Potential PhD topics
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Path dependency of industrial structure and regional development in transitional economies

The “wide-geese-flying pattern” was coined by Kaname Akamatsu in 1962 to describe the industrial life-cycles – the sequence of imports of new products, import-substituting production and exports – during pre-World War Two industrial evolution in the Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs), in particular Japan. Based on the comparative advantage orthodoxy, the “wide-geese-flying pattern” is formulated in the flying-geese model to analyze the industrial restructuring in specific countries and the relocation of industry from one country to another as well. Industrial restructuring in the Four Tigers (S Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) has basically follow the flying geese pattern: the rise and fall of labour-intensive sectors, and the subsequent up-grading (moving up of value-chain), is due to the dynamic change of comparative advantages in factor endowment (in forms of rising labour and land costs, among others) in the NIEs, etc. Will, and to what extent, the transitional economies, such as China and Vietnam in Asia, follow this pattern of industrialization (modernization)? What are the implications for industrial and regional development policies in these transitional economies?

The impacts of (international trade) treaties / standards on manufacturing sectors and regional development in Asia

In the era of globalization, major international buyers are increasingly asking their suppliers (and sub-contractors) to comply with international standards to improve the marketability of their products. To be competitive globally, manufacturing firms in Asia have to fulfill various product standards and technical specifications demanded by these standards, e.g., ISO 14000, SA8000, REACH, etc. The proliferation of international standards and regional trade treaties could be regarded as the technical barriers to trade (TBT) erected by developed countries in the North America and Europe. Will, and to what extent, these standards and treaties shape the competitiveness of manufacturing firms and the pattern of regional development in the export-oriented economies in Asia? What are the theoretical and policy implications?

The Spatially Uneven Coevolution of Venture Capital and ICT industry in China

China’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been growing very rapidly in the past two decades and surpassed the US as the largest exporter of ICT products in the world since 2004. Such booming has been fueled by the equally fast building of the venture capital (VC) industry led by foreign venture investors during the same time period. This has been testified by the proliferation of initial public offerings (IPOs) of China’s ICT startups in overseas stock markets. Both the ICT and VC industries, however, are highly unevenly distributed at the regional scale: both are concentrated in three major metropolitan regions: Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Although the ICT industry has been well studied by geographers, little is known yet about the geography of China’s VC industry, and even less about the coevolution of these two. The objectives of this research are to demonstrate how the VC and ICT industries coevolve with each other in space with path dependence and feedback effects, and how they are shaped by China’s state-coordinated global integration and the ‘brain circulation’ between China and the US.

The geographies and political economy of the livestock industry.

Specific themes include: the development of intensive livestock farming; the prospects of small scale or niche livestock farming; the politics of locating livestock factories; FDI investments to the livestock industry of less developed countries and the changing regulatory regimes of livestock industry; the society/nature issues and the organic food industry.