Seminar on Accounting for Global Value Chains

  • Luxembourg
  • 6-8 June 2017

This seminar will discuss the issues which have been brought up in the preparation of the Handbook on Accounting for Global Value Chains: extended national accounts and integrated business statistics. The main objective of the Handbook is to provide a high-level overview of how economic statistics can be made more accurate and relevant in measuring the effects of globalization in national accounts and business statistics.

The Handbook will provide a national perspective on globalization based on a Global Value Chain approach for specific industries in a multi-country supply chain of goods, value adding services and institutional arrangements. It should be helpful to a wide range of compilers in offering traditional as well as alternative solutions, such as indirect estimates using existing data as well as a mix of existing and new data sources.

This website of the Seminar contains the following information. Under the Agenda tab the various items of the 3-day seminar are shown with an indication of the presenters. The documents are not publicly available, as these currently only exist as draft version in the Wiki space. The presentations will become available shortly after the end of the seminar. Under the Background tab a brief history is presented of the process leading up to the mandate to prepare a handbook on the measurement of international trade and economic globalization. Among others you will find here the various reports which have been submitted to the UN Statistical Commission on this topic since 2013. You will also find information on the first two meetings of the UN Expert Group on international trade and economic globalization statistics.

Tuesday, 6 June 2017

8:00
Registration and Coffee
9:00
Welcome
Ms. Silke Stapel-Weber, Director for National Accounts, Prices and Key Indicators of Eurostat
Statement
Ivo Havinga, Assistant Director of United Nations Statistics Division
Opening address
Mr. Michael Connolly, Chair of the UN Expert Group on International Trade and Economic Globalization Statistics
Part I: Policy, business and statistical motivation
09:30
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 14: Policy use of Extended Accounts
Lead authors: UNSD, World Bank
Item for discussion
Documents:
Chapter 1 - Introduction - 30 Sep 2016
Chapter 14 - Policy uses of extended accounts - 16 May 2017
Presenters:
11:15
Coffee break
Part II: Extended Macro-Economic Accounts and Global Enterprise Perspective
11:30
Chapter 2: Overview of the System
Lead author: UNSD
Item for discussion
Documents:
Chapter 2 - Overview of the General Statistical Framework
Presenter:
  • Mr. Steve Landefeld, UNSD consultant
12:30
Lunch
14:00
Chapter 3: Extended Supply and Use Tables
Lead author: OECD
Item for information
Documents:
Chapter 3 - Extended Supply and Use Tables
Presenter:
  • Mr. Nadim Ahmad, OECD
14:15
Chapter 4: Extended Productivity (KLEMS) Accounts
Lead author: US BEA
Item for discussion
Documents:
Chapter 4 - Extended Productivity Accounts
Presenter:
  • Mr. Erich Strassner, US BEA
15:15
Chapter 5: Extended Environmental-Economic Accounts
Lead author: UNSD
Item for information
Documents:
Chapter 5 – Extended Environmental-Economic Accounts
Presenter:
15:30
Tea break
15:45
Chapter 6: Extended Capital and Financial Accounts
Lead author: IMF
Item for discussion
Documents:
Chapter 6 – The Financial Side of Global Value Chains
Presenters:
17:00
Closing of Day 1

Wednesday, 7 June 2017

09:00
Opening
Mr. Michael Connolly
09:15
Chapter 7: Conceptual issues of Global enterprise perspective
Lead author: ISTAT
Item for discussion
Documents:
Chapter 7: Conceptual issues of Global enterprise perspective
Presenter:
10:30
Chapter 8: Special Accounting Topics
Lead author: CSO Ireland
Item for information
Documents:
Chapter 8: Special Accounting Topics
Presenter:
10:45
Coffee break
Part III: Global Value Chain approach
11:00
Chapter 9: Global Value Chain Satellite Account
Lead author: Statistics Canada
Item for discussion
Documents:
Draft chapter 9 – version of 1 May 2017
Presenter:
  • Mr. André Loranger, Statistics Canada
12:30
Lunch
14:00
Chapter 10: GVC Modules and their applications
Lead author: UNSD
Item for discussion
Documents:
ISI papers on Morocco, Costa Rica and Vietnam
Presenter:
  • Ms. Stacey Frederick, UNSD Consultant
Part IV: Integrated Business Statistics
15:00
Tea break
15:15
Chapter 11: Firm heterogeneity related to globalization
Lead author: Statistics Netherlands
Item for discussion
Documents:
Draft chapter 11 - version of 22 May 2017
Presenters:
  • Mr. Martin Luppes, Statistics Netherlands
  • Ms. Angela Hernandez, DANE
16:15
Chapter 12: Bilateral asymmetries, Global Groups register and exchange of information
Lead author: UNSD
Item for discussion
Documents:
Draft chapter 12 – version of 2 May 2017
Presenter:
17:15
Closing of Day 2

Thursday, 8 June 2017

09:00
Opening
Mr. Michael Connolly
09:15
Chapter 15: Research Agenda
Lead author: CSO Ireland
Item for information
Presenter:
09:30
Summary of status of the Handbook
  • Action points per chapter
  • Discussion on way forward regarding the drafting of the Handbook
Presenter:
  • Mr. Steve Landefeld, UNSD consultant
12:30
Lunch
14:00
Finalizing the Handbook - Timeline
Recommendations
  • Implications of the Handbook for future revision of SNA and related manuals, and need for joint coordination of national accounts and integrated business statistics
Presenter:
  • Mr. Michael Connolly, Chair
16:30
Closing

Background

On 12 April 2010, Pascal Lamy (at that time the Director General of the World Trade Organization, WTO) delivered a speech at the Paris School of Economics in which he debunked some economic myths, among others Fallacy #2: "It is unhealthy for trade to grow faster and faster compared to output". Under this point he addresses the main problems of trade statistics due to the fragmentation of the production process. The speech can be found here.

The following year, UNSD organized a larger statistical event together with colleagues of Eurostat and WTO at the WTO premises in Geneva with the theme of "Measuring global trade: Do we have the right numbers?" (and see here).

This event contained already all the measurement issues, which are still on the table, such as presentations by Prof. Gary Gereffi of Duke university and by Tim Sturgeon of MIT on Measuring Global Value Chains, the international sourcing of Business Functions (Peter Nielsen, Statistics Denmark), the impact of globalisation on National Accounts (Tihomira Dimova, UNECE), Multi-National Enterprises and Foreign Affiliates, an integrated approach of trade in goods and services and business statistics (Stefano Menghinello, ISTAT), and Trade in Value-Added (Andreas Maurer, WTO).

In subsequent years this topic was introduced into the official work programme of the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) with reports to the Commission from 2013 onwards. In 2013, the Commission agreed to the creation of a “friends of the chair” group tasked with preparing a concept paper on the scope and content of the framework. In 2015, this group delivered its final report in which it recommended the drafting of a handbook on the measurement of international trade and economic globalization, which would cover the measurement issues of global enterprise groups, firm heterogeneity for global value chain purposes, the classification for business functions, micro-data linking, bilateral trade and investment asymmetries, and (iv) multi-country supply and use tables.

The UN expert group started its work in 2015 and met twice in New York, namely in January and November of 2016. The Seminar in Luxembourg is the third meeting of the members of this group. Links to the reports of the various meetings are provided below.

Previous meetings

Documents

Links


For Expert Group members only

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