Global Production Networks and the Future of Urban and Regional Systems

Based on Professor Yeung’s lead-authored chapter on semiconductors in (October 2023) and his monograph (Stanford University Press, June 2022), this lecture examines the changing nature of global production networks in favour of East Asian urban and regional economies during the past two decades and the implications of the recent geopolitical shifts and the Covid-19 pandemic for the future of urban and regional systems in East Asia. The lecture is divided into three parts. In part one, Professor Yeung describe the massive global shift in industrial production during the 2000s and 2010s when East Asian urban and regional systems became strategically coupled with global production networks in different high-tech industries. The second part explains conceptually this process of strategic coupling or “plugging-in” of such urban and regional systems in a world of global production networks and demonstrates how it works in promoting industrial development in East Asian economies. Urban development in regional economies is viewed as an evolving process of shifting value capture trajectories within global production networks. In empirical terms, Professor Yeung showcase how several East Asian urban and regional systems have emerged to become dominant players in high-tech industries, such as information and communications technologies and semiconductors. The third part focuses on policy and practice for the future of urban and regional systems. Professor Yeung start with several key post-pandemic challenges confronting policy makers since the early 2020s and outline some strategies and policies oriented towards promoting innovation and growth in this uncertain world of changing global production networks.  Global Value Chain Development Report 2023Interconnected WorldsAbstract:

About the speaker:

is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography and Co-Director of Global Production Networks Centre at the National University of Singapore. He is the recipient of multiple research awards, including the 2022 Sir Peter Hall Award for Lifetime Contribution by the Regional Studies Association in the UK, the 2018 Distinguished Scholarship Honours by the American Association of Geographers, and the 2017 Murchison Award by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), UK. He has published 7 monographs and 1 textbook (3 editions), 7 edited books, 110 journal articles, and 50 book chapters. His most recent books are Theory and Explanation in Geography (RGS-IBG Book Series, Wiley, September 2023), Interconnected Worlds: Global Electronics and Production Networks in East Asia (Innovation and Technology in the World Economy Series, Stanford University Press, June 2022), Strategic Coupling: East Asian Industrial Transformation in the New Global Economy (Cornell Studies in Political Economy Series, Cornell University Press, 2016), and Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World (with Neil Coe, Oxford University Press, 2015). For over two decades since 2001, he has been a co-editor of two top journals in Geography – Economic Geography and Environment and Planning A. He is also past editor of Review of International Political Economy (2004-2013) and serves on the editorial boards of 19 other journals.Henry Wai-chung Yeung