Do geese migrate domestically?: Evidence from the Chinese textile and apparel industry

The vast majority of empirical literature on "flying geese" examines industrial relocation across national boundaries, in particular in Asia. However, few studies have empirically tested whether this kind of "flying geese" pattern of industrial relocation has occurred domestically in a large country, provided that the regional difference is large enough. Using textile and apparel industry data for the period 1997-2008 in China, the paper shows that until 2004, the textile and apparel industry was still concentrated in the eastern region of China, but starting in 2005, the flying geese phenomenon of industrial relocation began to appear.