Still sticky after all those years? The resurgence of Marshallian districts in a world of global production networks

ABSTRACT

The rise of globally fragmented production since the 1980s encouraged economic regions to specialise in narrow slices of the value chain, making the benefits from local agglomeration no longer certain. Nonetheless, locally integrated production districts continue to thrive. Locally integrated industrial districts have proven sustainable in times of both increasing and decreasing fragmentation of production. Drawing upon insights from three schools – the Markusian logic of multiple district models, strategic coupling and the production of semi-public goods – this article uses a two-staged case-study design to explore the conditions under which locally integrated production districts continue to thrive in the global economy.

KEYWORDS:

• global production networks
• intergraded industrial districts

JEL:

• P51
• R58
• Z21

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special appreciation to the Munk School of Global Affairs, the Lupina Foundation, the University of South Carolina CIBER and Trinity College Dublin for their generous support of this research. This article is based on an earlier working paper manuscript through the University of Toronto Munk School Innovation Policy Lab Working Paper Series (2020-01), https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/126249.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.