Information Structure and Behaviour of a Textile Industrial District

Guido Fioretti

Urban/Regional from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This article presents a model of the structure of the information flows that underlie the creation of production chains between thousands of small textile firms located in Prato, central Italy. Contrary to most textile industry of western Europe and north America, Prato did not die out once average salaries in the region rose towards the world's highest. The reason is that Prato was able to switch from a competitive advantage based on low prices to a competitive advantage based on the aesthetical features and variety of textiles. Analysis of the structure of production chains can explain the performance of this distributed production system throughout its evolution. The model reconstructs interactions of ten types of Pratese firms from 1946 to 1993 on a scale 1:1.

Keywords: Regional economics; industrial districts; organization of production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C69 D29 D79 L23 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-08-13, Revised 2002-08-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-ent and nep-tid
Note: Available at http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/4/4/1.html
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0207003

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