Analysis of a large set of plant-level data shows the auto supplier industry to be highly spatially concentrated. Data on location of the plants' customers, however, suggest that immediate proximity to assembly plant is not necessary, despite a production system that emphasized low inventories...

The authors examine changes in the footprint of the auto industry in the United States, starting in 1980 and tracking them through 2003. Their formal analysis of assembly and supplier plant locations traces the reorientation of the auto region from one that extends east–west to one that...

This paper is a chapter in our forthcoming monograph, Job Creation, Job Destruction, and International Competition (W.E. Upjohn Institute 2003), and expands on the ideas advanced in Klein, Schuh, and Triest (2003). The chapter is a case study of the impact of the North American Free Trade...