This handbook explores five major themes that are redefining economic geography in the twenty-first century: geopolitics and geoeconomics; globalization and global production networks; changing worlds of work and population dynamics; green transitions and environmental change; and digital and technological transformations, including artificial intelligence and platform economies. It highlights how these forces are reshaping regional development, innovation, trade, finance, labor markets, governance, and sustainability across both the Global North and Global South.

Organized around the themes of economies, regions, economic processes, actors and institutions, and reflections and exchanges, the handbook provides authoritative reviews of established knowledge while identifying the critical questions that will guide research in the decades ahead. Its global perspective reflects the increasing diversity of the field and offers new insights into uneven development, resilience, risk, and economic transformation.

An essential reference for researchers, graduate students, policymakers, and practitioners, this handbook demonstrates why economic geography remains indispensable for understanding the changing relationships between economy, society, environment, and space in a rapidly evolving world.

Henry Wai-chung Yeung obtained his BA (First Class Honors) in Geography from the National University of Singapore in 1992 and PhD at the University of Manchester, UK, in 1995. He was appointed Senior Tutor (1992), Lecturer/Associate Professor (1996-2004), Professor of Economic Geography (2005-2024), and Distinguished Professor of the University (2018-2024). Since January 2025, he has been the Choh-Ming Li Professor at the Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2022 Sir Peter Hall Award by UK’s Regional Studies Association, the 2018 Distinguished Scholarship Honors by the American Association of Geographers, and the 2017 Murchison Award by UK’s Royal Geographical Society. Professor Yeung has published 6 monographs (5 single-authored) and 1 textbook (with Neil Coe and Phil Kelly, Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Wiley-Blackwell, 3 editions in 2007/2013/2020), 7 edited books (published by Edward Elgar, Macmillan, Routledge, and Sage), 120 journal articles, and 55 book chapters. His latest books are Theory and Explanation in Geography (Wiley, 2024) and Interconnected Worlds: Global Electronics and Production Networks in East Asia (Stanford University Press, 2022; winner of multiple awards). For over two decades since 2001, he has been co-editor of Environment and Planning A and Editor-in-Chief since January 2026. He is also past editor of Economic Geography (2001-2025) and Review of International Political Economy (2004-2013) and serves on the editorial boards of 17 journals in the diverse fields of human geography, management, urban studies, area studies, and general social science.

Sarah Hall obtained her BA (Hons) in Geography from Cambridge University in 1999 and her PhD from the University of Bristol in 2005. She was appointed a Lecturer in Geography at Loughborough University in 2004 and subsequently Lecturer  at the University of Nottingham where she was made Professor of Economic Geography in 2015. In 2023, she was appointed to the 1931 Professorship of Geography at the University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on financial geography, economic geography and the links between cultural and political economy. Supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, her research centres on London’s international financial district and its relations with North America, Europe and China. She is the author of Global Finance (Sage, 2017) and Respatialising Finance: Offshore Renminbi Market Making in London (Wiley, 2021). Her work has been published in a number of leading academic journals. She regularly engages with the media and her research has featured in a number of outlets including the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph and Wired Magazine. She advises on policy and has given evidence to the House of Lords and the Scottish Parliament. She is joint Editor in Chief of the geography journal Geoforum and held a British Academy Mid Career Fellowship (2015-17) and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the academic think tank UK in a Changing Europe where she is working on the impact of Brexit for the financial services sector.

Jessie P.H. Poon received her BA (Hons) in Geography from the National University of Singapore and her PhD from Ohio State University in 1993. She was appointed a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore from 1994-1999, Associate Professor at University of Buffalo (SUNY) in 2001, and Professor of Geography in 2005. As one of few female quantitative economic geographers, her work combines statistical and qualitative analyses to interrogate theoretically and empirically-grounded issues of trade, investment, and finance. More recently, she has examined renewable energy in the context of US-China geoeconomic competition. Her work has been supported by major research grants from the National Science Foundation in the US. She has co-authored books on international trade (2017, Routledge), and the geography of economic misinformation (2023, Edward Elgar). Her work has also been published in top geography journals, including Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Economic Geography and Journal of Economic Geography. She is currently co-editor of Environment and Planning A and was the first female academic to be appointed as editor in Papers in Regional Science (2002-2006). She is co-chair of the US Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Study Centers Consortium and was recently elected as a fellow at the American Association of Geographers.