Does global value chain engagement improve firms' wages: Evidence from China

Better understanding of the effect of the global value chain (GVC) on wages is a key issue for determining welfare gains from engagement in international integration. We study whether and how China's engagement in the GVC enhances firms' wage by using firm‐level and customs transaction‐level data covering the period 2000–06 with the methods of propensity score matching (PSM), difference in differences (DID) and generalised propensity score (GPS). The empirical results show that first, GVC engagement can improve firms' wage. Second, the improvement effect is more prominent in capital‐intensive and foreign‐invested enterprises. Third, the degree of embedment in the GVC shows a U‐shaped relationship with wages (the marginal improvement changes from decreasing to increasing). Finally, by analysing the mechanism, we find that participation in the GVC ultimately improves the overall wage level of enterprises through the productivity effect and the reallocation effect of labour demand.     

Does vertical specialisation increase productivity?

This paper investigates the impact of global value chain (GVC) participation on productivity. It uses data on trade in value‐added from the World Input‐Output Database. The results based on a panel estimation covering 13 sectors in 40 countries over 15 years suggest that participation in GVCs is a significant driver of labour productivity. Backward participation in GVCs, that is, the use of imported inputs to produce for exports, emerges as particularly important. An increase by 10% in the level of GVC participation increased average productivity by close to 1.6%.     

Global value chain linkages: An integrative review of the opportunities and challenges for SMEs in developing countries

This study reviews the literature on the challenges and opportunities of the global value chain (GVC) participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. A three-step approach to the literature review is used for synthesizing the relevant research works. In the end, we retain that SMEs are drivers of economic growth and despite the many challenges they face, the opportunity for developing country SMEs to benefit from their GVC linkages does exist, notably the high-quality information that they would otherwise not have access to. However there are necessary preconditions, resources and strategies that need to be put together to ensure the successful integration and growth (upgrading) of these SMEs within GVCs. The findings and proposed model contribute to enrich existing GVC research and offer a theoretical guide for possible practical measures to be adopted by SMEs and governments in developing countries.     

Transition,regulation and trade in services

Market-oriented reforms launched at the beginning of the 1990s have had a profound impact on the restructuring of the service sector in transition economies. Reforms have introduced complex regulatory changes that substantially diminished the barriers to competition in services, thereby improving the supply of services. The article explores the patterns and effects of regulatory changes in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) on services exports in the period 1993–2004. The econometric analysis finds a statistically significant impact of the regulatory reforms on service exports. The effects are more significant for the period 1999–2004 and seem to suggest that efficient implementation of reforms during the accession process had beneficial consequences also for service exports. However, there is enough room for the CEECs to dismantle further the obstacles to services provision and to improve the governance of the service markets within the internal market for services.     

Assessing Export Competitiveness through the Lens of Value Added

Extensive changes in the organization of world trade over the last two decades have renewed concerns about countries’ ability to compete in export markets. The impact could be especially large in industries that participate in global value chains (GVCs). This study assesses the recent export performance of 56 countries in five industries associated with GVCs using an index of normalised revealed comparative advantage (RCA) that can be compared across industries and countries and new data on the domestic value added in exports from the OECD's Trade in Value‐added database. For a number of the GVC industries, countries identified as the most competitive based on gross exports are often found to be less competitive when evaluated in terms of domestic value added. Business services are an important exception; several countries appear more competitive on a value‐added basis than based on conventional measures of gross exports. Despite concerns about hollowing out, a number of major industrial countries remain highly competitive in one or more GVC industries, even from the perspective of domestic value added. A value‐added approach to RCA provides insights that are not apparent from an exclusive focus on gross exports.     

Global value chains and inward foreign direct investment in the 2000s

In this paper, we make use of recent data published by the World Input‐Output Database to: (i) provide evidence on trade in value added of the major Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) member countries and major emerging economies (designated by OE country group), namely by measuring the degree of participation in global value chains (GVCs) at the country and sectoral levels; and (ii) estimate whether the GVC participation of OE countries has positively influenced foreign direct investment (FDI) inward stocks in the 2000s. The pooled regression model estimated shows that the country′s degree of GVC participation has contributed positively for bilateral FDI inward stocks, after controlling for other possible FDI determinants.     

Trade Performance of Export Processing Zones

Export processing zones (EPZs) have become widespread with the liberalisation of international trade and investment. They are key players in the deepening of the global value chain (GVC). However, little is known about their contribution to world trade due to a lack of information on their location and status. This paper sets out to improve knowledge in this area by analysing the trade performance of EPZ countries at macro‐level with a focus on EPZ externalities and distortive costs. We have built an original database of EPZs in which we define them as processing zones benefiting from import tariff incentives. We show that EPZs increase trade only by easing the negative impact of protection. As importers of components and raw materials, they raise the rest of the world's exports. This confirms the contribution of EPZs to the GVC. This result is robust to a change in the model specification, errors and bias due to data collection issues and sample composition.     

全球价值链与国内价值链——基于投入产出表的新方法

价值链作为组织和协调经济活动的微观机制,已使经济全球化和增长模式发生了深刻的变化。本文利用来自投入产出表的新方法,测度了广东省和江苏省全球价值链和国内价值链的水平。结果表明,粤苏两省切入全球价值链的倾向高于切入国内价值链的倾向,而对其它省份关联效应较大的行业基本上是中间品行业,且具有自然资源密集的特征。全球价值链与国内价值链之间的互动关系,则关系到我国产业升级的前景和区域经济协调发展的基础。     

中美制造业参与全球价值链分工程度与地位分析——兼论中美贸易摩擦对中国价值链分工的影响

随着全球经济进入以生产过程分节化和中间品贸易为主要特征的全球价值链时代,制造业正在成为一些大国参与全球产业分工、争夺产业链、价值链高端的角力场。本文对2000-2014年中美两国制造业行业参与全球价值链(GVC)分工程度及分工地位进行对比分析,发现中国制造业参与GVC分工地位指数总体小于美国同期值,美国制造业在GVC分工中处于相对上游环节,这与中国制造业后向参与GVC分工程度较高相一致。与美国相比,中国在全球价值链分工中不具竞争优势,中美贸易摩擦对双方GVC分工都有着不同程度的影响。中国需加快受制产业的自主创新步伐,积极推进出口市场多元化,重点加强与“一带一路”沿线国家的合作。     

GVC参与度对中国制造业出口国内附加值的影响研究

基于贸易增加值核算框架,使用2000年~2014年中国18个制造业的样本数据,应用广义最小二乘法实证检验了GVC参与度对出口国内附加值的影响效果。结果显示:参与GVC程度的加深会带动出口国内附加值的增长,进口中间品会降低出口国内附加值,但GVC参与度提高所引起的出口国内附加值增长幅度大于进口中间品所引起的下降幅度,出口国内附加值与GVC地位存在U型关系,行业生产效率的提升、产品国际竞争力的增强和加入WTO都显著提高了出口国内附加值,改变出口国内附加值的测度方法后,上述结果依然稳健。将制造业分为高、中级技术类别,高技术制造业有更强的附加值获取能力,中级技术制造业更多依赖高密集度的劳动投入分享附加值。     

中国与金砖国家贸易利益与分工研究——基于2000-2014年贸易数据的分析

基于总贸易核算法和WIOD数据,本文从增加值贸易视角考察中国与其他金砖国家的贸易利益与全球价值链(GVC)分工地位,并通过垂直专业化结构讨论了贸易利益与分工地位存在的关系。研究表明:2000-2014年中国对金砖国家出口中的贸易利益占比和GVC分工地位均呈现出“V”型的变化趋势,中国主要处于GVC分工的下游环节,在与其他金砖国家贸易中处于相对不利的贸易利益分配地位;中国处于较低GVC分工地位的原因在于通过“加工贸易”模式参与GVC分工,主要以劳动密集型制造业为典型,导致中国的贸易获利能力相对较弱;俄罗斯和巴西的贸易获利能力有所加强,并处于相对较高的分工地位,印度的贸易获利能力和分工地位均有所下降。因此,与金砖国家贸易合作对中国在GVC分工体系下提升贸易获利能力和分工地位产生了积极作用。     

Export-led growth: a survey of the empirical literature and some non-causality results. Part 1

The economic development and growth literature contains extensive discussions on relationships between exports and economic growth. One debate centres on whether countries should promote the export sector to obtain economic growth. An abundant empirical literature on this export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis has followed. We aim to contribute to this literature in two ways. In this paper, part 1, we provide a comprehensive survey of more than 150 export-growth applied papers. We describe the changes that have occurred, over the last two decades, in the methodologies used empirically to examine for relationships between exports and economic growth, and we provide information on the current findings.The last decade has seen an abundance of time series studies that focus on examining for causality via exclusions restrictions tests, impulse response function analysis and forecast error variance decompositions. Our second contribution is to examine some of these time series methods. We show, in part 2, that ELG results based on standard causality techniques are not typically robust to specification or method. We do this by reconsidering two export-led growth applications – Oxley’s (1993) study for Portugal, and Henriques and Sadorsky’s (1996) analysis for Canada. Our results suggest that extreme care should be exercised when interpreting much of the applied research on the ELG hypothesis.     

攀升全球价值链何以“稳出口”:机理与实证

当前面临国内国际环境深刻变化,中国出口贸易发展面临严峻挑战和压力,而具有结构性调整的"攀升全球价值链中高端"是否会带来结构性减速,从而进一步加大出口贸易下行压力,成为理论和实践部门关注的重要课题。通过理论分析认为,无论是从附加值创造能力角度看,还是"固链"从而稳定出口贸易产业之根角度看,全球价值链中高端优势都要显著强于中低端,即攀升全球价值链中高端本质上更加有助于"稳出口"。进一步利用中国制造业企业层面的微观数据,计量检验结果证实了上述理论预期。因此,新形势下努力攀升全球价值链中高端,不仅有助于改善分工地位和提高开放效益,对于缓解当前出口面临增速下滑压力也有重要政策意涵。     

中国进出口贸易对经济增长方式转变的影响分析

文章基于中国1980-2010年GDP和进出口的相关数据对中国进出口贸易和经济运行的轨迹进行分析,测算了外贸依存度、贡献率和拉动度三个指标。运用协整理论和格兰杰因果关系检验方法对中国进出口贸易与经济增长的关系进行实证分析。结果表明中国经济增长与出口之间是正相关的关系,出口增长对经济增长具有明显的促进作用:出口每增长1%,中国GDP将增长约0.714%;同时,经济增长与进口之间也是正相关的关系,弹性为0.0286,进口每增长1%,中国GDP将增长约0.0286%。因此,可以看出中国进出口贸易的增长都促进经济的增长。     

Accession of the Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland to the European Union: Impacts on Agricultural Markets

We analyse the consequences on agricultural markets of enlargement of the European Union (EU) to include the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. We produce a market outlook up to 2010 for two enlargement scenarios assuming different policy restrictions on grain and dairy production in the acceding countries. Accession of the three Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) leads to a permanent but moderate decrease in EU prices for most commodities. In the three acceding CEECs, domestic prices increase drastically, final consumption of agricultural products decreases in most instances, while production increases. Higher domestic prices in the CEECs reduce exports of most commodities to non‐union countries. Consequently, excess supplies are placed in stocks or exported to the original 15 member countries. Supply management mechanisms in the dairy and grain sectors would reduce the build‐up of surpluses in the new member states, but limit their ability to take advantage of the expanded market. Accession of the three CEECs would increase the CAP budget over its proposed maximum if area payments are extended to incoming crop producers.     

Export diversification,composition, and economic growth: Evidence from cross-country analysis

We investigate the export-growth relationship at disaggregate levels – disaggregation both at the country level and at the level of exports – focusing on the diversification and the composition of exports of countries. In a sample of 65 countries for the period 1965–2005 the dynamic panel estimation reveals that both diversification and composition of exports are important determinants of economic growth after controlling for the impacts of other variables like lagged income, investment, and infrastructure. There is a critical level of export concentration beyond which increasing export specialization leads to higher growth. Below this critical level, diversification of exports matters for gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Growth of high technology exports also contributes tothe output growth; the relationship becomes stronger for countries that have share of manufacturing exports in their total exports greater than the world average. These results are robust even when the dataset isclassified in four sub-panels based on the export-economic growth relationship.     

Firms' efficiency and global value chains: An empirical investigation on Italian industry

This paper investigates the effect of participation in global value chains (GVCs) on firms' efficiency and explores heterogeneity in this impact across different firms, according to GVC governance, positioning in the chain and time length of participation. Our analysis takes advantage of survey data providing information on involvement in GVCs for a large set of Italian industrial SMEs between 2008 and 2012. We employ Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to retrieve a measure of firms' technical efficiency (i.e., DEA efficiency scores) and estimate the impact of involvement in GVCs on firms' efficiency through propensity-score matching techniques and truncated regression. Our results show that participation in GVCs induces significant efficiency premia, especially for suppliers, with stronger effects in the case of relational modes of participation.     

Industrial policy in the era of global value chains: Towards a developmentalist framework drawing on the industrialisation experiences of South Korea and Taiwan

In this paper, I present a framework for GVC-oriented industrial policy that merges the so-called GVC perspective and the so-called developmentalist perspective—the latter of which is a perspective that industrial policy is most often analysed through, but has been somewhat neglected by the GVC perspective. I argue that the GVC perspective too quickly dismisses the relevance of industrial policy in the East Asian development experience, particularly those in South Korea and Taiwan between roughly 1960 and 1990. By drawing on the industrialisation experiences of these two countries, my framework for industrial policy suggests that the GVC perspective's ideas for industrial policy would be strengthened by more clearly acknowledging the continued importance of three observations by the developmentalist perspective: (a) the need for governments in developing countries to bargain with foreign investors for the purpose of domestic industrialisation; (b) policy design should not only focus on increasing exports, but also focus on replacing some imports with domestic production; and (c) linking up to the value chains of transnational corporations based in high-income countries can bring about some benefits, but ultimately, successful industrialisation necessitates a degree of competing with transnational corporations. State-owned enterprises have historically played an important role in this respect.     

Exports and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: New insights from innovative econometric methods

This study examined the relationship between exports and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. It employed innovative econometric methods, including the Fourier ADF with structural break test, a comparative analysis of three causality tests and a rolling causality test procedure. The findings suggested that there was a statistically significant relationship between exports and economic growth in several Sub-Saharan countries. However, the causal linkages between exports and economic growth in these countries were found to be weak and unstable. These empirical results have some notable policy implications.     

Opening and linking up: firms,GVCs, and productivity in Latin America

This work explores the relationship between exports, global value chains (GVCs)’ participation and position, and firms’ productivity. To this aim, we combine the most recent World Bank Enterprise Survey in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and World Trade Organization trade in value-added data. To explore the above relationship, we adopt an extended version of the standard Cobb-Douglas output function including indicators of export performance and GVCs. We control for heterogeneity among firms (by country, region, and industry), sample selection, firms’ characteristics, and reverse causality. Our empirical outcomes confirm the presence of a positive relationship between participation in international activities and firm performance. They also show that both participation in GVCs and position within GVCs matter. These findings have strong policy implications and may help policymakers in choosing the best policy options to enhance the link between GVCs’ integration and firms’ productivity.