A collection of papers by some of the world's leading specialists on global value chains (GVCs). It examines how GVCs have evolved and the challenges they face in a rapidly changing world. The approach is multi-disciplinary, with contributions from economists, political scientists, supply chain management specialists, practitioners and policy-makers. Co-published with the Fung Global Institute and the Temasek
Global value chains (GVCs) have driven dramatic expansions in trade, productivity, and economic growth in developing countries. This book examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on GVCs and explores whether they can continue to be a driver of trade and development. The report reviews previous crises and what these tell us about the resilience of GVC firms to shocks. It examines the observed impact of COVID-19 on trade during the sharp global recession of 2020. It summarizes discussions with GVC firms on the impacts of, and their responses to, the COVID shock. GVCs showed surprising resilience, but the rapid recovery raised new issues with supply chains. The book then explores simulations from a global economic model of the potential longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on developing countries and other key factors shaping the global economy, including the evolving role of China, increasing trade restrictions and policy responses to global warming. The analysis shows that while there are risks associated with GVCs, especially those concentrated around key nodes and where opportunities to find alternative suppliers or buyers are limited, there are mechanisms by which GVCs maintain trade relationships during a crisis, paving the way for a strong trade-led recovery. Measures are identified that can enhance the resilience of GVCs in low-income countries. This report finds that policies that maintain and enhance trade can contribute toward crisis management and recovery. Attempts to reshore production would make all countries worse off, including those that implement them, and could drive 52 million people, mainly in Africa, into extreme poverty. Measures to meet climate change commitments will have more profound impacts, leading to a shift away from carbon-intensive GVCs, while new opportunities for trade will arise in GVCs that are less carbon intensive.
Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries and countries, and how they have evolved over time in response to economic and political forces. With chapters written by leading interdisciplinary scholars, the Handbook unpacks the key concepts of GVC governance and upgrading, and explores policy implications for advanced and developing economies alike. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial}
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.
The international fragmentation of economic activities – from research and design to production and marketing – described through the lens of the global value chain (GVC) approach impacts the structure and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) agglomerated in economic clusters. The consolidation of GVCs ruled by global lead firms and the recession of 2008-09 exacerbated the pressures on cluster actors that based their competitive advantage on local systems, spurring an increasing heterogeneity, both across and within clusters, that is still overlooked in the literature. Drawing on detailed studies of different industries and countries, Local Clusters in Global Value Chains shows the co-evolutionary trajectories of clusters and GVCs, and the role of firms and their strategies in organizing manufacturing and innovation activities in the context of ongoing technological shifts. The book explores the tension between place-based variables and global drivers of change, and the possibility for territories containing such clusters to prosper in the new global scenario. By adopting insights from the GVC framework and management studies, the book discusses how the internationalization strategies of firms create opportunities as well as constraints for adaptive upgrading in clusters. This book is of interest to both researchers and policy-makers who are interested in the dynamic sources of competitive advantage in the global economy.
A radical shift is underway in global value chains as they increasingly move beyond traditional manufacturing processes to services and other intangible assets. Digitization is a leading factor in this transformation, which is being accelerated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The Global Value Chain Development Report, the third of a biennial series, explores this shift beyond production. The report shows how the rise of services value chains offers a new path to development and how protectionism and geopolitical tensions, environmental risks, and pandemics are undermining the stability of global value chains and forcing their reorganization geographically. It is co-published by the WTO, the Asian Development Bank, the Research Institute for Global Value Chains at the University of International Business and Economics, the Institute of Developing Economies, and the China Development Research Foundation.
Economic, technological, and political shifts as well as changing business strategies have driven firms to unbundle production processes and disperse them across countries. Thanks to these changes, developing countries can now increase their participation in global value chains (GVCs) and thus become more competitive in agriculture, manufacturing and services. This is a paradigm shift from the 20th century when countries had to build the entire supply chain domestically to become competitive internationally. For policymakers, the focus is on boosting domestic value added and improving access to resources and technology while advancing development goals. However, participating in global value chains does not automatically improve living standards and social conditions in a country. This requires not only improving the quality and quantity of production factors and redressing market failures, but also engineering equitable distributions of opportunities and outcomes - including employment, wages, work conditions, economic rights, gender equality, economic security, and protecting the environment. The internationalization of production processes helps with very few of these development challenges. Following this perspective, Making Global Value Chains Work for Development offers a strategic framework, analytical tools, and policy options to address this challenge. The book conceptualizes GVCs and makes it easier for policymakers and practitioners to discuss them and their implications for development. It shows why GVCs require fresh thinking; it serves as a repository of analytical tools; and it proposes a strategic framework to guide policymakers in identifying the key objectives of GVC participation and in selecting suitable economic strategies to achieve them.
This report investigates the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in helping developing countries participate in global value chains (GVCs). It combines the perspectives and strategies from three types of players: multinational corporations, domestic firms and governments. It aims to provide practical guidance for developing countries to develop strategies that use FDI to strengthen GVC participation and upgrading. The report has six main chapters: 1. FDI and GVCs. Assesses the trade-investment nexus and analyzes the effect of FDI in countries’ GVC participation and upgrading at the country level. 2. MNCs shape GVC development. Highlights MNCs' contribution to global economy and how their business strategies shape the evolution of GVCs. The chapter also compares MNCs' business strategies in terms of outsourcing and offshoring, risk mitigation and increasing market power across GVC archetypes. 3. Domestic firm perspectives on GVC participation. Looks at the various paths domestic firms can take to internationalize their production and trade. Investigates domestic firm characteristics that predict higher GVC participation, and the effect of GVC participation on firm performance. 4. Investment policy and promotion: what is in a government’s toolbox? Summarizes the various policy instruments governments have at their disposal to help attract MNCs to their country and facilitate GVC participation of domestic firms. 5. Integrating countries into GVCs. Draws on a range of case studies to illustrate how governments can develop coherent strategies and policy packages to integrate their countries into GVCs. 6. FDI and GVCs in the wake of COVID-19. Reflects the impact of COVID-19 on FDI and GVCs, the response from multinationals and suppliers, and the implications for GVC reconfiguration. In addition, there are seven case studies that offer more nuanced analysis on the GVC participation in selected countries and sectors: • Five qualitative case studies: Five countries have been selected that managed to use FDI to stimulate GVC participation using a range of approaches. By design, these five countries also cover five different GVC archetypes. These countries are: (1) Kenya (horticulture); (2) Dominican Republic (textiles); (3) Mauritius (tourism); (4) Malaysia (electronics); (5) China (software). • Two quantitative case studies: Rwanda, West-Bengal (India). These use a combination of firm- and transaction level datasets to study firm-level dynamics that explain the role of multinational and domestic firms across GVCs.
The global economic system is experiencing a profound period of rapid change. The emergence of globalised production and distribution systems, which bring together diverse constellations of economic actors through a complex regime of global corporate governance, state regulation and new international divisions of labour, demands corresponding and innovative explanatory models. Global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs) have been particularly useful as conceptual frameworks for understanding the global market engagement of firms, regions and nations. This book examines the rise of GVCs and GPNs as dominant features of the international political economy. It brings together leading thinkers in the field and sets out new directions for future scholarship in understanding the contemporary global economic system. In doing so, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the international political economy and the global economic system in the post-Washington Consensus era of contemporary capitalism. This book was published as a special issue of the Review of International Political Economy.