Sewing Success?: Employment and Wages Following the End of the Multi-fibre Arrangement

The end of the MFA was followed by rising apparel exports, falling prices, and a reallocation of production and employment between countries. There were also significant changes within countries. The first main finding of this report is that export and employment patterns after the MFA/ATC did not necessarily match predictions; second, changes in exports are usually, but not always, good indicators of what happens to wages and employment within countries; third, it identifies the specific ways that changes in the global apparel market affected earnings.