POWER SHIFT: THE RISING CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTORS AND RETAILERS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN FOR MANUFACTURED GOODS
The development of new technology combined with the process of deregulation is changing the organizational structure of firms in the wholesale sector. These factors are altering the traditional location of wholesale and warehouse employment, and a variety of countervailing locational tendencies are emerging, including the decentralization of large mass wholesalers and their warehousing complexes and increasing specialization of inner-urban wholesale and warehouse functions. Nationally based wholesalers now transport goods off-hours to meet the needs of large-destination customers. Small, specialized firms make use of new technology to reduce costs, while offering highly tailored services to traditional customers. There also is a general reduction in wholesale employment, with losses concentrated in inner-urban areas as large wholesalers move their warehousing operations out to rural and adjacent suburban areas to take advantage of cheaper land and labor.
Logistics agglomeration in the US
Governments around the world are investing significant resources in the development of logistics clusters. This paper develops a methodology for identifying them and applies it to answer several lingering questions in the context of the US. It contributes to a more general debate in the general industrial clusters literature: while many authors see industrial clusters growing, others see them dispersing. To answer this and related questions in the context of logistics clusters the paper first analyzes the prevalence of such clusters using a two-index methodology to identify clusters in the US. Evidence of increasing concentration of the logistics industry in clusters in the US over time is tested and documented. In addition, some evidence that logistics activities in counties inside clusters show higher growth than counties outside clusters is found.
Achievements and contradictions of the Peruvian agrarian reform
Different paths of transition to capitalist agriculture, as well as different types of agrarian reform, can be distinguished. The Peruvian agrarian reform is analysed within this context and evaluated in terms of its contribution to rural development. The Peruvian case underlines the importance of understanding the rationality of the pre‐existent agrarian system for a successful restructuring of the agrarian economy and society. The contradictions which arose between the State's model and the peasants’ model of agrarian reform, as well as those between different types of peasants, are discussed. Peru's experience is also a reminder that a land reform is not a sufficient condition for rural development unless accompanied by proper price, marketing, credit and investment policies.