Mexico

Upgrading to Compete: SMEs, Clusters and Value Chains in Latin America

Upgrading to Compete: SMEs, Clusters and Value Chains in Latin America

Published by Harvard University Press

Edited with Carlo Pietrobelli

This books investigates clusters and value chains in Latin America. Globalization imposes new conditions and rules for competitiveness in international markets. It poses the imperative to link up with other actors, both at the local and at the global level, and find new ways to interact and learn from the relationship. Can local markets and clusters represent a powerful alternative to global markets? Do transnational corporations and global buyers play a role and enhance or undermine local firms’ upgrading and learning? What opportunities do clustering and global value chains offer to SMEs in global markets?
Upgrading to Compete shows that both the local and the global dimensions matter at once. Clustering and collaborating with other local firms offers substantial advantages, while also participating in global value chains and interacting with foreign buyers and companies may enhance local firms’ capabilities and access to distant markets. However, what remarkably matters is the form of governance of value chains and clusters that importantly affects the upgrading process of local SMEs.
The book illustrates this with original empirical evidence from several clusters in Latin America. New case studies from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua are supplemented by desk studies on other experiences in the region.

«At a time when there is growing interest in Latin America on active production sector strategies and on the role of SMEs, Pietrobelli and Rabellotti make in this book an essential contribution. “Upgrading to Compete” is full of quality information and insights. I look forward for the introduction of many of the ideas and recommendations of this book into policy action.»
Jose Antonio Ocampo
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Economic and Social Affairs

«This book offers a new way of thinking into fundamental aspects of industrial organization and international trade and exploits original case studies to develop new ideas and stylized facts.»
Michael Piore
David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The book was reviewed in Foreign Affairs

You can buy the book here

Recovery of a Mexican Cluster: Devaluation Bonanza or Collective Efficiency?

World Development, 27(9): 1571-1585

Mexico, as many other developing countries in Latin America and elsewhere, has been moving in the 1980s toward a liberalized trade regime after a long period of import substitution. This paper analyzes the impact of trade liberalization on the cooperative behavior of shoe ®rms located in a cluster in Guadalajara. The empirical evidence shows that cooperation has increased. It also suggests that cooperation positively influences firms’ performance and together with a favorable market environment contributes to the cluster’s recovery. The study is based on ®eldwork carried out in Guadalajara in 1996. Qualitative information was collected through in-depth interviews and quantified responses came from a questionnaire survey covering a sample of 63 shoe manufacturing enterprises.

Download the pdf, JA World Development 1999-09

Collective effects in Italian and Mexican footwear industrial clusters

Small Business Economics, 10(3):243-262

The focus of this article is on the analysis of the collective economic effects deriving from the intense set of backward, forward, labor, horizontal and institutional linkages existing within clusters of enterprises. Among the economic effects two main categories are distinguished: external economies, which are the spontaneous by-product of economic activities undertaken within the clusters and cooperation effects, which are the results of explicit and deliberate cooperative behaviors of the economic actors. In the empirical investigation, these economic effects have been analyzed in four clusters of footwear firms in Italy and Mexico. The first result of the empirical investigation is the confirmation of the importance of collective efficiency both in the ‘proper’ Italian districts and in the Mexican clusters. Nevertheless, there are considerable differences concerning the intensity and quality of the collective effects between the realities studied. Those differences are explained through the impact of the disparities in the outside environment on the core characteristics of the different clusters. Finally, some considerations about the need for moving from a static to a dynamic approach to explain differences between stages of development and growth trajectory patterns of the districts are put forward.

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External economies and cooperation in industrial districts: a comparison of Italy and Mexico

External economies and cooperation in industrial districts: a comparison of Italy and Mexico

This book was published by McMillan and also translated in Persian.

The success of industrial districts in Europe has attracted the interest of development economists in their search for new industrial development models. This study explores the extent to which the industrial district ‘model’ explains the realities of four footwear clusters in Italy, the ‘land’ of districts, and in Mexico, a less developed country. Empirical investigation confirms that there are gains from clustering; however, differences have also been identified in the intensity and quality of collective effects between the realities studied and the ‘model’. Those differences are attributed to disparities in the external environments, to heterogeneity of economic actors, and to the adoption of a dynamic approach to interpret cluster growth trajectories.

Is there an industrial district “model”? Footwear districts in Italy and Mexico

World Development, 23 (1) 29-41

In this paper we present the results of empirical research carried out in two footwear clusters located in Italy, the “land of industrial districts,” and two clusters of footwear enterprises in Mexico. The aim of the study is to present a comparison between the ideal-typical industrial district, as it is defined in the literature, and the case studies in Mexico and Italy. Material from a survey of clusters of firms in Italy and Mexico reveals how clusters in both countries differ in some aspects from the “textbook” model. Similarities and differences are- investigated in some detail, and attention is given to the intensity and quality of backward and forward linkages, the existence of an “industrial atmosphere” and the nature and extent of institutional support.

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