Information Structure and Behaviour of a Textile Industrial District

This article presents a model of the structure of information fluxes that underlie the creation of production chains in a textile district located in Prato, Tuscany, central Italy. Contrary to most textile districts in western Europe and north America, Prato did not extinct once average salaries in the re-gion rose well above the world's lowest standards. The reason is that Prato was able to switch from a competitive advantage based on low prices to a competitive advantage based on aesthetical features and variety of textiles. Analysis of the structure of production chains can explain the behaviour of the district throughout its evolution. The model reconstructs interactions of ten types of Pratese firms from 1946 to 1993 in scale 1:1.