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Industrial Restructuring and Early Industry Pathways in the Asian First-Generation NICs: The Singapore Garment Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Leo van Grunsven

    (Economic Geography Section, Department of Human Geography and Planning, and Urban and Regional Research Centre Utrecht, Faculty of Geo-Sciences, Utrecht University, PO Box 80.115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Floor Smakman

    (Economic Geography Section, Department of Human Geography and Planning, and Urban and Regional Research Centre Utrecht, Faculty of Geo-Sciences, Utrecht University, PO Box 80.115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The authors aim to contribute to understanding of the industrial dynamics/evolution of mature export production complexes in the first generation Asian newly industrialised countries (NICs), employing an evolutionary economic perspective. Over the past decade and longer, the first-generation Asian NICs, Singapore included, have been confronted with imperatives necessitating deep restructuring. We observe that the pattern of industrial decline associated with failed restructuring caused by lock-in does not fit these countries, industrial regions, and early industries. Yet research has hardly begun to look at adjustment or to address deeper evolution from tenets in the framework of evolutionary economics, although such an approach is made more rather than less relevant by continued resilience. We analyse the pathway(s) of one early industry, the apparel industry in Singapore, through the 1980s and 90s. The withering away in the Singapore context of an industry such as apparel manufacture is not inevitable. From a juxtaposition of the line of thinking in evolutionary economics in which hindrance and decline due to path dependency and lock-ins are emphasised, with an alternative line in which the possibility of adjusting through renewal and the limited operation of lock-ins is emphasised, we discuss why the latter rather than the former has been the case.

Suggested Citation

  • Leo van Grunsven & Floor Smakman, 2005. "Industrial Restructuring and Early Industry Pathways in the Asian First-Generation NICs: The Singapore Garment Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(4), pages 657-680, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:37:y:2005:i:4:p:657-680
    DOI: 10.1068/a37116
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Robert Hassink, 2010. "Locked in Decline? On the Role of Regional Lock-ins in Old Industrial Areas," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 21, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Niels Beerepoot, 2008. "The Benefits of Learning in Clusters: Analyzing Upward Mobility for Skilled Workers in the Cebu Furniture Cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(10), pages 2435-2452, October.
    3. Yi Zhou & Canfei He & Shengjun Zhu, 2015. "Does Creative Destruction Work for Chinese Regions? An Empirical Study on the Articulation between Firm Exit and Entry," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1522, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2015.
    4. Yan Li & Huiying Sun & Jincheng Huang & Qingbo Huang, 2020. "Low-End Lock-In of Chinese Equipment Manufacturing Industry and the Global Value Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-25, April.

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