Export Boom Research Articles

The ‘third tier’ of globalization

In recent years, China’s major trading cities have witnessed rapid social, cultural and physical change which has accompanied the country’s boom in manufacturing and exports. A small but increasingly significant element of this growth has been the China–Africa trade in small‐scale manufactured goods. The opening of China’s economy has created new spaces for migrant entrepreneurs capturing a share of international value chains, transforming social and business relations, and reconfiguring urban space. This paper draws on a pilot study by the authors of African migrants in Guangzhou in 2007, active in the exports to the African sub‐continent. Findings challenge established models of global city growth, identifying the collective importance of individual entrepreneurs in promoting a trade which has significant impacts on African cities, while creating new interactions with identifiable, distinctive and unanticipated impacts on this dynamic host city.

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870 – 1930

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870 – 1930

The Rise of China: What Does it Mean for the Least Developed Countries in the Asia-Pacific?

China’s unprecedented economic growth and integration into the world economy have attracted global attention. Its boom in exports of processed goods and the emergence of regional production networks, and thus production complementarity, has spread high rates of growth across several Asian—especially East Asian—economies. The poorer economies, especially the region’s least developed countries (LDCs), derive the least benefit from the “China effect”, as they are not integrated into the regional production networks. Poorer economies in the region supply mostly raw materials and resource-based products to China. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities China presents to LDCs in the Asia-Pacific region. The main conclusions are: (a) there is a surging trade imbalance between LDCs and China; (b) there is an increasing concentration of LDC exports to and imports from China, by commodity and by country; (c) LDCs and China do not compete in any significant way in third-country markets; and (d) foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to China have a positive effect on FDI flows to LDCs. An important policy implication is the need for more equalizing growth in the region and, in particular, between the emerging economies—such as China—and LDCs, which can be achieved by addressing the challenges and constraints caused by supply-side issues and market access.

You Can Teach An Old Revolutionary Historiography New Tricks: Regions, Popular Movements, Culture, and Gender in Mexico, 1820–1940

You Can Teach An Old Revolutionary Historiography New TricksRegions, Popular Movements, Culture, and Gender in Mexico, 1820–1940 Mark Wasserman (bio) Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution. By Jürgen Buchenau. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Pp. 275. $34.95 paper. Bandit Nation: A History of Outlaws and Cultural Struggle in Mexico, 1810–1920. By Chris Frazer. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Pp. 243. $45.00. Bitter Harvest: The Social Transformation of Morelos, Mexico, and the Origins of the Zapatista Revolution, 1840–1910. By Paul Hart. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Pp. 328. $42.50 cloth. Sons of the Sierra: Juárez, Díaz, and the People of Ixtlán, Oaxaca, 1855– 1920. By Patrick J. McNamara. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. 296. $24.95 paper. The Sausage Rebellion: Public Health, Private Enterprise and Meat in Mexico City, 1890–1917. By Jeffrey M. Pilcher. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Pp. 245. $29.95 paper. The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940. Edited by Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. 363. $23.95 paper. The major innovations in the historiography of the Mexican Revolution over the past three decades lie in four linked areas. First, historians concluded—perhaps following the advice given by Luis González y González in his famous Invitación a la microhistoria (1972)—that we can understand the revolution only if we explore what occurred at the state and local levels. Patrick McNamara deftly expresses this idea in his Sons of the Sierra: "Like the narrow dirt road that connects Ixtlán with Oaxaca City . . . the interconnection between local and national history in Mexico has always moved in two directions" (4). Second, and this is an outgrowth of the first, historians discovered that the clases populares not only were the cannon fodder of the conflict but shaped it as well. For all the revisionism that swept the landscape of Mexican history after the sinister and tragic [End Page 260] events of 1968, and for all the wrong turns that the postrevolutionary regime took toward authoritarianism (in the form of a one-party state) in 1929 and toward corruption and trickle-down development after 1946, the revolution itself was very much the work of subaltern classes. The more that historians investigated the revolution at the local level, the clearer it became that, whether it succeeded or not, it was the product of workers and peasants. Third, as historians looked more closely at the grassroots revolution, it became apparent that the initial protests and subsequent long period of violence did not arise from strictly economic and political factors; instead, there was a strong cultural element. Culture was also crucial in the long period of reconstruction that comprised the second stage of the revolution, from 1920 to 1940. Issues of local autonomy, for example, had as much to do with maintaining custom and tradition as with politics. Finally, local and state researchers revealed the crucial role of gender in shaping the discourse and structure, if not the events, of the revolution. Women, these studies made clear, were fervent revolutionaries, died in the names of various causes, and helped to formulate the outcome of decades of upheaval. Underlying the various reexaminations of the revolution was also the drive to revisit the periodization of all of Mexican history. In the 1960s, Richard Morse recommended a new chronological framework for Latin America.1 Most pertinent to our discussion, he suggested that we look at the era from 1760 through 1920 that he labels the colonial period, which runs from the Bourbon reforms through the end of the modern export boom in agricultural commodities and minerals. Dozens of dissertations and first books employing this breakdown followed. By the 1990s, however, periodization again came under review as regional and local historians (of Mexico, at least) questioned the notion that the origins of the revolution lay only as far back as the Porfiriato (1876–1911). The new historiography looked to the early postindependence era, 1821 to the 1860s, or even further back, to the mid-eighteenth century, for...

From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 (review)

Reviewed by: From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 Suzanna Reiss From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000. Edited by Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal, and Zephyr Frank. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006. 377 pp. $23.95 (paper). Topik, Marichal, and Frank bring together sixteen business and economic historians in this impressive collection to explore and promote the value of what they describe as the "commodity chain approach" to history. Each of twelve essays focuses on one commodity that was extracted from Latin America between 1500 and 2000, with the expansion of the international capitalist marketplace. When the Spanish used Mexican metal to monetize the Atlantic world economy, silver was transformed into the internationally valuable commodity "money" and the land and peoples of Latin America into resources that could be bought and sold. In turn, for the next five hundred years industrial revolutions and wars fueled corporate and consumer demand in Europe and North America for an array of Latin American raw materials including indigo, cochineal, tobacco, coffee, sugar, cacao, bananas, fertilizers, rubber, henequen, and cocaine. The contributors discuss each of these raw materials as "products" circulating within transnational circuits of supply and demand, approaching history from the perspective of the capitalist commodity chain. This volume presents considerable archival research and scholarly analysis regarding the role commodity circuits played in defining cultural, economic, political, and social relations in our modern world. Every essay offers something for both a specialist in the particular commodity's field, as well as broader methodological insights for writing history attentive to transnational dynamics. It provides a rich source [End Page 369] of information on the rise and fall of market demand for key modern products. For example, in a fresh take on the United Fruit Company, Bucheli and Read follow the banana commodity circuit into consumer markets where a rare, exotic luxury became a staple of the American diet. Corporate and state policies initially combined to make the fruit affordably popular among the poor and immigrants; by Word War I bananas constituted almost a quarter of all fruit consumed in the country—a statistic that has fluctuated but is once again accurate today. The collection provides a welcome contribution to a growing literature that seeks to "internationalize" the study and writing of history. By following the flow of commodities these historians map interconnections between people and communities that historically transcended the nation-state. An examination of the eighteenth-century cochineal trade moves from elite fashions in England, Flanders, France, and Italy to the labor regimes subjecting Indian laborers in Mexico. Carlos Marichal discusses the forces of "supply" and "demand" in trade circuits that helped realize a desire for crimson fabrics worn "by popes, princes, nobles, military officers, and wealthy residents of European cities and towns." Cochineal is a red dye Oaxacan Indians made from insects farmed on nopal plants; its export boom—and hence European access—was undermined when disease, death, and the demise of a rural credit system befell the exploited Indian peasantry who farmed it. From Silver to Cocaine presents the "commodity chain" as an analytical tool for studying the fundamental transnational forces at play in any given geography linked to global commodity circuits. Historians and theorists of underdevelopment (influenced by anticolonial movements of the postwar era) as well as promoters of liberal economic development (aligned with advocates of "free" trade) have both provided frameworks for thinking about the international foundations of national power—the latter measuring progress based on degrees of integration into the capitalist economy, and the former criticizing these structures for creating dependency and limiting sovereignty. However, the editors of this volume argue that the commodity chain approach enables historians to provide a more balanced account, transcending the limitations of these other interpretive frames, "avoiding the pitfalls of dogmatism." These scholars decenter the nation-state in their studies, eschewing an emphasis on economic inequalities between nations. Instead they present the commodity chain as a transnational and politically neutral conduit for the "principal goods that human beings produce and consume," and suggest it provides a useful framework for doing world...

Indian IT and ICT Industry: A Performance Analysis Using Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist Index

The present study gives an account of IT and ICT infrastructure in India and points out the reasons for the boom in the IT exports and outsourcing business today and in times to come. The article analyzes the performances of the Indian IT industry by working out the technical efficiency of the software and telecommunication firms using the mathematical model of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The DEA is a non linear programming way of calculating technical efficiency of the decision making units. The study also examines the impact of various determinants on technical efficiency of software firms and net exports across the IT firms and further examines the determinants for new technology adoption by telecommunication industries, because the success of the software firms in terms of its exports is intertwined with the performance of telecommunication industry. The study uses a Malmquist index to estimate total factor productivity (TFP) change for the common set of software firms existing between 1996 and 2006 using a prowess data base. The total factor productivity is decomposed into efficiency change (catching up phenomena) and technical change (innovations) for the common set of software firms existing between 1996 and 2006 in India. At the end the study works out the performance of the Indian ICT sector in comparison with countries which are front runners using the DEA and global information technology report 2006 data base. The study will quantify the changes needed in the relatively good Indian ICT environment and ICT readiness to increase its ICT usage among individuals, business and government. The article confirms the improvements in productivity, efficiency, and technical change of the Indian Software industry from 1996 to 2006.

Inclusive Growth in India: Budgeting and Monitoring

Given the slow growth of Indian agriculture in the recent past, this paper contends that increased provision for agricultural infrastructure is an essential prerequisite not only for inclusive growth but also for sustained growth of the Indian economy. Agricultural growth is essential as the associated reduction in the propensity to import food will imply that more earned incomes are ploughed back into the economy and subjected to the multiplier. Second, agricultural growth will have a positive effect on the current account deficit, a high level of which might lead to the nation incurring growth impeding debt. Third, such agricultural growth, which is powered by agricultural infrastructure investments financed by the export boom, will stimulate domestic demand for export oriented sectors. Thus, it will help the national economy to prepare for a future in which exports assume diminished importance as a driver of growth and complementarities between various sectors in the economy become much more important for growth. The paper submits that mere budgeting for agricultural infrastructure and associated essential public services is not enough. Government servants who get only a tiny proportion of total benefits from such services if they use the budget to provide these, often find embezzlement of funds to be a more lucrative or utility enhancing option. It is therefore necessary to link successful provision of the public service to security of tenure and viability of the provider. Contracts for government workers or outsourcing to the private sector might be the answer.

Revisionism Reconsidered: Exports and American Intervention in World War I

Why did the United States intervene in World War I, breaking with its long tradition of noninvolvement in European political and military conflicts? During the 1920s and 1930s, many “revisionist” historians argued that American efforts to protect its trade with the Allies ultimately led to intervention. The logic of the revisionist position closely parallels the contemporary liberal case that interdependence promotes peace but arrives at different conclusions about the relationship between trade and conflict. Historians have largely abandoned this economic interpretation of American intervention, but data on the impact of the wartime export boom on the United States suggest that it should be reconsidered. The export boom was so large that it would have been difficult to ignore, and its progress corresponds to the timing of important decisions leading to American belligerency. An analysis of congressional voting on war-related measures also suggests that export income helped shape politicians' views of the war.I would like to thank Katherine Barbieri, John Coogan, David Clark, Jeffry Frieden, Jack Levy, Brian Lai, Timothy McKeown, David Painter, Strom Thacker, and participants in the world politics workshop at Binghamton University, the political economy workshop at Harvard University, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for their many comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Lisa Martin and several anonymous reviewers at International Organization also made many valuable suggestions. I am especially grateful to Thomas Walker, whose good-natured skepticism prompted me to write this paper. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Any remaining errors and misinterpretations are my responsibility.

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina During the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930. By Fernando Rocchi. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, Pp. xviii, 394. Tables. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $70.00 cloth.

Reviewed by: Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina During the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930 James Brennan Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina During the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930. By Fernando Rocchi. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, Pp. xviii, 394. Tables. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $70.00 cloth. Fernando Rocchi's Chimneys in the Desert, forcefully disputes what he calls the "canonical version" of Argentina's modern economic history, namely of a stunted industrial development due to a hostile state or the influence of agro-export interests. In this boldly revisionist book, Rocchi builds on Adolfo Dorfman's classic study of Argentina's industrialization (Historia de la industria argentina [1942]) and depicts an even greater role for industry in the economy during the export boom than that suggested by Dorfman. Rocchi's superbly researched study demonstrates quite convincingly a relatively diversified industrialization, a "middling industrialization" in his words. Economies of scale were achieved in some industries, credit was not a particular problem, the state was not a consistent adversary and indeed sometimes was a generous benefactor, nor was the landowning class uniformly opposed to a complementary industrialization project. Any structural weakness that Argentine industry demonstrated, Rocchi suggests, had more to do with the small size of the domestic market than with exogenous forces. As part of what at times reads like an almost idyllic recasting of the story of Argentine industry, Rocchi writes—in what are his best chapters—about the growth of consumer society and the market for industrial goods. Though the history of consumption is a well-established field in both European and United States historiography, it is a relatively neglected subject for Latin America, including Argentina. In these chapters, Rocchi writes compellingly about the role of advertising, the rise of new merchandising techniques (such as department stores) and the creation of a new set of consumer dreams, all contributing to give Argentina the most diversified and industrial economy in Latin America in these years. [End Page 468] Rocchi's thesis is so provocative and his empirical findings so rich that a brief review cannot do the book justice. His study will be a source of debate among economic historians for years to come. Though he presents his findings at times with a tone of irrefutability, they are more likely to stimulate heated discussion, some to be questioned and perhaps a few disproved outright. Certainly the book ends on a most debatable proposition, that of a seamless transition from the liberal order to the Perón era. Rocchi argues that industrialization policies were essentially the same, different only in "degree." If by "degree" he means under Perón a state monopolizing foreign trade to promote industry, a nationalized banking system and new public banks intended to subsidize industry, social policies that increased enormously the size of the domestic market and greatly contributed to industrial growth, and even attempts at national economic planning through the two "Five Year Plans," one can agree with his characterization. Although it would be more accurate to acknowledge some significant, deep changes in industrial policy. This point also raises a methodological issue. At times, it is not entirely clear how representative are the firms from which Rocchi has chosen to make sweeping arguments and to dismiss earlier interpretations. For example, his rejection of the proposition of any discrimination in the capital markets or the scarcity of capital for industrialists seems a bit selective in its evidence. Certainly during the Perón years, industrialists complained insistently about both, and here again a too facile continuum from the liberal era to the Peronist years mars the final pages of the book. Self-financing from profits may have been a satisfactory strategy for the limited capital demands of this "middling industrialization" that he so ably analyzes, but it did not appear sufficient for a later generation of industrialists. Similarly, the Union Industrial Argentina (UIA), portrayed by Rocchi as a relatively effective spokesperson for industrial interests in the years of his study, was reviled by many industrialists during the Perón years precisely for inconsistent and often hapless ways. So rather than the final word, Rocchi's exemplary study plays the invaluable role...

Chimneys in the desert: industrialization in Argentina during the export boom years, 1870–1930 – Fernando Rocchi

Chimneys in the desert: industrialization in Argentina during the export boom years, 1870–1930 – Fernando Rocchi

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870–1930. By Fernando Rocchi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii, 394. $70.

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870–1930. By Fernando Rocchi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii, 394. $70. - Volume 66 Issue 3

The Pathological Export Boom and the Bazaar Effect: How to Solve the German Puzzle

Germany is the laggard of Europe, yet the country is world champion in merchandise exports. The paper tries to solve this theoretical and empirical puzzle by diagnosing a ‘pathological export boom’ and a ‘bazaar effect’. Excessively high wages defended by unions and the welfare state against the forces of international low‐wage competition destroy too big a fraction of the labour‐intensive sectors and drive too much capital and labour into the capital‐intensive export sectors, causing both unemployment and excessive value added in exports. Moreover, excessive wages induce too much outsourcing of upstream production activities, which implies that export quantities grow too much in relation to value added contained in exports. Finally, excessive wages cause capital flight resulting in a too large current account surplus.

Money supply mechanisms in Nigeria

This study investigates the process of money supply mechanism in Nigeria in order to provide an explanation for the inflationary acceleration in money supply that occurred in the period 1970 to 1989. The initial double-digit inflation was found to have originated from the rapid growth in the external sector as a result of the oil export boom of the 1970s. The monetary authorities largely monetized the export receipts in order to finance a greater level of economic activities. The government then followed the monetization policy with a real bills doctrine, the success of which was ensured by the generous lending stance of central bank. African Journal of Economic Policy Vol. 11(2) 2004: 49-72

Chimneys in the desert: industrialization in Argentina during the export boom years, 1870-1930

@fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Figures iii List of Tables iii Acknowledgments iii Abbreviations iii @toc2:Introduction: Industrialization in an Agrarian Economy 000 1. The First Factories: The Dawn of Argentine Industry, 1870s1890s 000 2. The Market as an Object of Desire: The Rise of Domestic Industrial Consumption 000 3. The Victory of Big Business: Industrial Growth in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century 000 4. Only One Argentina: The Creation of a National Market for Manufactured Goods 000 5. Tension and Harmony in the Industrial Family: Entrepreneurs and Workers in Argentina's Factories 000 6. Money and Factories: The Myths and Realities of Industrial Financing 000 7. The Empire of Pragmatism: Politics and Industry in the Period 18801930 000 A Midway Industrialization: Concluding Remarks 000 @toc4:Appendices 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000

Das deutsche Ratsel: Warum wir Exportweltmeister und Schlusslicht zugleich sind*

: The article advances the hypothesis that Germany is unable to increase its gains from trade despite increasing trading volumes. High and rigid German wages largely result from the minimum wage constraint imposed by a welfare state that offers generous replacement incomes. Confronted by low-wage competition from post-communist countries, Germany overspecializes in capital intensive goods, which creates a pathological export boom in terms of added value produced in exports. In addition, the country overspecializes in downstream activities, which implies that export quantities grow faster than value added. The reasons which induce extremely high exports are the same as those which cause unemployment to rise and the economy to stagnate.

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930 (review)

Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930 (review)

The Pathological Export Boom and the Bazaar Effect - How to Solve the German Puzzle

Germany is the laggard of Europe, yet the country is world champion in merchandise exports. The paper tries to solve this theoretical and empirical puzzle by diagnosing a “pathological export boom” and a “bazaar effect”. Excessively high wages defended by unions and the welfare state against the forces of international low-wage competition destroy too big a fraction of the labour intensive sectors and drive too much capital and labour into the capital intensive export sectors, causing both unemployment and excessive value added in exports. Moreover, excessive wages induce too much outsourcing of upstream production activities which implies that export quantities grow too much in relation to value added contained in exports. Finally, excessive wages cause capital flight resulting in a too large current account surplus.

Sustainability and Ecuador's Flower Export Boom

Sustainability and Ecuador's Flower Export Boom

Manufacturing Sector Resiliency to Energy Booms: Empirical Evidence from Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

A natural resource based export boom can increase overall national wealth and improve a country's balance of payments position, but leave some sectors in a protracted and costly adjustment process. This phenomenon is known as disease, a term associated with the difficulties experienced by the Dutch manufacturing sector after the natural gas boom, hike in world energy prices and expansion of the gas-revenue financed government sector expansion in the Netherlands. This paper reviews the theoretical predictions of a country experiencing a resource boom. It then briefly describes the country experiences of the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom in this regard and finally develops a methodology for a more formal statistical analysis designed to shed light on the relationships between the energy sector and manufacturers in these countries, as well as to identify other potential explanatory factors.

Certain Victims of an International Contagion: The Panic of 1797 and the Hard Times of the Late 1790s in Baltimore

In the late 1790s, three events–the Panic of 1797, the Quasi-War with France, and a yellow fever epidemic–coincided to end a decade-long export boom in the United States and usher in hard times for the republic. Focusing on Baltimore as a case study, the evidence reveals that the economic downturn was a turning point for the U.S. economy rather than a temporary setback; thereafter, the domestic economy eclipsed overseas trade as the primary engine of growth. The first event that led to the hard times, the Panic of 1797, was a financial collapse precipitated by the Bank of England's suspension of specie payments. This action unraveled the web of Atlantic credit that many merchants depended on. Those with commercial interests in the Caribbean were somewhat insulated from the effects of the Panic, but they experienced major disruptions in 1797 and 1798 thanks to the Quasi-War with France. To make matters worse, the yellow fever epidemic eliminated any chance for recovery by shutting down affected American ports. Although the hard times had largely ended by 1800, the export boom did not return. Instead, U.S. overseas trade experienced extreme volatility and stagnation between 1800 and 1807. The Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812 accelerated the demise of the export economy as the wellspring of American prosperity, but the experience of Baltimore's business community demonstrates that the hard times of the late 1790s were the initial turning point for the shift towards the domestic economy.