About microeconomics - Article Example

Some apparel manufacturing ‘reshoring’ to USA I. The article “Some apparel manufacturing ‘reshoring’ to USA” is taken from USA Today news website. The article which is written by Paul Davidson, an American macroeconomist, was published on July 5, 2013.II. The author Davidson in his article talks about the apparel industry shifting its production base from foreign countries to the United States. This trend has created increased job opportunities in American although the industry faces strong competition from Asian countries because of their low labour costs.

There are however many benefits for American manufacturers of having production base in home country, since apparel industry has to respond to the fast changing style demand. With domestic production, orders can be fulfilled in much shorter time compared to longer period that is wasted in transporting clothing from overseas plant. For this same reason, quality of clothing can also be maintained if manufactured in domestic factories. However, this industry is still struggling in US because there is shortage of clothes makers in the country.

The objective of this article is to present the current scenario of the growing trend of apparel manufacturers within the US market. Recently, in Asian countries like China the labour cost is increasing which goes in favour of the American manufacturers. Also, American designer clothes enjoy a large share of international market as they are considered of superior quality. Domestic production acts as cost advantage because transport cost is saved as clothes are not required to be transferred from overseas market.

In this article, Davidson has stated the added advantage for small labels that sell university-licensed clothing as their business faces risk if they have to depend on shipments from foreign countries. As per the theory of comparative advantage, US domestic apparel industry enjoys comparative advantage as US clothing becomes first choice for global consumers because of the perception that US items are superior to products from Asian countries which is a result of research on product qualities and services.

A second advantage is that due to domestic production US garment industry can meet the market demand promptly without having to wait for shipments from abroad (Berdine, 2008, p.17).III. Davidson has managed to provide an overall picture of the advantages faced by US garment industry. He has presented examples like Brooks Bros. who owns a garment manufacturing plant in Massachusetts and has created 1,000 jobs. With this article the author has put forward the comparative advantages faced by the US garment industry with relation to market response and product quality, and also goodwill of US products in the global arena.

However, Davidson has also mentioned that labor cost is still a drawback since Asian countries like China has lower labour cost than US although labour cost is increasing in the Asian countries in recent years which can be advantageous for US since there is shortage of labour in the country like seamstresses and sewing machine mechanics.IV. The article has been written in a lucid language and can be easily understood by all readers. The subject matter of the article has been explained with the help of examples thus making it more comprehensible.

There is enough information gathered to prove the advantages and disadvantages of US garment industry.References1. Berdine, M. et al. (2008) Measuring the Comparative Advantage of the US Textile and Apparel Industry, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Annual conference, Boston, MA2. Davidson, P. (July 5, 2013) Some apparel manufacturing ‘reshoring’ to USA, USA Today, accessed on August 31, 2013 from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/04/some-apparel-manufacturing-returns-to-us/2454075/