Export Success and Industrial Linkages: The Case of Readymade Garments in South Asia

Neo-classical economic trade theory suggests that countries on an aggregate level specialize in products that are consistent with their particular advantages and this book suggests that the predictions of the theory are broadly borne out.  However, this theory is cast on a very aggregate level such as textiles and steel and the theory provides little guidance on process. Thus, there is little one learns from the theory about business, structural, and institutional practices that make a particular country more successful than others even if their broad comparative advantage is similar.  Similarly, one learns little about the various forms of critical linkages or partnerships, backward and forward (induced by industrial policy or spontaneous), public-private, domestic-foreign (in a value chain context), South-South, and intra-cluster or sector that result in export success and failure in the garment industry in South Asia.