Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Gehl Sampath, Padmashree
Author-Email: padmashree.gehl.sampath@unctad.org
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, UNCTAD, and University of Aalborg
Author-Name: Vallejo, Bertha
Author-Email: b.vallejocarlos@tilburguniversity.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, and University of Tilburg
Title: Global Value Chains and Upgrading: What, When and How?
Abstract: This paper focuses on explaining how technological capabilities interact 
	 with trade and GVCs participation to foster upgrading. We analyse trade 
	 performance of 74 developing countries in 2000 and 2010 from a 
	 perspective of learning, to understand what variables account for 
	 technological diversification over time when countries trade, including 
	 through GVCs. We find that technological capabilities not only condition 
	 the initial determination of local firms in trade and GVCs, but they 
	 also determine the extent to which local firms in developing countries 
	 manage to leverage knowledge flows and move into activities of greater 
	 technological complexity from a dynamic perspective. Our results point 
	 to the critical role of national learning variables in countries' 
	 performance over time. While emerging economies have synergistic 	
	 relationships between variables that explain technological capabilities 
	 and their trade and GVC performance, this is not the case for developing 
	 countries as whole in our sample.
Classification-JEL: F14, L14, L16, L23, O14, O19, O25, O31, O33, O43
Keywords: Trade, global value chains (GVCs), technological capabilities, learning,
	 developing countries, least developed countries (LDCs), structural change,
	 diversification, policy
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 20180308
Number: 2018-016
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2018/wp2018-016.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2018016