A Canadian Approach to Apparel Global Value Chain

Canada

The Canadian apparel has long been considered a global player. For years, many Canadian companies have been producing offshore and have seized on preferencial access to United States (US) markets to export their products. However until recently, the Canadian apparel industry also operated under protectionism that allowed it to thrive within North America…(more)

Global Value Chains: Impact and Implications

Canada

 It is increasingly rare that a good or a service is entirely produced at one location and then exported to a final consumer. Rather, production of a good or even service involves an increasingly complex process with intermediate inputs and supporting activities sourced globally from wherever it is most efficient to do so. These complex international production arrangements have come to be known as global value chains (GVCs)...(more)

Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World

THe World Bank

The global economic crisis of 2008–09 has revealed the interdependence of the world economy. The financial crisis originated in the United States, but the resulting economic downturn quickly spread to the rest of the world. Trade, along with finance, was one of the main vectors of transmission of the crisis. In 2009, there was a massive contraction in global trade—minus 13 percent. The contraction was largely a reflection of a drop in demand, especially for durable goods…...(more)

Lithium-Ion Batteries - May 2010

Duke University

The global motor vehicle industry is rapidly steering away from the internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles are increasingly attractive for their potential to reduce greenhouse gases and decrease dependence on oil. By 2020, more than half of new vehicle sales will likely consist of hybrid-electric, plug-in hybrid, and all-electric models. For automakers, the key to this huge shift will be lithium-ion batteries…(more)

International Sourcing: Moving Business Functions Abroad

Denmark

The continuous globalisation of our economies confronts the national statistical offices with new challenges and user demands to measure new phenomena such as international sourcing. The increased fragmentation of the value chain resulting from the sourcing of business functions internationally is an important feature of the globalisation process...(more)

Offshoring of Jobs - Dec 2005

Duke University

The Social Policy Lectures are endowed by the ILO’s Nobel Peace Prize of 1969 and dedicated to the memory of David A. Morse, Director-General of the ILO from 1948 to 1970. They are held in major universities of the world with the three-fold aim of stimulating the interest of graduate and post-graduate students in international social policy; of promoting academic work in areas of concern to the ILO; and of encouraging greater dialogue between the academic community on the one hand and policy makers…(more)

Pharmaceutical Industry: The Globalization of Innovation - June 2008

Duke University

Industries are oft en thought of in terms of the nations that have launched the greatest innovations. There is a perception of a U.S. automotive industry pitted against a Japanese industry, for example, or the U.S. pharmaceutical industry against the European industry. Globalization has, however, rapidly changed the underlying nature of these competitive relationships…(more)

Industrial Value Chain Diagnostics - An Integrated Tool

UNIDO

Over the last decades the world has witnessed a gradual relocation of manufacturing activities from developed to developing countries, opening up new opportunities for employment, increased income and economic growth for some of the world’s poorer and less developed countries. However, the process of industrialization has not benefitted all developing countries equally. In the 2009 Industrial Development Report…(more)

Partner: UNIDO

Trade and Employment in the Global Crisis

ILO/AF

The financial crisis that emerged in the US housing market in 2008 quickly spread around the world to become a truly global economic crisis. While we are seeing output recover around the world, lessons from previous crises tell us that employment is slow to pick up. As a consequence, many of those who lost their job during the crises are still unemployed…(more)

Special issue on Shifting End Markets and GVC Upgrading

Duke University

This special issue aims to contribute to our understanding of developing countries’ prospects for upgrading in global value chains (GVCs) in the context of recent shifts in global demand and production. Trade integration and economic growth in many developing countries has been fuelled by the insertion of local producers in GVCs feeding into high-income markets, in particular North America, Europe and Japan. However, since the mid-1980s – a trend that has been accelerated by the 2008/2009 global economic crisis…(more)

Carry-Along Trade

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

This paper provides an integrated view of globally engaged US firms by exploring a newly developed dataset that links US international trade transactions to longitudinal data on US enterprises. These data permit examination of a number of new dimensions of firm activity, including how many products firms trade, how many countries firms trade with, the characteristics of those countries, the concentration of trade across firms, whether firms transact at arm’s length or with related parties, and whether firms import as well as export...(more)

Partner: Tuck Center for International Business, Dartmouth College

International Engineering Education - Jan 2008

Duke University

This article challenges the commonly cited statistics for engineering graduates in the United States, China, and India. Our research shows that the gap between the number of engineers and related technology specialists produced in the United States versus those in India and China is smaller than previously reported, and the United States remains a leading source of high-quality global engineering talent. Furthermore, engineering graduates in China and India face the prospect of substantial unemployment...(more)

Outsourcing in a Global Economy

Grossman

We live in an age of outsourcing. Firms seem to be subcontracting an ever expanding set of activities, ranging from product design to assembly, from research and development to marketing, distribution and after-sales service. Some firms have gone so far as to become "virtual" manufacturers, owning designs for many products but making almost nothing themselves.1 Vertical disintegration is especially evident in international trade. A recent annual report of the World Trade Organization (1998) details, for example, the production of a particular "American" car…(more)

Measuring success in the global economy

MIT

This article contributes to an assessment and celebration of the scholarly and policy work of the late Sanjaya Lall. As Rasiah (2009) highlights, Lall’s work was at once broad, deep and intensely focused. Over his long career, Lall and his many collaborators used the lenses of the transnational corporation (TNC), competitiveness, globalization and technological learning to uncover…(more)

Value chains, networks and clusters - Apr 2008

MIT

In this article, we apply global value chain (GVC) analysis to recent trends in the global automotive industry, with special attention paid to the case of North America. We use the three main elements of the GVC framework—firm-level chain governance, power and institutions—to highlight some of the defining characteristics of this important industry. First, national political institutions create pressure for local content, which drives production close to end markets…(more)

Offshore corporate services in Latin America and the Caribbean

ECLAC

The global offshore corporate services (OCS) market includes a broad range of activities, from call and contact centers to business processes to software development. New, more knowledge-intensive services have started to be successfully offshored on a large scale in recent years, whether through outsourcing or through in-house operations. The increasing size, diversity and complexity of this market have generated opportunities for a growing number of developing countries, including in Latin America and the Caribbean…(more)

The Global Apparel Value Chain: Trade and the Crisis Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

Duke University

This paper examines the impact of two crises on the global apparel value chain: the World Trade organization phase-out of the quota system for textiles and apparel in 2005, which provided access for many poor and small export-oriented economies to the markets of industrialized countries, and the current economic recession that has lowered demand for apparel exports and led to massive unemployment across the industry’s supply chain…(more)

Global Value Chains: Preliminary Evidence & Policy Issues March

OECD

This paper aims to develop a storyline for the WPGI/CIIE work on global value chains (GVCs) for the PWB of 2011-2012, by bringing together the empirical evidence and analytical research on GVCs and analyzing new policy issues. The objective of the WPGI activities on GVCs is to develop policy relevant analysis and provide analytical support for the policy discussion in the CIIE. The work on GVCs will be undertaken in close coordination with the work on ‘New Sources of Growth’ given the complementarities between the two projects…(more)

Trade in Tasks

OECD

Specialisation or division of labour is an important source of economic growth, but the degree of division of labour is constrained by the extent of the market. Trade in tasks represents the latest turn in a virtuous cycle of deepening specialisation, expansion of the market and productivity growth. It has attracted a lot of attention in the policy debate not for its contribution to international division of labour and productivity growth...(more)

Trade Crisis and Recovery - Restructuring of Global Value Chains

The New School for Social Research

The recent large and rapid slowdown in economic activity has resulted in even larger and more rapid declines in international trade. As world trade is set to rebound, this paper addresses three questions: (i) Will trade volumes rebound in a symmetric fashion as world economic growth rebounds? (ii) Will the crisis result in a change in the structure of trade…(more)

Vertical Specialization and Global Value Chains

OECD

Advances in transportation and communication technology, together with the low barriers to trade, have contributed in the recent decades to the emergence of a new structure of production and international trade. In several industries, production processes have broken up into several stages or ‘production tasks’ that are no longer closely tightened in time and space…(more)

Seizing the benefits of Trade for Employment and Growth

OECD

Countries that have embraced openness have been more successful in sustaining growth and moving up the development ladder than those that have not. The available evidence highlights that trade openness will contribute to growth and employment, provided that it is complemented by appropriate policies...(more)

Automotive Industry and Crisis - Jun 2010

MIT

This paper applies global value chain analysis to study recent trends in the global automotive industry. The authors pay special attention to the effects of the recent economic crisis on the industry in developing countries. The principal finding is that the crisis has accelerated precrisis trends toward greater importance of the industry in the South. More rapid growth of car ownership is the impetus, but the co-location and close interaction of suppliers and lead firms in this industry is an important catalyst…(more)

Automotive Industry Canada - GVC - Mar 2007

Duke University

The automotive industry is Canada’s most important manufacturing and export sector. In 2005, Canada’s automotive industry employed 7.7 percent of the manufacturing workforce and accounted for nearly a third of manufactured goods exports. Canada’s twelve high-volume final assembly plants directly employed more than 51,000 workers.More than two and a half million vehicles were produced, valued at $69.8 billion, of which nearly 85% was exported…(more)

Compressed Development in East Asia - Dec 2007

ITEC

In this paper we argue that the path of economic development for would-be developers has changed fundamentally since the 1980s. Focusing on East Asia, we contend that the path followed by ‘late developers’ has shifted to one that can best be described as ‘compressed development.’ We introduce the notion of compressed development to highlight the new policy dilemmas and choices that developing countries face today, which we characterize as ‘policy stretch.’…(more)

GVC in Electronics Industry - Sep 2010

The World Bank

This paper presents evidence of the importance of electronics global value chains (GVCs) in the global economy, and discusses the effects of the recent economic crisis on the industry. The analysis focuses on how information is exchanged and introduces the concept of “value chain modularity.” The authors identify three key firm level actors—lead firms, contract manufacturers, and platform leaders—and discuss their development, or “coevolution” in the context of global integration…(more)

GVC and Technological Capabilities – 2007

University of Oxford

This paper presents a critical review of the Global Value Chain literature in light of the “Technological Capabilities” approach to innovation in LDCs. Participation in GVC is beneficial for firms in LDCs, which are bound to source technology internationally. However, the issues of learning and technological efforts at the firm-level remain largely uncovered by the GVC literature…(more)

Impact of Crisis on Employment in China

The World bank

This paper examines the effect of the financial crisis on off-farm employment of China’s rural labor force. Using a national representative data set collected from across China, the paper finds that there was a substantial impact. By April 2009 the reduction in off-farm employment as a result of the crises was 6.8 percent of the rural labor force. Monthly earnings also declined…(more)