One point about exports that has not been discussed much is the idea that
the proceeds from exports do not necessarily end up at the point of origin
or even the country of origin. If a transnational corporation uses a
developing country as an export platform, that benefits the firm but not the
people of the country as the export growth model would assume. The same is
true of exports from the U.S. We did an analysis of export industries in
Illinois to see if growth in exports to Mexico actually enhanced employment.
It did not. There are a lot of reasons for that (which the study did not
address) but among them is the fact that the major firms that dominate each
industry had global options about where to put export revenues. We are now
doing a few case studies of firms to try to amplify the firm analysis.
Dave Ranney
University of Illinois at
Chicago Center for Urban
Economic Development
