Export Success And Industrial Linkages

Neo-classical economic trade theory suggests that countries on an aggregate level specialize in products that are consistent with their particular advantages and this book suggests that the predictions of the theory are broadly borne out. However, this theory is cast on a very aggregate level such as textiles and steel and the theory provides little guidance on process.

Thus, there is little one learns from the theory about business, structural, and institutional practices that make a particular country more successful than others even if their broad comparative advantage is similar. Similarly, one learns little about the various forms of critical linkages or partnerships, backward and forward (induced by industrial policy or spontaneous), public-private, domestic-foreign (in a value chain context), South-South, and intra-cluster or sector that result in export success and failure in the garment industry in South Asia.

Review: Moving beyond the theoretical grandstanding that has characterized the study of industrial development for years, this book provides a detailed and unbiased picture of how industries really develop, using the case of the textiles and ready-made garment industry in South Asia. It is historically well-informed, empirically well-grounded, and theoretically intelligent, especially given that the country studies have all been done by undergraduate students.

It is highly recommended. --Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge, author of Kicking Away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans This book looks at first glance to be a narrow study of the ready-made garment industry in several South Asian countries. Do not be decieved. The empirics illuminate some of the biggest issues of world development--including how countries come to specialize (not just what they specialize in), how different types of industrial policies actually work to change investment patterns, and even, what are the chances of rapid industrial upgrading by firms and economies at the lower ends of global value chains. --Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy, London School of Economics, and Winner of Leontief Prize in Economics, 2008