contribute to the existence of ties between cities. Here, we explain how five distinct socio-spatial dimensions contribute to global city network structure through their diverse effects on interurban dyads. Based on data from 13,583 multinational firms with 163,821 international subsidiary locations drawn from 208 global securities exchanges, we hypothesise how regional, linguistic,...

Managing Global Cities through Corporate Network Analysis

Spaces of International Economy and Management

Global city networks Today, academics and policymakers generally concentrate on subnational regions as the essential unit of economic activity, and most studies fail to adequately conceptualize urban regional development in an era of globalization (Dicken and Malmberg 2001). It is arguable, however, that global production networks and regional assets need to be coupled, mediating activities across different geographical and organizational scales (Coe et al. 2004; Dicken et al. 2001). This concept is not entirely new. Friedmann and Wolff (1982) conceptualized global cities as "command centers", regulating the "international division of labor", and Gereffi et al. (1994) defined global commodity chains as interorganizational networks of products that increasingly tie enterprises and states together within the world economy. These initial approaches have led to various studies on cities and globalization (e.g.

Divergence of the world city system from national economies

Global Networks, 2022

This study shows that the position of cities in the world economy has diverged from national economies. Using data from 2016, we evaluate a network of 12,802 cities formed by the location decisions of 24,355 firms in terms of their point centrality, and show that the inter-city and international systems have measurably decoupled, disrupting the previouslyobserved pattern in which the most powerful cities in the world city system were located in core countries, "mid-level" cities were in the semi-periphery,and the least powerful cities were in peripheral countries. Our findings support predictions that globalizing cities would diverge from national economies and that globalization would generate a new global geography that transects long-standing cleavages in the world system.

In Multi-Scale and Multi-Dimensional Processes of Globalization

2012

This study of multinational firms networks aim to explore the “duality” between world urban integration and firms’ networks extensions, focusing on the imbrication of multi-scale advantages and on differences between economic sectors. An empirical study is developed on the network of the 1 million ownership links between direct and indirect 800’000 subsidiaries of the 3’000 first multinational firms of the world. All units have been located at the scale of cities (delineated in a comparative way). The multi-scale approach and the multi-dimensional one (by activity sector) show the remaining coherence of national and continental territories that interplay with cities in order to support and create these global links. A very new approach showing the intra-urban links has revealed the importance of local linkages in the production of global networks. The main activities in the core of the whole networks are finance and information and communication, while the more growing sector seems ...

Global Cities and Global Firms?

Global Business & Economics Anthology, 2009

This paper traces recent developments in the worldwide observed trend towards more and larger cities as weil as trends in global production structures. In both areas the last decade has been characterized by important changes : For city developments the emergence of mega-cities in poorer parts of the world is the most spectacular and indeed dramatic development. But growth of the largest cities in OECD countries is remarkable too and poses severe -though different -problems for policy makers. And there is a global renaissance of the emergence of medium-sized cities, a phenomenon particularly important for macroeconomic policy. Part 1 of the paper will survey these urbanization trends. In part 2 a closer look at recent developments in the global structure of production units, of fums , will be taken . While there has been a sharp rise in the importance and influence of globally acting transnational corporations in the last decade, it also proved to be an ever more substantial task for economic policy to support and evolve structures of medium-sized fums which provide a rapidly growing share of employment. Higher employment volatility (geographically) of transnational corporations thus has to be contras ted by employment policy measures that redistribute the gains from higher labor productivity and global division of labor to increase welfare. Again the essential features of these changes will be highlighted. In the final third part of the paper connections between trends in both areas are identified. Indeed global specialization, diversification, urbanizatioD and welfare policy measures form an interdependent dynamics, which only can be understood as a an evolving Unlty. This is what this last part of the paper will sketch.

European cities and foreign investment networks

Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography, 2016

Although one of the core questions in the study of multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been typically that of where their different operations take place, the spatial dimension of MNE investments and functions is still relatively underexplored in the literature. This paper investigates the networks formed by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by applying network analysis techniques drawn from the world city network literature. Data is extracted from the fDi Markets database to describe and analyse the geography of FDI flows between a set of 3,500 cities and towns within the European Union (EU) Member States and their neighbourhood. The paper identifies hierarchical patterns of relations between different types of locations, and gains a finer-scaled appreciation of sectoral and functional specialisations of different regions within Europe.