Wouter Jacobs

Wouter Jacobs
Erasmus University Rotterdam | EUR · Erasmus Center for Urban Port and Transport Economics

PhD

About

47
Publications
26,511
Reads
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1,708
Citations
Additional affiliations
January 2015 - January 2019
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Position
  • Senior Researcher
September 2002 - September 2006
Radboud University
Position
  • PhD Student
October 2013 - October 2014
Ghent University
Position
  • Guest Professor

Publications

Publications (47)
Article
Full-text available
This paper enacts a dialogue between planning literature on polycentric urban regions (PUR) and port geography literature on multi-port gateways. The main proposition is that polycentric systems are the emergent outcome of the interactions between three dimensions of polycentricity: morphological, functional and institutional. The focus is on the D...
Chapter
The chapter discusses the rise and demise of the Dutch mainport policy, stenghtening the competitiveness of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and the Port of Rotterdam, as one the more successful planning concepts related to the Randstad conurbation. It is argued that the mainport policy developed into hegemonic discourse in the 1990s endorsed by a wide r...
Chapter
Commodities are the lifeblood for the world economy. They are shipped globally in enormous quantities in both volume and value. Yet what is often ignored by transport geographers and (maritime) economists alike is the way commodity markets themselves function and how the performance of these markets influences the demand for freight and, as such, t...
Chapter
This chapter is about understanding the role that commodity traders play in the world city network. Commodity trade is crucial in shaping economic globalization, both in the form of physical exchange of goods and in the form of financial transactions. Some older geographical thoughts on the role of traders and trade in shaping urban fortunes, most...
Article
The aim of this paper is to operationalize a relational approach to the study of port-city interfaces. A relational approach allows for the analysis of how actors are connected, transact, and assign meaning and value to regional development. Much of the literature on port-city interfaces has primarily focussed on late 20th⁻century transformation pr...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Using the concept of strategic coupling, we examine the socioeconomic port city interface of Ghent, Belgium. It is widely acknowledged that the recent crises has revealed to us our unfounded belief in a world of abundance, spatially as economic, where policy actions could be taken without hesitation and without limitation. These crises form a cruci...
Article
The rise of global supply chain systems and geographical dispersion of related inland logistics centres has led to a new phase in the evolution of port systems, referred to as port regionalisation. While this process largely results from the decisions of shippers and logistics providers, the scope of public policy can also shape it. This includes t...
Article
Full-text available
Port research is not a new field of interest for human geographers, evidenced by numerous conceptual models and empirical cases of port evolution and development in the literature. However, several critical questions remain unanswered, notably the exact position of port geography as a subdiscipline within human geography in the past, present and fu...
Article
Full-text available
We focus here on the impact of multinational enterprises (MNE) on the level of entrepreneurship in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in metropolitan regions. Large globalizing metropolitan regions or ‘world cities’ are generally considered prime office locations for multinational enterprises and KIBS alike. Certain locations in these met...
Article
This Windows on the Netherlands addresses the economic geography of commodity trade by providing insights from two Dutch port cities: Rotterdam and Amsterdam. It is argued that commodity traders provide an empirical site for uncovering the missing links between research on world cities on the one hand, and global commodity chains on the other. Comm...
Article
Full-text available
It has been argued that the relationship between knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and multinational enterprises (MNEs) within the regional economy is advantageous for urban and regional dynamics. It is likely that KIBS aim to locate proximate to (internationally operating) MNEs because of agglomeration externalities. The impact of MNEs...
Article
Full-text available
is often argued that the competitiveness of ports depends on their ability to inser t themsel ves in global suppl y chains. However, the influential role of commodity traders in managing these global supply chains is not well understood by port planners. The case for commodity trade is compelling. It is linked with the financial sector on the one h...
Article
Full-text available
Strategic coupling refers to the process of matching local assets with global network demands. Although the concept has benefited from an increase in relational thinking, several critical issues remain unresolved. In this article, we identify and discuss three such issues – the characteristics of the entities involved in strategic coupling, the way...
Article
Full-text available
This paper addresses the fraught relationships among commodity trade, urban economic development and the environment in the world’s largest rainforest reserve, in a historical narrative fashion. The conceptual framework in which we position this narrative is provided by Hesse (2010), in the “site” and “situation” dimensions of the interaction betwe...
Conference Paper
The rise of global supply chain systems and the dispersion of related logistics centers further inland has led to a new phase in the evolution of port systems, referred to as port regionalization (Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2005). While this process is largely the result of the decisions of shippers and logistics providers, there is scope for public p...
Article
a b s t r a c t This paper deals with path dependence in seaport governance. A central notion in this respect is lock-in. Economic geographers have recently started to reconsider the deterministic perspective on lock-in and developed the concept of institutional plasticity. Such plasticity is the result of actions of actors to pur-posefully 'recomb...
Article
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This paper revisits how and why new multinational knowledge-based strategies and multi-level governmental policies influence the upgrading process of regions in developing economies. Automotive multinationals traditionally exploited local asset conditions, but it is shown that they have also been contributing to knowledge-generation systems via inv...
Article
Full-text available
Despite ongoing transformations in the maritime transportation industry and the rise of global supply chain systems, most of the world's important container ports remain urban. Ports continue to occupy urban spaces, are embedded in localized knowledge systems, draw on urban labour markets and infrastructure and are subject to local politics and pol...
Article
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Within research on world cities, much attention has been paid to advanced producer services (APS) and their role within both global urban hierarchies and network formation between cities. What is largely ignored is that these APS provide services to firms operating in a range of different sectors. Does sector-specific specialisation of advanced pro...
Article
How do seaports evolve in relation to each other? Recent studies in port economics and transport geography have been focused on how supply-chain integration has structurally changed the competitive landscape in which individual ports and port actors operate. Port regionalization has been addressed as the corresponding new phase in the spatial and f...
Article
Full-text available
HALL P. V. and JACOBS W. Shifting proximities: the maritime ports sector in an era of global supply chains, Regional Studies. Economic eographers argue that spatial and non-spatial dimensions of proximity are central to innovation and collective action. The arious dimensions of proximity in relation to maritime ports are examined. Global supply cha...
Article
Full-text available
In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of...
Article
Full-text available
How do seaports evolve in relation to each other? Recent studies in port economics and transport geography focused on how supply chain integration has structurally changed the competitive landscape in which individual ports and port actors operate. Port regionalization has been addressed as the corresponding new phase in the spatial and functional...
Article
Full-text available
Recent academic debates about port competition have centered on the strategic responses of port authorities, operators, managers and owners to the emergence of global supply chains. The competitive performance of a port authority or operator, given the rise of the integrated logistics sector, depends increasingly on its strategic relationship to th...
Article
This paper focuses on the process of institutional change at the leading ports of the United States: Los Angeles and Long Beach. In order to do so, it makes use of the structure of provision-approach and the concept of regime politics which allows for a systematic analysis and comparison. Key questions are: how are both ports institutionally struct...
Article
Full-text available
Since the early 1990s, planning theory has focused on the issue of institutional change. Not only does institutional change have clear bearings on processes of spatial planning, it is also, increasingly, seen as an object of planning. A core concept in the literature is the juxtaposition of ‘institutional design’ and ‘institutional evolution’. Yet,...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract This paper aims to identify the institutional structure and development,of property regimes,in different territories of the European Union and the United States. More particularly, this researchwants,to look at the contribution of the institutional structure of property regimes,to the competitive performance,of cities and,urban,regions and...

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