This collection of original essays seeks to provoke debate on the efficacy of the widely used and misused concept of the New Economy. The contributors explore meanings of the ‘new economy’ at the global scale, from the perspective of advanced, post-socialist, and emerging economies. Also discussed are its socio-spatial consequences, with reference to the nature of work(ers), social polarization, and the impacts of information and communications technology. Perhaps the New Economy was not that distinctive, but it cannot be written off as merely a redundant episode in the history of capitalism. It has left a legacy that informs our efforts to broaden and deepen understandings of economic change, not least that the New Economy had a distinctive and pervasive geography which coloured both how it emerged and the promises it offered to create a ‘frictionless’ economy. Conversely, when it failed, geography shaped where the damage was done and where its legacies continue to bring relative prosperity to unexpected locations.

Essential for all those interested in economic geography, this collection reinforces the notion that the New Economy is not only specific to a particular time, when it formed the dominant political and economic discourse, but also to a particular set of places that were home to that ideology.Although it is now more than five years since the New Economy was at its height, this book sheds new light by highlighting its historical and geographical specificity.

The Editors

Peter Daniels is Professor of Geography and Co-Director of the Services and Enterprise Research Unit at the University of Birmingham.
Andrew Leyshon is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham.
Mike Bradshaw is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leicester.
Jonathan Beaverstock is Professor of Economic Geography at Loughborough University.