Free Trade and Uneven Development
Free Trade and Uneven Development

Author: Gary Gereffi

Publisher: Philadelphia : Temple University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9781566399678

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This volume addresses many of the complex issues raised by North American integration through the lens of one of the largest and most global industries in the region: textiles and apparel. In part, this is a story of winners and losers in the globalization process, especially if one focuses on jobs lost and jobs gained in different countries and communities within North America, defined here as: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. However, it would be a mistake to view the industry solely in these zerosum terms. The North American apparel industry is an excellent illustration of larger trends in the global economy, in which regional divisions of labor appear to be one of the most stable and effective responses to globalization.The contributors to this volume are an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars who have all done detailed fieldwork at the firm and factory levels in one or more countries of North America. Taken together the essays offer theoretical and methodological innovations built around the intersection of the global commodity chains and industrial districts literatures, as well as innovative approaches to studying the impact of cross-national, interfirm networks in terms of production and trade issues, and local development outcomes for workers and communities. Author note: Gary Gereffi is Director of the Markets and Management Studies Program at Duke University. He is the co-editor of Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (with Miguel Korzeniewicz) and Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia (with Donald L. Wyman). >P>David Spener is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the co-editor (with Kathleen Staudt) of The U.S.-Mexico Border: Transcending Divisions, Contesting Identities. >P>Jennifer Bair is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University.

Kicking Away the Ladder
Kicking Away the Ladder

Author: Ha-Joon Chang

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2002-07-01

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 0857287613

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How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing countries from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used.

Free Trade & Uneven Development
Free Trade & Uneven Development

Author: Gary Gereffi

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2002-08-12

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1566399688

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This volume addresses many of the complex issues raised by North American integration through the lens of one of the largest and most global industries in the region: textiles and apparel. In part, this is a story of winners and losers in the globalization process, especially if one focuses on jobs lost and jobs gained in different countries and communities within North America, defined here as: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. However, it would be a mistake to view the industry solely in these zerosum terms. The North American apparel industry is an excellent illustration of larger trends in the global economy, in which regional divisions of labor appear to be one of the most stable and effective responses to globalization.The contributors to this volume are an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars who have all done detailed fieldwork at the firm and factory levels in one or more countries of North America. Taken together the essays offer theoretical and methodological innovations built around the intersection of the global commodity chains and industrial districts literatures, as well as innovative approaches to studying the impact of cross-national, interfirm networks in terms of production and trade issues, and local development outcomes for workers and communities.

International Trade and Sustainable Development
International Trade and Sustainable Development

Author: Bob Milward

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0429626630

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The contemporary orthodox view of world trade has centred, generally unchallenged, on the ideas of free trade, based on the theoretical construct of comparative advantage. This book will engage in a critique of the orthodox position based on the underlying theoretical economic construct, the historical development of the now developed economies and the morally unsustainable position of the free-trade regime. The author examines alternatives such as Most Favoured Nation and Preferential Trading Agreements before making the argument in favour of Asymmetric Trading, where the underdeveloped economies can develop behind tariff barriers and quotas, whilst the triadic nations maintain a lack of barriers to the exports of these economies. He outlines how such a trading regime would be mutually beneficial in the long term, in the sense that development through industrialisation takes place and the increase in GDP per capita would allow markets for exports to be sustainable, thus widening the market for the goods and services of the developed economies. However, the author demonstrates that free trade actually increases the development gap by maintaining the status quo in terms of the underdeveloped economies specialising in and exporting low value-added primary products and importing high value-added manufactures. The book analyses contemporary and historical data to illustrate how an alternative trading regime can be truly advantageous to both the developed and underdeveloped regions of the world: a global trading regime that is capable of increasing GDP in a sustainable manner without transferring a surplus from the poor to the rich nations and without a long-term commitment on the part of the developed nations to altruism.

Neither Free Trade Nor Protection
Neither Free Trade Nor Protection

Author: Bill Dunn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2015-04-30

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 178347193X

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This book challenges both sides of the debate around international trade. Most mainstream economists advocate free trade as a mainstay of national and global prosperity. Meanwhile, many critics see trade causing inequality and poverty. Unfortunately, s

Value and Unequal Exchange in International Trade
Value and Unequal Exchange in International Trade

Author: Andrea Ricci

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1000388220

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Contrary to the claims made by neoliberal governments and mainstream academics, this book argues that the huge increase in trade in recent decades has not made the world a fairer place: instead, the age of globalization has become a time of mass migration caused by increasing global inequality. The theory of unequal exchange challenges the free trade doctrine, claiming that transfers of value from poorer to richer countries are hidden behind apparently equivalent market transactions. Following a critical review of the existing approaches, the book proposes a general theory of unequal exchange in the light of an innovative reconstruction of Marx’s international law of value, in which money and exchange rates play a crucial role in decoupling value captured from value produced by different countries, even in perfectly competitive world markets. On this theoretical basis, the book provides an empirical analysis of the international transfers of value in both traditional trade and Global Value Chains. The resulting world mapping of unequal exchange shows the geographical hierarchy of capital global exploitation by revealing a world divided into two quite separate camps of donor and receiving countries, the former being the poorer countries and the latter the richer countries. This book is addressed to scholars and students of economics and social sciences, as well as activists of the North and the South, interested in a better understanding of the asymmetric power relations implied in global trade. It makes a significant contribution to the literature on political economy, trade, Marxism, international relations, and economic geography.