This doctoral dissertation award will support research in industrial geography on the producer service sector and on the relationship between this sector and the growth of regional and national economies. The project examines the relationship between the behavior and business performance of U.S. affiliates operating in the producer service industry of Singapore and the growth and development of the Singapore economy. It will also examine the intraregional division of labor in the producer service industry among the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the relationship of this division to the produce goods sector in Singapore. A small but increasing body of literature has examined the role of producer services in urban and regional settings. This research will determine whether producer services in well developed market economies function with a signficant basic component, how linkage patterns differ between indigenous and nonindigenous (externally controlled) offices, and what proportion of the services sector output fill intraservice demand. It is a field which requires elaboration through detailed case studies of individual economies. This project provides such a case study, examining whether these kinds of relationships hold true in the context of the powerful and rapidly- growing city state of Singapore, which promises to have a future role as the economic, communications and innovation center of the South East Asian region.
