The Dictionary of Human Geography

E¼SþB, P¼aE, S¼bP:

The coefficientsaandbcan be obtained by
regressionusing observations for asampleof
cities or for one city or region over time.
Growth (or decline) in local population and
employment is controlled by changes in the
basic sector, and the impacts (multipliers)
of such changes can be calculated from the
economic base equations:

E¼( 1 ab)^1 B,

P¼a( 1 ab)^1 B,

S¼ab( 1 ab)^1 B:

A unit increase inBgeneratesa/(1ab) units
of additional local population.
Economic base theory is very simplistic in
its assumptions, but because its data demands
are simple it has been widely employed in
regional economic analysis. It is used, for
example, in activity allocation models and
Lowry models. Correct identification of the
basic sector is crucial, andlocation quo-
tientsare frequently used for this purpose.
Either industries with high indices of special-
ization are defined as basic industries, or the
quotient is used to define a proportion of
employment in an industry as basic; so that,
for example, one-third of employment in
an industry with a quotient of 1.5 is designated
as basic employment. A more sophisticated
approach is to useinput–outputanalysis to
trace actual inter-industrial linkages, but this
is very data-demanding and expensive.
The major limitations of economic base
theory spring from its aggregative nature: the
difficulties of sector definition; the dubious
assumption that the aggregate multipliers
will remain constant; and an inability to trace
the impact of particular basic sector shifts,
such as a rise inoilexports, on specific sectors
of the localeconomy. lwh

Suggested reading
Glickman (1997).

economic geography A sub-field ofhuman
geography concerned with describing and
explaining the variedplacesandspaceswhere
economic activities are carried out and cir-
culate. The discipline was institutionalized in
the late nineteenth century in both Western
Europe and the USA, and remains one of the
core sub-fields of Anglo-American geog-
raphy. There have been repeated attempts to
forge links with its seeming intellectual soul

mate, economics, but none have held.

Economic geography from the beginning was

more empirically grounded, concerned with

context and conceptually open-minded, and

at the same time less abstract and less formally

theoretical than economics. There were

moments when the two became close, but

mostly they held themselves apart at a distance

(as they do now; cf.new economic geog-

raphy). Further, unlike economists, economic

geographers never settled on a singlemethod-

ology, set of techniques, list of venerated

luminaries, disciplinary problematic or defini-

tive definition. Change has been incessant,

the field continually reinventing itself. It

makes for an exciting, dynamic, open subject,

one that never looks back, and a frequent

conduit for new ideas into the rest of human

geography, but there is a nagging sense that

before old promises are realized, new ones are

made. Economic geography sometimes seems

like Penelope’s shroud: spun during the day,

and unravelled the same night.

Existing in embryonic form ascommercial

geography, the discipline was formally

defined in Germany in 1882 by Go ̈tz. While

commercial geography ‘chiefly served prac-

tical ends’, the purpose of economic geog-

raphy was ‘the scientific task of dealing with

the nature of world areas in their direct influ-

ence upon the production of commodities and

the movement of goods’ (Go ̈tz, quoted in

Sapper, 1931, p. 627). By the 1890s, eco-

nomic geography courses appeared for the first

time in US university calendars (Fellmann,

1986). The first Professor of Economic

Geography in Britain was Lionel Lyde,

appointed in 1903 at University College

London. Five years later, the University of

Edinburgh created a lectureship for George

Chisholm, who was author of the first

English-language economic geography text,

Handbook of commercial geography (1889).

Economic geography was up and running.

Chisholm’s book (published in 20 editions),

and J. Russell Smith’s later American version,

Industrial and commercial geography (1913),

set out an initial disciplinary agenda and intel-

lectual style that still resonates. The original

colonial context of the two books no longer

applies, but continuing to remain germane

were their concern with empirical detail, their

celebration of numbers, their predilection

for geographical categorization made visible

by themap, their tracing of relations among

places through economic flows especially of the

commodity, their emphasis on the geographical

effects of technological change and their

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_E Final Proof page 178 1.4.2009 3:17pm

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY