Ronald Wall

University of the Witwatersrand | wits · School of Economics and Finance

A. This STRELKA report, available in Russian and English, concerns the 'informal economies' of Moscow, e.g., prostitution, casino industry, informal housing, and the illicit taxi industry. B. The report is derived from a research and design studio, developed by Vasily Ausan and myself (Ronald Wall), as well as our students (see the report, or link...

Various studies have focused on the competitive characteristics of cities and how these attract FDI, firms and people. Many stress the importance of accessibility and international infrastructure, the knowledge and creativity of the people, and institutional and organizational aspects. Other studies stress the importance of developing local or regi...

INTRODUCTION The aim of UN-Habitat's report "The State of African Cities 2018: The Geography of African Investment" is to contribute to development policies that can turn African cities into more attractive, competitive and resilient foreign direct investment (FDI) destinations. Attracting global FDI is highly competitive and crosses various geogra...

This story is inspired by Lewis Carroll's book 'Through the Looking-Glass.' My story is titled 'Behind the Looking Glass,' and follows Alice on her third trip back to Wonderland. Behind the Looking Glass, is an extraction of my art academy thesis (1991) at the Willem de Kooning Academy of Arts called "Genetic Architecture." The shortened version o...

THE HEALTHY CITY AND THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE NETWORK This book explores the World's increasing socio-economic inequality and its relationship to trade flows between cities, regions and countries. In this context, trade and development differences between West Africa and Europe are shown. It is then argued that cities, to various degrees, are pr...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) to the global South has increased, but very little research has gone into analysing the diverse FDI flows between unequally related groups of countries. This paper contributes by investigating a) the distribution of global FDI into and between semi-peripheral and peripheral countries in the global South (2006-2014),...

Many studies focus on the competitive characteristics of cities – such as accessibility, infrastructure, knowledge, creativity, institutions, face-to-face-contacts, tacit knowledge, and business interaction – and how these attract FDI, firms, and people. However, few studies focus on the spatial characteristics of urban clusters. In this study, kno...

This article uses a network approach and a negative binomial regression model (NBRM) to shed light on the association between Domestic Investment (DI) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in interlinking Chinese cities in a space of flows. The empirical analysis is based on 2743 FDI and 9315 DI projects covering 77 Chinese cities. We address the que...

Reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change would require significant investments in renewable energy technologies. Foreign direct investments (FDI) in renewable energy (RE) have increased over the last years, contributing to the diffusion of RE globally. In the field of climate policy, there are multiple policy instruments aimed at attrac...

This report concerns a study on the competitive strength of Vienna within the global network of FDI between global cities, and at different geographic scales. The study has been divided into three main areas i.e. Vienna’s strength in attracting FDI (inward investment) relative to other cities; who its competitors are based on value, sectors and sou...

This report sheds light on the geography of FDI in the Southern Mediterranean (MED) region, which includes cities in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, The Palestinian Authority and Tunisia. More specifically the report provides an analysis of FDI trends in MED cities. Firstly, it reveals the source and destination of FDI at the globa...

L’objectif du rapport sur l’État des villes africaines 2018: la géographie des investissements en Afrique est de contribuer aux politiques de développement susceptibles de transformer les villes africaines en destinations d’investissements étrangers directs (IED) plus attractives, plus compétitives et plus résilientes. L’attraction d’IED au niveau...

The effects of energy policy on the attraction of renewable energy FDI.

The effect of road networks and market reach on FDI attraction in Africa.

Green cities and FDI in Africa

The impact of different sectors of FDI on different sectors of African employment.

The country and urban determinants of knowledge intensive FDI in Africa.

The economic geography of foreign investment into African countries and cities. Exploration of the structures, trends, forecasts, competition, specialization, diversification, determinants, impacts and impact.

The impact of different sectors of FDI on wage inequality in Africa.

A study on the impact of wages on FDI in African cities.

The Determinants of Real Estate FDI in Africa.

The impact of total FDI and Food FDI on Food Security in Africa.

The effect of Smart Cities on FDI within World City Networks including African cities.

Economic activities are closely related to real-world environmental issues. Currently, more attention is paid to the association between environmental regulations and industrial competitiveness (IC) because of pressures on economic development and environmental protection. In this study, we identify and explain the association between environmental...

Worldwide flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) are increasingly targeting countries in the Global South. Understanding what attracts foreign investors to the South helps shed light on how policy can support the countries in making the most of those investments in terms of their developmental impact.

Developing countries are expected to have a comparative advantage in labour intensive manufacturing activities, and thus attract significantly higher FDI inflows. This chapter investigates the extent to which labour costs affect FDI inflow to Sub-Saharan African cities. The use of city level rather than national FDI inflow reduces problems of omitt...

The International Impact of Foreign Investment on Wage Inequality at the Country and City Scale. Abstract and keynote presentation at conference Decent Work City: International Forum on Transforming Cities for Decent Work 2018. International Labour Organization (ILO) and Seoul Municipality.

The poster presentation is based my research on impact of sectoral Greenfield FDI on income inequality in African countries.

An economic soundscape by Ronald Wall and Paola Palmas. See link above and below. In this video we integrate the growth of global GDP per capita since 1820 until 2016 with sound. The economic values are translated into sonic pitches and rhythm using the process of ’sonification’. Different instruments are added as the graph increases and get more h...

This paper adopts a dynamic network evolution framework to understand the connectivity and co-evolution between the global trading relations of beer, which represents a mature business network evolved through a long history, and the emerging and dynamic investment relational networks in the food sector. After controlling for 1) exogenous factors su...

This chapter explores the determinants and impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Domestic Investment (DI) in Chinese cities.

This research is a spatial-economic exploration of regional design factors that influence the economic location climate of a region. The research and the subsequent design research are indicative and exploratory, and not concrete planning proposals. The design is therefore intended as a discussion and not as a design concept from the parties involv...

The combination of statistical inferences with network theories is a fast emerging field and offers exciting new opportunities to explore complex systems. This paper adopts the stochastic actor-based modelling framework to analyse the evolution and co-evolution of large geographical networks in trade and investment and to shed light on internationa...

Food is key to economic growth and urbanization. Tackling the issues of food security and inequality in Johannesburg, which is often seen as the ‘New York of Africa,’ could help create solutions that can be applied across the continent. Extreme inequality is one of many challenging issues facing Johannesburg. This project focuses specifically on o...

In this keynote paper it is proposed that cities in future develop dedicated Smart Urban Governance Centres e.g. to stimulate Smart procurement policy that can provide immediate, reliable, transparent and fair information about e.g. competitive supplier pricing and the quality of products and services to both local and foreign firms, promote health...

While the economic crisis has affected core countries in the world economy and their ability to attract FDI, many economies in the Global South have claimed a higher share of these global investment networks. Using global FDI data, the paper traces patterns of FDI flows to the global South over the past 12 years. Next, it examines the location fact...

The analysis demonstrates that one of the potential sectors to transform Shenzhen from a factory of the world to a laboratory of the world, is the Life Science industry. It shows that Guangdong Province is strong and growing in this sector, and that there is a strong potential in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This is not only in terms of the p...

Urbanisation can be an important driver of Africa’s sustainable development. However, this requires new, more effective urban development policies. This chapter identifies the main channels through which urbanisation can accelerate economic, social and environmental development, as well as the policy options to seize those opportunities for structu...

A substantiated definition of smart cities is urgently required. In this note, we explore the crossover between smart city and world city network literature. We argue that this crossover can contribute to the theoretical and empirical development of smart city literature. The results show that indeed, besides territorial measures, network measures,...

A rapidly urbanizing world has complex implications for emerging and developing nations. But it opens on the other hand great opportunities for the global agro & food sector. Sustainable solutions are needed to provide accessible, affordable and healthy food for the burgeoning urban populations. But also to bridge urban and rural gaps, and to provi...

An important feature characterizing the global economy is the growing interconnectedness between different parts of the world. One indicator that reveals this trend is the increase of foreign direct investments (FDI). These types of investments have become a major driver of global, regional and urban economic development. FDI by food multinationals...

Port areas are the “interface” between the city and the sea shaping core-periphery relations by acting as spatial terrains for flows of people, goods and ideas. They are economic polities whose character is essentially maritime in nature. Traditionally, city ports are linked to hinterlands by trade, and serve as the window or conduit through which...

A substantiated definition of smart cities is urgently required. In this chapter we explore the crossoverbetween Smart City and World City Network literature. We argue that this crossover cancontribute to the theoretical and empiricaldevelopment of smart city literature. Wehypothesize that if a city gets smarter than its peers, then it will eventua...

This research adds to the empirical field of the dynamic modelling of large geographical networks. Specifically, this study adds to the existing body of knowledge in two aspects. The first aspect is regarding the mechanisms of establishing investment ties in a multiple-country setting. Most studies on FDI focus on bilateral relations and on exogeno...

This book is based on a study by Ronald Wall, with an introduction by Frank van Oort. The research explores how to strengthen the economic resilience of the Rhine region in relation to other parts of Europe and the world. The central focus is on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), its spatial structures, industries and the urban factors that attract...

Our world is increasingly connected. Through transport and IT, firms have developed an extremely complex global system to access resources, production and markets. Most of these economic activities take place ‘between cities’ and ‘within’ urban regions. Therefore, the fate of a city depends on its strategic position within this network system (figu...

The posted image represents a 3D print of total foreign direct investment (FDI) within the period 2003 - 2014. It is based on fDi Markets data, ORBIS, and IHS-Erasmus University Rotterdam data. It is a printed 3D globe representing roughly 200 000 investments and covering about 1 200 cities. The investment data was firstly cleaned, prepared, aggreg...

Empirical studies on polycentric urban regions (PURs) tend to analyse their spatial organization by examining only one type of functional linkage between cities. However, it has generally been accepted that urban networks are multiplex phenomena and that spatial interactions between cities can take many different forms, for example, commuting, shop...

An analysis to see whether cities with strong urban heritage attract more FDI than cities without such heritage. Based on a database of heritage and non-heritage cities, their FDI and various location factors, econometric analysis was carried out to test this. The results showed that market size, population density, and human capital are significan...

Food security is one of the most important issues facing the globalised world and the food industry has one of the highest impacts on climate change. It is the most cross-sectoral industry, closely linked to transport, logistics, energy, water and information technology and requires a rethinking of urban systems and architectures to accommodate fut...

Research report supporting winning entry for a new public space in Rotterdam, called RIF010. It concerns and urban surfing location in the heart of Rotterdam. To be built in 2020. I was one of the original developers of the project. Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port-city and trade gateway to European markets, has a powerful history with the sea an...

The recession has evoked a restructuring of the global economic network, focusing the attention of multinational corporations (MNCs) on developing countries. As a result African nations are among the fastest growing in the world. Despite unprecedented rates of growth, Africa remains the world’s most unstable continent, which threatens the medium-to...

Because foreign direct investment (FDI) brings capital, knowledge and technology to a region, raises levels of employment and activates the development of local business, it becomes increasingly important for a city like Amsterdam MRA to understand its relative position within global networks of FDI. This includes understanding changing flows FDI o...

In the modern economy, cities are assumed to be in fierce competition over attracting foreign investments. Despite the rich theoretical discourse on these ‘wars', it remains unclear which territories are competing with each other over which types of investments. Combining insights from international economics, international business, and urban geog...

In the modern economy, cities are assumed to be in fierce competition. In contrast with this, regional and national Dutch policymakers advocate the Randstad region as a single urban region in which economic complementarities are supposed to be numerous. Using insights from urban systems theory and urban ecology, we introduce an indicator to estimat...

In recent decades, the debate has intensified on how the globalization process has imposed a new economic geography on the global network of cities, assigning them new forms, flows, centralities and functions. Foreign Direct Investment flows are examples of transnational spatial processes that reveal the status of competitiveness, centrality, hiera...

Over the last decades, there has been a vast discourse in academic circles about how globalization has imposed a new economic geography on cities, shaping their forms, functions and flows. Foreign direct investment flows, for instance, can be considered dynamic transnational processes that have not only connected emerging cities into the world econ...

In this chapter we look at how to improve Ufa’s economic competitive position in Russia and beyond. It is argued that this can only be achieved through a comprehensive urban strategy that integrates social, economic, environmental and spatial development (supply) and smartly matches this to economic (demand) in other cities worldwide. This requires...

This report discusses how to develop Rotterdam, within the Life Science sector. It is based on a study conducted at the IHS/Erasmus University.

This report relates to a study into greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) networks and seeks to identify South Holland's development potential within these networks. This research is part of a three-part research programme commissioned by the South Holland province. The aim of the "De Veerkrachtige Regio" (The Resilient Region) research progra...

Het voor u liggende rapport betreft een onderzoek naar netwerken van ‘greenfield’ directe buitenlandse investeringen (DBI), en richt zich op het vaststellen van de ontwikkelingspotentieel van Zuid-Holland binnen deze netwerken. Dit onderzoek maakt deel uit van een driedelig onderzoeksprogramma in opdracht van de provincie Zuid- Holland. Het onderzo...

Long-wave economic cycles exist within the world economy, and it is not surprising that several scholars have attempted to understand the link between this phenomenon and human development. Indeed, most research shows that an important relationship exists between innovation, competition, technological-diffusion, financial markets, and the impact of...

Today, academics and policymakers generally concentrate on subnational regions as the essential unit of economic activity, and most studies fail to adequately conceptualize urban regional development in an era of globalization (Dicken and Malmberg 2001). It is arguable, however, that global production networks and regional assets need to be coupled...

In this article I argue that cities are increasingly affected by external, seemingly invisible, political, economic, cultural, social, and environmental forces, and that policymakers, urban planners and architects may need to explore new methods and techniques to incorporate this type of knowledge into their urban strategies and designs. However, I...

This article contributes to the converging literatures on global production networks and new regionalism, which show that these two entities and their respective geographic scales are complexly interdependent. It explores two key conceptual differences between the leading world city network studies of Alderson and Beckfield and the work of the Glob...

The gradual integration of nations within our globalizing world is strongly related to the economic networks formed by multinational headquarters and their various subsidiaries located across the globe. Although the corporate reach of multinational corporations (MNCs) is clearly global, the geographical scope of their activities remains limited. Fo...

Visual billboards based on research concerning the social, economic and environmental status of global cities and interpretation towards future scenarios for Rotterdam.

In this chapter it is argued that we cannot talk about making a city sustainable, without understanding the worldwide system of corporate and other type of network relationships that make a city function.

The central question of this study is the relative significance of the North Wing within European and global investment networks. In view of the increasing importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) for the world economy, it is important for Dutch regions to be aware of this significance. This study focuses specifically on mergers and acquisitio...

This study, carried out for the Province of South-Holland, tackles two central research questions. First, which cities does the Zuidvleugel (Dutch Southern-Wing incl. Rotterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Delft, Dordrecht) collaborate with in terms of economic interactions? In this it is of interest to understand which firms are situated in the Zuidvleugel...

Today, the architectural tradition of locally based, blue-print planning is being increasingly destabilized by the irreversible processes of globalization. In this way, architecture, which is still centered in old traditions of permanence, is being irrevocably destabilized in cities marked by economic networks, massive infrastructures, and growing...

Over the past decades, there is increasing interest in the economic networks between cities, in which it is argued that the rise of the network economy is the result of advances in ongoing globalization, transport and communication technology, common markets, the individualization of production and the growth of multinational firms. It is said that...

Corporate investment relations can provide a measure of global connectedness and an indicator of a city’s competitive strength. Based on available corporate data, the article takes a look at the situation in the Gulf by charting the relative strength of cities and their competitiveness in global markets.

Today the existence of the ‘network society’ is often asserted. However, there is a lack of empirical understanding of what these networks actually are, especially concerning networks between cities worldwide. Therefore, this study contributes to economic geography because it is empirically based on actual data concerning global multinational netwo...

Today, the importance of the Randstad agglomeration is often discussed in terms of the economic coherence between its four largest cities. This is remarkable when several leading authors argue that the economic importance of cities is strongly determined by economic networks between cities worldwide. This discrepancy stems from the fact that limite...

Today, the importance of the Randstad agglomeration is often discussed in terms of the economic coherence between its four largest cities. This is remarkable when several leading authors argue that the economic importance of cities is strongly determined by economic networks between cities worldwide. This discrepancy stems from the fact that limite...