The persistent heterogeneity of trade patterns: A comparison of four European Automotive Global Production Networks

In this paper, we examine the structure and the evolution of international exchanges of auto parts over the 2000-2012 period for four European countries. The first part of our study reviews the literature and points out four stylized facts about the geography of automotive supply networks. In section 2 we propose an analysis of the organisation of automotive supply chains based on the global production networks framework. We give details about this approach by stating the nature of trade flows that occur in these networks, and by highlighting the importance of intra-firms flows. In the third part, we compare the structure of external GPNs of German, Spanish, British and French automotive firms located in these countries. On the basis of Chelem data about auto parts exchanges, we examine in a comparative way the evolution of intra-continental and intercontinental flows. Our results highlight the heterogeneity of situations and of trajectories in the different countries.