Europe's Auto Industry
Global Production Networks and Spatial Change

Draws on the global production networks and global value chains perspectives to analyze Europe's automotive industry.

Petr Pavlínek (Author)

9781009453233, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 January 2025

266 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'For students and researchers, this book will remain a core work on the international division of labor in the European automotive industry for a long time to come. A must for all those interested in core-periphery dynamics in the industry.' Martin Krzywdzinski, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Drawing on the analytical approaches of global production networks, global value chains, and spatial divisions of labor, this book investigates the changing automotive industry in Europe. Petr Pavlínek is a leading scholar of the automotive industry and here he focuses on its restructuring and geographic reorganization since the early 1990s to analyze the driving forces and regional development effects of these changes. Pavlínek explains the spatial profit-seeking strategies of large automotive firms and their role in the restructuring and increasing internationalization of Europe's automotive industry through foreign direct investment. He also considers how rapid growth in eastern Europe has affected western Europe, evaluates the relative position of countries in the European automotive industry, and examines the transition to the production of electric vehicles in eastern Europe. Europe's Auto Industry features original data along with concepts and methods that may be applied in economic geography, economics, industrial sociology and development studies. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Foreign direct investment and economic development in less developed countries
2. Revisiting foreign direct investment in peripheral regions
3. Foreign direct investment and supplier linkages in integrated peripheries
4. Restructuring and internationalization of the European automotive industry
5. The core-periphery structure of the European automotive industry
6. Value creation and capture in the automotive industry
7. Transition toward the production of electric vehicles in eastern Europe
8. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: International business [KJK]