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Commerce international, fabrication flexible et sous‐traitance .
Author(s) -
Eckel Carsten
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5982.2009.01552.x
Subject(s) - outsourcing , industrial organization , globalization , upstream (networking) , business , economies of scale , productivity , downstream (manufacturing) , welfare , consolidation (business) , manufacturing , product (mathematics) , general equilibrium theory , production (economics) , international trade , economics , microeconomics , market economy , engineering , marketing , telecommunications , geometry , mathematics , accounting , macroeconomics
This study analyzes the impact of opening up markets on the diffusion of flexible manufacturing in a general equilibrium framework. With flexible manufacturing, suppliers can service a range of downstream industries and do not have to be concerned about being held up. Instead, the vertical structure is determined by the trade‐off between economies of scale in flexible manufacturing and product specificity of in‐house production. The analysis derives a number of testable predictions with regard to firm size and productivity measures and shows that globalization can lead to a consolidation in upstream markets, lower real wages, and reduce welfare.