Publication

This paper focuses on industrial adjustment to globalization by concentrating upon one particular sector - footwear. The authors consider the footwear sector to be a typical low-skill intensive manufacturing sector where comparative advantage has decisively shifted to low wage labor-abundant countries. The paper highlights a number of key issues, such as how adjustment to globalization has taken place in those European countries which were major footwear producers at the start of the 1970s. It further points to evidence of strategies used by firms to successfully adjust to the increased international competition from low-wage countries, including discussion of productivity growth, technological adaptation, upgrading of product quality and finally the development of industrial districts and flexible organization.