Lilith: The Personification of Humanity's Fears

The central argument of this dissertation is that geographical restructuring in the North American---and US auto industry in particular---has not followed a race-to-the-bottom trajectory over the past two decades, but instead has been characterized by growth and decline simultaneously in space and time.

Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, restructuring in the auto industry is not determined primarily by production costs, but instead has multiple determinants such as the desire to attain access to a large or growing market with a skilled, healthy workforce, the demands of the assembler-supplier relationship, export-oriented industrial policies, and pressures from finance.

The relative importance of these determinants in shaping firm trajectory is governed by state policy and the dynamics of global capitalism.

The dissertation approaches the subject of capital mobility in the auto industry through a two-pronged strategy: First, we present new data on shifting investment patterns from 1988 to 2006.

This new database was constructed using Automotive News, a major automotive trade journal.

The database contains all plant openings, expansions, closings and downsizings (along with additional information) for both assemblers and Tier 1 suppliers reported in Automotive News between 1988 and 2006.

Additional production data used to verify the findings of the new database were also collected.

Second, we explore why firms move by tracking two automotive firms---one that moved to the US in the late 1990s wave of foreign supplier investment, and one that is closing down plants in the US and focusing production outside the country.

Data for the case studies were collected from a variety of sources including: interviews, primary documents from the companies and their respective unions, industry reports, public filings, and newspapers.

This dissertation presents new empirical evidence, including a new database on geographical restructuring, that challenges the validity of common globalization narratives, in particular, popular arguments that restructuring in the auto industry is determined primarily by factors such as wage and benefit levels.

These new empirical findings suggest a need to revisit theories of capital mobility.