Chapter 9 Vocabulary.

  1. Agglomeration: spatial grouping of activities for mutual benefit
  2. Break-of-bulk Point: A location where goods are transferred from one type of carrier to another
  3. Commodity chain: The set of activities involved in the production of a single good or service.
  4. Comparative advantage: The principle that an area produces the items for which it has the greatest advantage in comparison to other areas.
  5. Deindustrialization: The decline of manufacturing in a regional or national economy.
  6. Deglomeration: the location of industrial or other activities away from established agglomerations in response to growing costs.
  7. Economies of scale: The cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to size, output, or scale of operation, with cost per unit of output generally decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out over more units of output.
  8. Footloose: Manufacturing activities for which the cost of transporting material or product is not important in determining location of production.
  9. Fordism: The manufacturing system derived from assembly-line mass production.
  10. Foreign direct investment (FDI): the purchase or construction of factories by TNCs.
  11. Infrastructure: The basic services, installation, and facilities needed to support economic activity, including transportation and communication.
  12. Least-cost theory: The optimum location of a manufacturing establishment is at the place where the costs of transporting raw materials and finished products, as well as labor, and the advantages of agglomeration.
  13. Market orientation: The tendency of an economic activity to locate close to its market.
  14. Material orientation: The tendency of an economic activity to locate close to its source of raw material.
  15. Multiplier effect: an increase in spending produces an increase in consumption greater than the initial amount spent. (For example, if a corporation builds a factory, it will employ construction workers and their suppliers as well as those who work in the factory. Indirectly, the new factory will stimulate employment in laundries, restaurants, and service industries in the factory's vicinity.)
  16. New international division of labor (NIDL): A spatial rearrangement of production in which developing countries capture more of the world’s manufacturing activity while developed countries shift to services.
  17. Offshoring: The relocation of business processes and services to a lower-cost foreign location.
  18. Outsourcing: Subcontracting production or services rather than performing those activities “in house.”
  19. Producer Service: a service sector activity performed for other businesses
  20. Transnational corporations (TNCs): A large business organization in at least twocountries
  21. Uniform plain: a simplification in geographic models of spatial interaction and economic activity.