Abstract

MINIAN, Isaac. Once Again on the Segmentation of International Production. Economía UNAM [online]. 2009, vol.6, n.17, pp.46-68. ISSN 1665-952X.

This paper focuses on a fundamental trait of globalization: the segmentation of international production and the corresponding growth in the international trade of manufactured intermediate goods. It studies the economic rationale behind segmentation processes, especially the ones that take place between countries with advanced economies and those with emerging economies. An essential feature of this phenomenon is rooted on the modular organization of industrial production in developed countries, which increases efficiency and disintegrates the vertical organization of production. This, in turn, relocates the segments of production to different countries. In high-tech segments obsolescence is one of the main factors behind modular organization and consequently production relocation. This paper also emphasizes the role of innovative activities on globalization: they create new intermediate manufactured goods which are not the result of a previously integrated production. This process thus constitutes a new source of national and international segmentation. Similarly, this paper points out the dramatic reductions in the costs of international transactions as well as the active industrial policies of emergent economies which result in a drop of production costs. This produces a radical change in the international geography of industrial activities, with advanced economies facing deindustrialization and emergent ones, such as China, India, countries of the south-east of Asia and Eastern Europe, facing rapid industrialization. Finally, this work has a section that traces different research paths related to the social and economic impact of fragmentation.