The influence of economies of agglomeration on location decisions has been debated since it was advanced by Alfred Weber in 1909. Empirical findings at the international, national, and regional levels do not definitely support the efficacy of such economies. No study has been done at a local level, the one inherently appropriate to the Weber premise. Further, most studies have used highly generalized manufacturing groupings. The importance of intra-industry and inter-industry determinants of spatial proximity in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area was investigated in this study. The data base included 220 industries with 2,111 firms employing 108,295 workers. National input-output transaction tables were used to generate measures of intra-industry and inter-industry technological linkage at the 4 digit Standard Industrial Code classification level. Nearest neighbor statistics were employed to measure the spatial proximity of firms within an industry. A spatial association measure, the local concentration coefficient, was devised to calculate spatial proximity among manufacturing firm pairs in various linkage relationships. Then, multiple linear regression was used to examine the relationships of intra- and inter-industry linkages to spatial proximity. Average firm size, material and market orientations, and transportation and utility cost intensities were treated as covariates in the analysis. A total of 25 models involving the covariates and various combinations of forward and backward linkages were executed. In 23 cases, the models and effects of linkages were insignificant. The observed influence of the covariates was generally insignificant. Clearly, economies of agglomeration have no effect on industrial patterns in this analysis. Further, the poor performance of the covariates suggest that application of existing theory to localized manufacturing plan selection processes may be misplaced. While these factors may function at the regional or national level, they do not on an intrametropolitan level, at least in this case. Seeking the specific factor of manufacturing linkage based economies of agglomeration or external economies may be a rare exception in location behavior in general and particularly inoperative at a local level. Local development policies which are premised on maximizing such economies are, accordingly, not supported by this research.

This dissertation explores the effect of trade liberalization on income distribution under conditions which depart in one or more ways from the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Each essay was written with Mexico in mind, but the results are stated in terms as general as possible. The first essay shows that adding underemployment to a static model of trade liberalization, under the particular specification chosen, creates a buffer against the change in average labor income which would otherwise occur consequent on a change in the terms of trade in the Stolper-Samuelson model. The second essay asserts that in the Mexico/U.S. case a factor intensity reversal may exist between corn and manufactures, so that if the cost of production of corn in Mexico is higher than its cost of production in the U. S. at the prevailing exchange rate (which was true until December 1994), opening up trade should cause the wage-rental ratio to fall in both countries. The third essay applies a Kaldorian model recently formalized by Peter Skott to examine whether trade liberalization will place Mexico on a path to further industrialization or to de-industrialization, where industrialization is defined as increasing non-agricultural employment as a share of the whole labor force. In this dual economy model, a falling wage share of industrial output ordinarily increases the rate of accumulation enough so that sooner or later a process of industrialization takes hold. However, for a range of plausible parameter values a country will fall into a "de-industrialization trap": due to rising agricultural income which is the reservation wage for industrial workers, the profit share of industrial output begins to fall before the industrial sector reaches the point of expansion as a proportion of the labor force. In Mexico, the drastic reduction of the wage share of industrial output effected during the 1980s through devaluation, wage repression and reduced support for agricultural development was necessary to create the conditions for successful long run industrialization. Given the wage reductions required so that trade liberalization would bring long run industrialization, trade liberalization may not have benefited the majority of Mexicans.

In this dissertation, I developed a unified framework for the modeling, analysis, and computation of solutions to both international financial problems with intermediation as well as to global supply chains through the medium of networks. The framework that I developed can handle as many decision-makers within each country as needed (be they sources of funds, financial intermediaries, or, as in the case of global supply chains: manufacturers, retailers, and/or distributors, as well as consumers), and enables the prediction of the flows (financial and product) between tiers of the networks as well as the prices at the tiers. In addition, I considered not only physical transactions between decision-makers but also virtual ones in the form of electronic transactions. I utilized tools from both management science and finance to identify the commonality in the structures of international financial networks and global supply chains. I modeled the behavior of the various decision-makers, which allows for multiple criteria such as profit maximization as well as risk minimization, and study the dynamics of the various interactions. The analysis was both qualitative in nature as well as computational. The effectiveness of the proposed methodologies was demonstrated through numerous examples. The research in this dissertation was motivated not only by the practical importance of the topic but also by the need to develop rigorous theoretical frameworks for complex decision-making on networks with an international focus. To-date, there have been many innovative models developed for multi-tiered networks. For example, Nagurney and Ke (2001, 2003) focused on financial multitiered networks with intermediation (with and without electronic transactions). Moreover, Nagurney, Dong, and Zhang (2002), Nagurney, Loo, Dong, and Zhang (2002), and Nagurney, Ke, Cruz, Hancock, and Southworth (2002) developed models for multitiered supply chains. All the above research has been centered on a single country. In this thesis, I captured such decisionmaking but in a multiple country, multiple currency context with enhanced risk management.

This dissertation analyzes the relation between industrial organization, technological change and economic policy-making. The secrets to long-term growth are hidden in this complex relation, which explains the forces that enable and hinder learning in production. The recent changes in the international economy are surveyed--changes in technologies, changes in the organization of production and work and changes in the structure of firms. The resulting change in the nature of competitiveness calls for a different theoretical framework and policy recommendations from traditional economic analysis. The study reviews the problems of the liberalization paradigm in economic development. The development theories that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s provided an early basis for concern with industrialization. Nevertheless, economic development theories have underplayed the importance of technological and organizational efforts. Economic development is redefined as a combination of a learning process and innovation. In the light of these ideas, the different stages in the industrial history of Argentina are reinterpreted. The transformations that are redefining the international automobile industry are reviewed, namely, changes in production methods, technological changes, inter-firm relations and international strategies. The implications of these changes are explored for the less developed countries that aim to have a future role in the industry. A strategic sector analysis is applied to the automobile industry in Argentina. This sector is of particular interest because it was an important force driving idiosyncratic import substitution efforts in the 1960s and is a test case for incomes, trade and sector promotion and protection policies in the 1990s. Drawing on case-study evidence from plant visits, the accumulated learning and future learning potential of the sector are evaluated. This potential is examined across four dimensions: the development of strategic, organizational, technological and learning capabilities. The study concludes with a reassessment of the conventional debates in traditional theory and policy-making. It argues for the need to move away from old dichotomies which fail to address how organizational and technological change interact to contribute to long-term growth.

This dissertation explores the significance of "community" and "place identity" in a New England town. I draw upon place identity theory, along with the work in community sociology regarding the significance of "community" in modern societies as foundations for constructing a model of place identity and community/society ambivalence. The research is based on a case study of a New England town's efforts to create an economic development plan after facing a threat from Wal-Mart Stores, Incorporated.

Why do some workers who apparently perform similar tasks and exercise similar job skills get paid very different wages? And, why do firms have the boundaries we observe; in particular, why do firms using closely related production technologies and serving closely related markets specialize instead of merging? That is, how do labor and product market segments emerge, and why might they persist in a competitive economy? I offer an integrated explanation for the striking case of the emergence of such market segments in for-hire motor freight, after its deregulation in 1980. Using firm-level data, I provide econometric evidence of the survival value of carrier specialization, as a result of either original status or strategic change, into one of two types. I also document the associated bimodal segmentation of the labor market for drivers/freight handlers. I argue that a difference in optimal human resource policies between the two types of firms is an important cause of the parallel segmentations. Differences in how similar production technologies are used to serve the two markets mean that firms have different optimal solutions to the agency problem they face in motivating employees, leading to high powered incentives at reservation wages in one case, and low powered incentives with positive rents in the other. But this difference in compensation schemes sharply increases the agency or transaction costs involved in bringing both types of production under common hierarchical control, due to pay equity effects, while the corresponding benefits are modest, leading most firms to specialize. To formalize this account, I extend a simple version of the standard “risk-sharing” principal agent framework by adding a reciprocity component, producing a new model with endogenous segmentation of the specified type. The new model also provides new hypotheses about the source of union wage differentials, and details a mechanism by which technological change can lead to increasing inequality in labor incomes that is distinct from the usual differential returns to skills account.

The Mexican maquiladora industry was thirty-four years old in 1999, the second summer of my field work. Many maquiladora workers are second and in a few cases third generation in their families in the industry. This dissertation is about the spaces they have negotiated. Maquiladora workers live a variety of lifestyles. Some get up in the morning, go to work and return to their families at the end of their shifts. Others have started or are saving to start their own enterprises. Some (especially women) have used the economic stability wage work provides to leave the confines of their families or marriages. Some maquiladora workers have renegotiated family relations, in part as a result of their financial independence and their experience of gender equality in the workplace. A few have moved in and out of the industry to bridge slow periods in their independent entrepreneurial activities. Collectively, and in some cases individually, maquiladora workers have affected the conditions and relations of production where they work. I will interpret their stories discourse of difference, one in which relations of power are produced, not assumed. My goal is to contribute to changing the direction of the academic debate that has surrounded the industry by constructing a new way of seeing what is happening and how participants are affected. Opening a new discursive space can allow that which is there but not seen to emerge and perhaps offer new political and economic possibilities for maquiladora workers.

This dissertation develops a new non-essentialist theory of the global trade policies pursued by the contemporary state, focusing especially upon modern tariff policy. Though a topic attracting perhaps unprecedented analysis throughout the history of economic thought, this understanding differs from existing theory in two important ways: (i) its incorporation of overdeterminist logic in understanding the workings of a deeply interconnected world economy; (ii) its utilization of class theory in delineating the existence of manifold processes of surplus value creation and distribution comprising a global class structure. In these two concepts, overdetermination and class, this dissertation presents a new understanding of trade controls, and a new argument against their use as economic policy. Case studies include examination of the emergence and impact of trade protection in post-colonial American society, and new insight into the rise of the Asian Miracle economies and New Protectionism of the late twentieth century.

This dissertation is primarily a comparison of the ways that different theories address social phenomena. As an important sub-theme, it is about relationships among theories, targeted social issues, and political actions. I argue that among the infinite processes that constitute any particular process are alternative theories (explanations of the social totality). A conscious acknowledgment of alternative theories and their respective entry points is important because it has a significant bearing on decisions regarding political actions that may affect the social totality. The targeted social issue used as an example in this dissertation is the international trade of hazardous waste, with a specific focus upon U.S.-Mexico trade of electric arc furnace dust. There are two dominant economic theories that help shape current political actions regarding international trade of hazardous waste: Neoclassical and World-Systems theories—both essentialist in epistemology and ontology. I show that Neoclassical theory calls for the policy of free trade in hazardous waste, while World-Systems theory calls for the policy of trade bans in hazardous waste between OECD and non-OECD countries. Both theories assume that theory is the primary determinant of policy and that policy will necessarily achieve the stated objective (maximum material well-being for Neoclassical theory and the end of unequal exchange between developed and peripheral countries for World-Systems theory). A third, relatively-new theory that is not widely known is Marxian Class theory, which is nonessentialist in both epistemology and ontology. It has a very different conception of policy than essentialist theories. Marxian Class theory views itself as one among an infinite number of processes that helps shape political interventions, which it views as being among an infinite number of processes that help to shape the stated objective. Because of its unique entry points, the class process and overdetermination, it has the potential to focus attention on the otherwise ignored process of exploitation. This theory is therefore in a unique position to help push the social totality toward elimination of this injustice, and to help create alliances among those whose foci may differ but whose larger goals are to create a less toxic and more equitable social totality.

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