The New Geography of Consumer Spending A Political Economy Approach

This book applies the powerful conceptual framework of international political economy (IPE) to the understanding of how consumers and retailers interact in the market place. This has traditionally been the realm of micro-economics, but in the modern interdependent global economy a new macro perspective is a necessary development to come to terms with the fast changing and complex pattern of the exchange of goods and services.;Alan Hallsworth presents the reader with a new map of consumer and retail behaviour which interlinks the high street with global political and economic currents. He adapts the concerns of retail geography to the methodology of IPE and shows how the concept of financial power, the value of information, its application of technology and the globalization of production all have governing impact on how, where and when we shop. The text ranges from Japanese shopping malls to traditional British groceries, from the financial markets to supermarket vegetables and successfully interweaves complex theroetical ideas with examples to make intelligible the reasons for the "retail revolution". This book should transform our understanding of probably the most aims to important economic sector of the post-industrial world and should be of interest to geographers, economists, management scientists, planners and social theorists.