Sheppard has made contributions to geographical political economy, uneven geographies of globalization, spatial capitalist economic dynamics, urban sustainability and environmental justice, and the use of critical geographic information technologies. He is identified with a group of radical economic geographers including Trevor J. Barnes and Jamie Peck, who are critical of the tendency of the modern capitalist economy to create great differences in wealth and poverty, and to create environmental problems and injustices.
Rediscovering Geography: New relevance for the new century (with T. Wilbanks and 14 others). Washington DC: National Research Council, 1996. 233 pp.
A World of Difference: Society, Nature, Development (with P. W. Porter). New York: Guilford Press, 1998. 602 pp.
A Companion to Economic Geography (co-edited with T. Barnes). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000, 2003. 590 pp. (translated into Chinese, published by the Commercial Press of China, 2008)
Reading Economic Geography (co--edited with T. Barnes, J. Peck and A. Tickell). Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, 432 pp. (translated into Chinese, published by the Commercial Press of China, 2007)
Scale and Geographic Inquiry (co-edited with R. B. McMaster). Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, 272 pp.
Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers (co-edited with H. Leitner and J. Peck). New York: Guilford Press, 2007, 340 pp.
Politics and Practice in Economic Geography (co-edited with T. Barnes, J. Peck and A. Tickell). Beverly Hills: Sage Publishers, 2007, 320 pp.
A World of Difference: Encountering and contesting development (second, fully revised and expanded edition with P. W. Porter, R. Nagar and D. Faust). New York: Guilford Press, 2009, 664 pp.
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Economic Geography (co-edited with T. Barnes and J. Peck). London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
