Restructuring and internationalization of the European automotive industry

Pavlínek, Petr

doi:10.1093/jeg/lby070

Cited by 44 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Several studies have analysed the automobile sector, identifying the traditional factors behind location and relocation that have changed the sector's production geography (Bilbao & Camino, ; Danese & Vinelli, ; Hannigan et al, ; Klier & McMillen, ; Lampón, González‐Benito, & García‐Vázquez, ; Mack et al, ; Mocan, Turi, Goncalves, & Maistor, ; Pavlínek, ). They include external factors, such as labour issues (Jürgens & Krzywdzinski, ), market size (Mocan et al, ) or government policies (Bilbao & Camino, ), and firm internal factors, such as corporate restructuring (Lampón, González‐Benito, & García‐Vázquez, ; Pavlínek, ), operational flexibility (Lampón, González‐Benito, & García‐Vázquez, ), plant age (Aláez & Barneto, ), foreign ownership (Aláez & Barneto, ; Lampón, Lago‐Peñas, & González‐Benito, ) or relocation costs (Bilbao & Camino, ; Danese & Vinelli, ). While some of these traditional factors are still relevant under conditions of uncertainty, the explanatory capacity of others for relocation under uncertainty may change.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The automobile industry's value chain is very dynamic and is in constant transformation, which means attention must be paid to how new scenarios affect production geography in the sector (Alonso, Lampón, & Vázquez, ; Domański et al, ; Hannigan, Cano‐Kollman, & Mudambi, ; Lampón, Lago‐Peñas, & González‐Benito, ; Mack et al, ; Pavlínek, ; Pavlínek, ). The recent global economic crisis of 2008 involved a change in the socio‐political and economic environment that was of particular interest in terms of relocation processes (Domański et al, ; Pavlínek, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of uncertainty on production relocation: Implications from a regional perspective

Lampón

2020

Papers in Regional Science

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Analysis of the Spanish automobile industry during the global economic crisis of 2008 shows that the number of relocations was comparatively lower than in the period before the crisis. Uncertainty weighs more in relocation decisions than the advantages that multinationals can gain from their operational flexibility. The main drivers of relocation in the sector are conditioned by relocation costs and the risks inherent in such processes. The main implication of the research is that it helps identify vulnerability in relocation under conditions of uncertainty. This is key for defining public policies aiming to avoid the impact of relocation on regions that have traditionally been affected by such processes.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of uncertainty on production relocation: Implications from a regional perspective

Lampón

2020

Papers in Regional Science

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“…The motivation of TNCs to move production to post-socialist Central Europe was, apart from its geographic location, caused by the local low-cost but skilled labour (Jürgens and Krzywdzinski 2009;Pavlínek 2019;Chiappini 2012). The following analysis therefore takes into account not only the institutional setup but also the local labour costs.…”

Section: Data Sources Results and Robustnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While automotive production in France, Italy and Portugal is decreasing, production in the so-called integrated periphery, including Central Europe, is gradually increasing. This trend is explained by the labour cost advantage (Pavlínek, 2019), which is supported also by Chiappini (2012). For Germany, the Eastern enlargement was an opportunity to outsource low-skilled processes abroad, import the necessary inputs from Central European cost-efficient economies and keep the mid-skilled processes on domestic soil (Coricelli and Wörgötter 2012).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such works are largely dedicated to the most developed economies or to the development effects of trade and market integration and do not pay enough attention to the case of the (relatively) well-developed transition economies in Central Europe. Some literature studying the case of Central Europe has emerged, but most of it focuses on the automotive industry: Pavlínek 2004Pavlínek , 2018Pavlínek , 2019Pavlínek and Ženka 2011;Humphrey et al 2000;Sturgeon et al 2008. Other sectors have only been studied selectively, like Smith et al (2014) for the apparel industry in Slovakia, or Plank and Staritz (2013); Sass and Szalavets (2014) for the electronics industry in Hungary.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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European imbalances and shifts of global value chains to the Central European periphery: role of institutions

Sankot¹,

Hnát²

2019

Auc Geographica

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This article deals with the topic of European imbalances. They are defined as large and persistent differences in the current account position of European countries, which are closely connected to the emergence of the financial crisis and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis in 2008. A build-up in current account deficits had been observed from the mid-1990s, namely in two peripheral regions of the EU. However, little attention was paid to the potential differences between the Southern and Central European peripheries of the EU. The emergence of large and persistent current account deficits in Southern Europe was accompanied by a significant shift in gains from global value chains. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the factors that co-determined the changes in the geographic structure of GVCs in Europe. These changes decreased GVC income in Southern Europe, increased it in Central Europe and contributed to the build-up of account imbalances in Southern Europe. Despite the fact that Central Europe was among the deficit regions in European imbalances, the four Central European countries substantially increased their gains from global value chains as well as GVC participation. The shift in GVC activity towards Central Europe between 1995 and 2011 was driven not only by total labour costs but also by better regulatory quality. At the same time, TNCs switching from Southern to Central Europe had to accept worse quality contract enforcement.

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Efficiency in design and production to achieve sustainable development challenges in the automobile industry: Modular electric vehicle platforms

Lampón

2022

Sustainable Development

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Electric vehicles have been based on a new product architecture: modular electric vehicle platforms (MEVPs). Through a case study, this paper uses efficiency and sustainability criteria to analyse this modular architecture as implemented by three automobile manufacturers in their European production networks. The results show that MEVPs have been adopted to achieve the efficiency of mass-production electric vehicles in order to comply with regulatory environmental requirements. MEVPs are designed with structural compatible modules, an electric drive system architecture and modular batteries that can be adapted to each vehicle. These designs are focused on limiting energy consumption by reducing weight with the use of high-performance materials or extrathin batteries. Some of these MEVPs use fewer components in their design to facilitate disassembly and recycling. This new modular architecture has been implemented through compatible, flexible production systems accompanied by different sustainable production initiatives. The production system has incorporated carbon-neutral production processes or circular economy production models, which include remanufacturing and reuse. Networks resulting from these new MEVPs are geographically concentrated and are not conditioned by location factors. The roles of the plants have been mainly driven by economies of scale to achieve high-performance specialised products and high volumes. These plants play a role as hubs for electric vehicle production in the manufacturers' European production networks.

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Restructuring and internationalization of the European automotive industry

Cited by 44 publications

References 72 publications

The impact of uncertainty on production relocation: Implications from a regional perspective

The impact of uncertainty on production relocation: Implications from a regional perspective

European imbalances and shifts of global value chains to the Central European periphery: role of institutions

Efficiency in design and production to achieve sustainable development challenges in the automobile industry: Modular electric vehicle platforms

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