The Philippines in the Paper Global Value Chain

This report uses the Duke CGGC Global Value Chain (GVC) framework to examine the role of the Philippines in the global paper industry and identify opportunities for upgrading. The Philippines’ paper sector is a domestically oriented industry that provides significant indirect employment opportunities for wide swaths of workers as well as indirect exports for sectors such as electronics, food and beverage, and cosmetics. However, the country’s overall participation in the paper GVC is limited, with raw material constraints hindering export development. Abaca pulp production, a niche product category that uses the Manila hemp plant to generate specialized outputs such as tea bags and bank notes, is the country’s most dependable export, but even with the export value of abaca pulp approaching an all-time high in 2014, the overall paper industry only generated US$127 million in export revenue, 54th among 193 countries in the world.

Women in the Global Clothing and Textile Industry

This paper examines the current role of women in the clothing and textile industry through oral history of South African union members. I argue that the industry’s particularly exploitative environment is directly related to both gender and globalization, acting together to worsen conditions in factories. Additionally, I argue that the more recent addition of an increasingly consumer-driven industry structure also impacts its abusive environment. Unionization, along with public and private regulation, have the potential to be catalysts for change in the industry. To be most effective, these organizations need to take into account both gender and globalization, and recognize the equal impacts both have when making decisions.

Increased Foreign Revenue Shares in the United States Film Industry: 2000 – 2014

The American film industry, which has historically been driven by the domestic market, now receives an increasing proportion of its revenue from abroad (foreign share). To determine the factors influencing this trend, this paper analyzed data from 11 countries of 2,337 American films released during 2000 – 2014. Both film and country attributes were analyzed to determine each attribute’s effect on foreign share, whether its effect size has changed over time and whether each attribute has changed in frequency amongst films released. The results identified six attributes, star actors, sequels, releases in top markets, release time lag, GDP growth and a match in language, that contributed to the increase in foreign share over this period.