The North American Free Trade Agreement emerging apparel production networks and industrial upgrading the southern California Mexico connection外文原文.pdfVIP

Review of International Political Economy 6:4 Winter 1999: 565–608 The North American Free Trade Agreement, emerging apparel production networks and industrial upgrading: the southern California/ Mexico connection Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara ABSTRACT The processes of globalization and trade regionalization are creating new forms of regional concentration of economic activities both within and across sovereign borders. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement has spawned cross-border strategic production alliances that impact economic development at both the subnational and transnational levels. This article examines the southern California/Mexico transnational apparel production network: NAFTA-era bi-national production alliances that are reconguring strategic apparel production districts, as well as the larger North American apparel commodity chain. Using the commodity chains framework, I analyze the importance of NAFTA as an intervening variable in the economic integration of North America’s textile/apparel sector; the extent to which southern California apparel production has shifted offshore to Mexico; and the characteristics of post-NAFTA strategic production alliances. From this discussion I address more fundamental issues of economic development, namely how cross-border changes in the mix of high- and low-value production activ- ities have recongured the southern California fashion and apparel production center, and garment-specic industrial clusters in Mexico, and enhanced the prospects for industrial upgrading in Mexico. KEYWORDS Apparel production; California; commodity chains; development; Mexico; NAFTA. Review of Internatio