Capturing gains by relocating global production networks: the rise of Chongqing’s notebook computer industry, 2008–2014

Abstract

In 2008 a new notebook manufacturing cluster was established in Chongqing in western China. By 2013 it accounted for some 25% of world output by volume. Chongqing’s ability to attract this manufacturing supply chain was driven by several factors that permitted strategic coupling: the existence of complex networks of cooperation and economies external to the firm but internal to contemporary global production networks; changed conditions in southeast and east China; and the creation by Chongqing Municipal People’s Government with central state support of hard and soft infrastructures and externalities that drove down logistic and production costs and permitted constant product innovation.

Keywords:

• Global value chains
• industrial clusters
• industrial location
• externalities
• governance
• computer industry
• capturing gains
• China
• Chongqing

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Youth Scholar Funds of Central University of Finance and Economics in China, Major Research Cultivation Project of Central University of Finance and Economics in China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.