Narrow Results

In this paper, we characterize the position of Singapore in global value chains and identify Singapore’s key upstream and downstream trade partners. We trace how the position of Singapore in global value chains has changed in the past two decades: whether it has moved upstream or downstream, how involved it is in global value chains, how its trend compares with the other major Asian exporters (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong), and which key sectors of Singapore play a major role in these global trade networks.

This study aims at investigating the intensity of environmental regulation on firm’s share of domestic value-added in gross exports in China. An unbalanced firm-level panel data from 2000 to 2014 is adopted to estimate 10 two-way fixed effects models suggested by Hausman test for the entire sample of 648,801 and subsamples of three trade patterns, three types of ownership and three regions. The primary finding of this study is that for the entire sample and subsamples of general trade, mixed trade, non-state-owned and foreign-owned enterprises and enterprises in the eastern region, the intensity of environmental regulation has a “U-shaped” influence on firm’s share of domestic value-added in gross exports in China, meaning that this influence is negative first and then turns to positive after the intensity of environmental regulation reaches a certain level. This conclusion is reasonable and consistent with our expectation.

ICIO data have proven itself to be a reliable source for the analysis of economic globalization, with which sectors all over the world could be constructed into a sophisticated GVC, bringing the advantages of simultaneous study on international and domestic economies in detail as a holistic network. This paper uses OECD–WTO TiVA data to set up GIVCN-TiVA networks as the general analytical framework, depicting the transferring process of intermediate goods among sectors of various countries/regions. Secondly, the conception of brokerage roles in SNA has been adopted to redefine sector’s function while linkage exists between its upstream providers and downstream consumers, referred to as “Trade Brokerage Property”, as well as to quantify the ratio of each types of the roles. Thirdly, a set of simulations have been defined to testify the contribution that different TBPs incur to the robustness of global economic system. Finally, analyses on TBPs and NTBPs have been carried out in the levels of industry and country/region, respectively.

Under the dual background of trade disputes between China and the United States and the epidemic of 2019 novel coronavirus, the existing Global Value Chain (GVC) division and trading system are facing unprecedented impact. This paper reinforces the present studies on international trade by analyzing the fragments of GVC, which are made of numerous Inter-Country Input–Output (ICIO) relations. We first redefine the inter-country and inter-sector propagating process of intermediate goods, coming up with the concept of Strongest Relevance Path Length (SRPL) based on Revised Floyd–Warshall Algorithm (RFWA). Second, enlightened by betweenness centrality, we introduce Weighted Betweenness Centrality of Edge based on RFWA to measure the Value-Added Pivotability of Input–Output Relations, which brings forth pivotability at domestic, international, and global levels. The results show how much a given country can influence the world economic pattern by linking worldwide upstream and downstream industrial sectors, be it at home or abroad. Also, we can try to explain what is the cause of the phenomenon that the economic influence of nations is trading off and taking turns with all sorts of local or even global evens happening.

The development and growth of Taiwan's industries, especially the semiconductor and electronics industries, has been emphasizing overwhelmingly on cost-leadership innovation and strategy. Although such capital-intensive, volume-driven and cost-down strategies have been successfully measured by industrial and economic growth, the amounts of value created and captured in global value chain and innovation networks are insignificant. We apply the framework of creation and capture of value to analyze the industrial value creation strategy in newly industrialized countries for the last four decades. We examine their past industrial policy and business strategy, and argue that the transformation of policy and strategy must gear toward creating and capturing higher value in the global innovation network. Several managerial and policy implications are also discussed.

In this paper, we employ the input–output framework and recent global value chain (GVC) results to construct the index of foreign financial services adoption in manufacturing (FFSAM) that captures the role of foreign financial services in facilitating domestic manufacturing production. The FFSAM index shows that foreign financial services adoption by Asian economies has rapidly caught up with the Western world between 2007 and 2017. Asian economies tend to deploy more foreign financial services from high-income economies than low-income economies, and in high-technology manufacturing industries than low-technology manufacturing industries. Manufacturing industries that produce for domestic consumption and for exports tend to attract different groups of financial servicification providers. It is found that the FFSAM index is affected by the GVC position, financial institution factors, and financial market characteristics.

Recent signs of deglobalization and newly revealed vulnerabilities in global value chains have increased interest among Western companies to reshore parts of their overseas sourcing. Governments of developed economies realize the potential of strengthening local industries by reshoring strategic assets and increasing supply chain resilience by reducing dependence on other regions. One essential asset is semiconductors, or microchips. In light of this, the EU announced the EU Chips Act in February 2022. The relationship between the Act and reshoring effects has not yet been studied through a scientific lens. Therefore, we study and attempt to assess the viability of reshoring semiconductor sourcing to Europe and better understand the implications for European economic and political conditions. The study adopts a theory-guided qualitative abductive approach using both primary and secondary data. The primary data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with individuals from different organizations representing relevant knowledge and expertise. The secondary data consist of archival descriptive sources, reports and thematic articles. The study finds that reshoring semiconductor sourcing to Europe as a risk mitigation strategy is not viable as of today due to a lack of supply within the region. This could change if the EU Chips Act effectively incentivizes increased fabrication in Europe, thus providing an option for European companies to source semiconductors locally. However, while such a development could benefit Europe in several ways, there is a risk of these benefits being outweighed by negative economic and political effects with reduced efficiency and a danger of Europe ending up in a trade war. While the study suffers from methodological limitations, mainly related to sample size, which affects generalizability, it makes several theoretical and practical contributions. Most importantly, it emphasizes political incentives as necessary to drive reshoring, highlights ambiguities in the EU Chips Act and identifies a new area for future research.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the globe discovered the vulnerability of the pharma supply chains (PSCs). In this review, we describe the nature of disruptions that occurred and the political debates. Then, we examine some features of the demand in pharmaceuticals: the evolution of the health market, drug supply shortages, and the access to essential medicines. After some reminders about the organization of the pharmaceutical industry and drug manufacturing, we analyze the characteristics of the supply of pharmaceuticals and the trends of the pharma globalization value chain (GVC). Finally, we discuss policy proposals to circumvent the disruption of PSCs in times of crisis, including stockpiling, improving the resilience of the PSCs, protecting the industrial commons, and relocating manufacturing plants. In conclusion, we draw a research agenda for economists and a political agenda for governments.

The trade collapse of 2008-2009 and the anemic trade growth since then raise the question of whether trade elasticities may be undergoing fundamental structural change. A potential source of such change is the spread of global value chains (GVCs), which have brought a marked increase in the use of intermediate goods and changes in the nature of trade competition. We review the recent literature on the impact of GVCs on measured trade elasticities and the ways in which their emergence may affect how we estimate and interpret trade responsiveness. We then draw out a few implications of recent research for global modeling.