Harald Bathelt

Professor, Department of Geography & Planning , University of Toronto

Biography

He is a Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography & Planning and the Zijiang Visiting Chair at East China Normal University in Shanghai. His research and teaching interests lie in economic geography, political economy, and methodology, with a focus on: (1) industrial clustering, (2) knowledge generation and innovation over distance, (3) regional impacts of national and international investments, and (4) regional impacts of industrial and institutional change.

His recent book publications include The Elgar Companion to Innovation and Knowledge Creation (Edward Elgar, 2017, co-edited with Patrick Cohendet, Sebastian Henn, and Laurent Simon), Trade Shows in the Globalizing Knowledge Economy (OUP, 2014, with Francesca Golfetto and Diego Rinallo), and The Relational Economy (OUP, 2011, with Johannes Glückler). He has published extensively in leading academic journals and serves as Editor of ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography. As of January 2024, his work has received over 20,000 Google Scholar citations, with an h-index of 52.

He welcomes students interested in economic geography, particularly in the following areas:

Interregional Inequality and Regional Development: Increasing interregional inequality is a key driver of populist movements worldwide, raising concerns among social scientists. This research assumes that regional development depends on the ability to mobilize resources and networks across spatial scales to foster collective engagement.
Knowledge Generation Over Distance: This research explores how firms maintain competitiveness by creating and circulating knowledge both within and beyond their regional environment.
Cluster Evolution and Institutional Change: Regional development can be driven by the establishment and growth of industry clusters. This research focuses on (i) the processes through which clusters emerge, (ii) the consequences of institutional change for cluster dynamics, and (iii) the impact of cross-cluster networks.

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Bathelt, H., Buchholz, M., Storper, M. (2024) The nature, causes and consequences of inter-regional inequality. Journal of Economic Geography, 24: 353-374.
Bathelt, H., Li, P. (2020): Processes of building cross-border knowledge pipelines. Research Policy, 49: # 103928.
Li, P., Bathelt, H. (2018) Location strategy in cluster networks. Journal of International Business Studies, 48: 967-989.
Bathelt, H., Li, P. and Zhu, Y.-W. (2017) Geographies of temporary markets: An anatomy of the Canton Fair. European Planning Studies, 25: 1497-1515.
Bathelt, H., Gibson, R. (2015) Learning in “organized anarchies”: The nature of technological search processes and knowledge flows at international trade fairs. Regional Studies, 49: 985-1002.
Bathelt, H., Glückler, J. (2014) Institutional change in economic geography. Progress in Human Geography, 38: 340-363.
Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., Maskell, P. (2004): Clusters and knowledge: Local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation. Progress in Human Geography, 28: 31-56.