Restructuring of the international clothing and textile trade network: the role of Italy and Portugal

Marlies Hanna Schütz () and Nicole Palan (born Höhenberger)
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Marlies Hanna Schütz: University of Graz

Journal of Economic Structures, 2016, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-29

Abstract: Abstract Since the 1990s, the clothing and textile (C&T)-industry has been tremendously affected by changes in technology, trade costs, and the institutional environment. This paper studies the restructuring of C&T-trade from the perspective of Europe’s two most prominent C&T-goods producing countries—Italy and Portugal. We explore these two countries’ situation in a global context and concentrate our analysis to two distinct economic variables, C&T-value added and C&T-labor. Moreover, we contribute to the existing literature by distinguishing between domestically and internationally traded C&T-goods as well as between trade in intermediate and final demand C&T-goods, which enables us to give a more full-fledged picture on restructuring of C&T-trade. We show that international C&T-production became more concentrated between 1995 and 2009. In a further step, we investigate changes with regard to import penetration of C&T-trade, international outsourcing, the distance to final demand for C&T-goods, and another range of country-specific trade patterns. Our main findings reveal that Italy was more oriented toward C&T-production activities which generate high value added, whereas Portugal was less productive and relatively more specialized into the production of labor-intensive C&T-goods. Thus, Portugal was more prone to the rising international pressure from low-wage countries, whereas in Italy restructuring of C&T-trade had comparatively less severe effects.

Keywords: Restructuring; Clothing and textile industry; International trade network; Trade of intermediate and final demand C&T-goods; Directly embodied C&T-value added and -labor; Italy and Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C67 F14 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1186/s40008-016-0046-7

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