HORIZONS OF RESEARCH IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD ECONOMY (TO THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD ECONOMY)

According to experts, the advent of «world economic transition» and the formation of a multipolar world are closely linked with the loss of globalization advances, which strengthens regionalism, increases diversification and fragmentation of the modern world, creating risks and threats to the world development. In view of this studying the spatial organization of the global economy grows in importance, and at the same time the choice of priorities in the research activities of the Department of Geography of the World Economy, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State Lomonosov University in 2016–2020 becomes more complicated, requiring a new research «ideology». The article summarizes some ideas expressed by the department staff. It specifies that the concept of territorial division of labor needs a significant revision, as well as the defined set of key actors in the world economy and common assumptions regarding their contributions to its development. The latter are first of all the giant developing countries, in particular rapidly growingChina– a kind of locomotive entraining other developing states. Further, the impact of multinationals on the overall architecture and territorial organization of the global economy becomes more and more tangible. This phenomenon requires the creation of a new scientific area of concern – the corporate geography as a tool of thorough investigation of the transnational division of labor. Changes in the balance of acting forces are closely related to the changes in industry composition and spatial organization of the global economy. The article raises the issues of the development of such processes as tertiarization of the economy, reindustrialization and neoindustrialization, the latter being understood as an evolutionary transition to a knowledge-intensive, high-tech, mass labor-replacing and environmentally efficient industrial production. Basing on preliminary research and proceeding from a relatively new methodological approach, i.e. formation of value chains, the vector of «geographical transition» from developed to developing countries in their creation was designated. This means increasing complexity of the territorial structure of the world economy and the growing importance of semi-periphery. A spatial projection of globalization processes in the form of the emerging «archipelago of cities», which consolidates the international network of TNCs as a supporting node frame of the global economy requires close attention and analysis. The need of integrating the studies in the field of geography of the world economy within Atlas Information Systems (AIS), which belong to the upper class of electronic atlases in terms of their functionality, is noted. 

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