Fabric Trade: An Industry in Crisis

Abstract

This article presents the empirical results of an intra-industry trade analysis of the United States fabric industry. The analysis included 92 countries in four Standard Industrialized Trade Classification (SITC) categories that represent the fabric industry. Results indicated that intraindustry trade levels were generally low, and country specific factors such as levels of economic development, levels of market size and trade deficit were negatively associated with intra-industry trade levels, while distance and trade barriers were somewhat positively associated. These results have strong implications for trade analysts, policy makers and fabric manufacturers as this industry is currently undergoing changes.

Intra-industry trade: a methodology to test the automobile industry in South Africa

“…This implies that the average level of tariffs in the South African automobile industry provides an advantage for further expansion of IIT. This is not surprising, since a similar conclusion is arrived at by Kind and Hathcote (2004), who find that the level of tariffs between the US and fabric trading partners has a positive impact on the level of IIT. On the other hand, Hellvin's study (1996) (see table 2).…”

“…Several empirical studies specifically focus on IIT with respect to specific industries (Tharakan & Kerstens, 1995;Kind & Hathcote, 2004). However, very limited work has been done, as mentioned above, on IIT specifically in the automobile and automobile parts industries (Montout et al, 2002;Umemoto, 2005).…”