GCCs and Development: A Conceptual and Empirical Review

Abstract

As a framework for analyzing the organization of the global economy and its implications for local development, the GCC approach is of significant theoretical and empirical relevance to GCC as a methodology. Thus far, it has had an important effect in interdisciplinary studies and has enriched substantially policy discussions about competitiveness in global chains and local upgrading. However, I argue that the GCC literature would benefit from a dialogue with other approaches to development, including schools such as dependency theory. My critique of the GCC literature is developed through an analysis of the yarntextile-garment GCC in Mexico, which underscores its lack of territorial endogeneity, since Mexico's participation in this chain remains concentrated in processes of temporary imports to be exported. In spite of Mexico's success in the post-NAFTA period, since 2000 Asian, especially Chinese, products have massively displaced its exports of apparel to the US market.

Going green or going away: Environmental regulation, economic geography and firms’ strategies in China’s pollution-intensive industries

“…It is increasingly acknowledged that developing economies need to embed private initiative in a framework of public action that inflects industrial restructuring, relocation and technological dynamism beyond what private governance would generate on their own (Bair and Dussel Peters, 2006;Dussel Peters, 2008). This recognition is now particularly widely perceived in those countries where market-oriented reforms were taken the farthest and the disappointment about the outcomes caused by market failures (e.g., environmental degradation) is correspondingly the greatest.…”

Global Commodity Chains & World Income Inequalities: The Missing Link of Inequality and the “Upgrading” Paradox

“…Although arriving from different theoretical angles and empirical foci, a recent spate of review pieces on the utility and future direction of GCC/GVC analysis (for example : Bair 2005: Bair , 2008Dussel Peters 2008;Gibbon and Ponte 2005; and special issues of Competition & Change and Economy & Society) elaborate a coherent set of critical concerns emerging from within the perspective. These tensions come most directly to the fore through the discussion of so-called commodity/value chain "upgrading."…”

“…4 Secondly, even with upgrading clearly operationalized at the level of specific commodity chains and firms there remains the question: who, and in what proportion, benefits from the upgrading process? Many critics (Bair 2005;Bernstein & Campling 2006 a,b;Collins 2005;Dussel Peters 2008;Palpacuer 2008) have noted the relative dearth of attention paid to questions of wealth distribution within commodity chain nodes or firms as they are grounded in specific places, with working conditions and labor relations This is an issue of distinguishing between the means of upgrading with the ultimate end of upgrading. To paraphrase Bair, there are potentially many means by which a firm might "improve its position within [a] chain," but the primary end or goal of any such means is the "capture of greater value-added."…”

Влияние Внешних Факторов На Развитие Рынка Консалтинговых Услуг

“…Such shallow integration also manifests itself in asymmetric power relations between lead firms and suppliers and in weak bargaining positions for developing countries. For example, the experiences of Mexico and Central American countries as assembly manufacturers have been likened to the creation of an enclave economy, with few domestic linkages (Gallagher and Zarsky, 2007;Dussel Peters, 2008). The same can be said about the electronics and automotive industries in Eastern and Central Europe (Plank and Staritz, 2013;Pavlinek, 2015;Pavlinek and Zenka, 2016).…”