The formation of global value chains (GVCs) has reshaped production processes across countries. This paper investigates the relationship between GVCs and firms’ employment by using panel data on Vietnamese small manufacturing firms for 2005–2011. The results suggest that increased foreign value added in exports results in higher wages, increased productivity, and a greater share of production workers ...

This paper aims at evaluating the economic impacts of the various Indonesian free trade agreement (FTA) strategies in enhancing export-led growth. The potential impact of abolishing tariffs on three key sectors or commodities – (i) oil seeds, vegetable oils, and fats (VegOil); (ii) fishery and processed foods (FisheryPFD); and (iii) textile and apparel products (TextWapp) – with three trading partners ...

Global value chains (GVCs) may have distributional consequences for the relative demand for skilled labour. This study relates GVC participation to the share of skilled labour in total compensation, focusing on the experience of 12 East Asian countries. It applies a macro-level analysis covering 114 countries and 27 sectors for intermittent years from 2001 to 2011. It uses a widely accepted measure ...

This paper examines the firm-level nexus between exporting and importing by using firm-level data from Thai customs. We differentiate firms’ imports according to the tariff regime used (e.g. regional trade agreements (RTAs)). Our finding is that imports under RTA regimes have a small, though significant, correlation with exports. Greater exports are found in firms with larger imports under the most ...

This study examines the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on global value chain (GVC) participation and the underlying mechanisms. Our study employs a novel approach using an additional compliance requirement indicator as a relative proxy for NTMs to measure their impact on GVC participation. We conduct a cross-sectional analysis at the industry level, spanning 19 industrial sectors in 30 countries ...

In the East Asian context, previous studies showed that trade occurring through production networks remained relatively steady amidst an economic shock and recovered faster and stronger once the shock was over. Using finely disaggregated product-level monthly bilateral trade data, we examine whether network trade in the East Asian region has been robust and resilient in face of the COVID-19 crisis, ...

Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBTs) in destination markets may affect firms’ performance. In this paper, we examine how meeting foreign standards affects exporting firms’ innovation, reflected in the product quality, production processes, skills, and technological acquisition. The analysis relies on official regulations on non-tariff measures released by ...

This paper assesses how the current COVID-19 pandemic is shaping global value chains in East Asia after the formidable disruptions inflicted by the health crisis. Some have expressed the view that global value chains would readjust and production processes would move home, i.e. reshoring, facilitated by the recent movement of protectionism measures in the post-pandemic world. We evaluate such concerns ...

Countries export less to destination countries with greater regulatory burdens. We use finely disaggregated product-level bilateral trade value and quantity data for 98 countries, together with a new data set of detailed information on technical regulations, to answer the following question: if a country is facing a greater regulatory burden in a particular destination market, is that country more ...

It is well documented that firms that participate in global value chains (GVCs) are larger and more productive, maintaining higher profitability compared to those without such connections. This paper asks the novel question of whether higher profits being connected to GVCs are shared with employees in the form of better pay. We investigated this rent sharing, using a matched employer–employee dataset ...