Time is money, and distance matters. We model the interaction of these truisms, and show the implications for global specialization and trade: products where timely delivery is important will be produced near the source of final demand, where wages will be higher as a result. In the model,...

We estimate the effect of factor proportions on the pattern of manufacturing specialization in a cross-section of OECD countries, taking into account that factor accumulation responds to productivity. We show that the failure to control for productivity differences produces biased estimates. Our...

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a discussion among researchers and policy makers about changes to global value chains, both about expected changes and changes that should be promoted by government policies. In this paper we conduct an in-depth analysis of the reasons...

The import content of exports (ICE) is defined as the amount of foreign input embodied in one unit of export, and it has been used as a measure of the degree of integration into the global production network. In this paper, we suggest an alternative measure based on the decomposition of gross...

Previous research has documented a strong correlation between countries’ income levels and the quality of their export goods. Given the evidence of fast unconditional convergence in export quality, this raises the question how to reconcile these stylized facts with a stable world income...

Relying on international input-output tables, the analysis of trade flows in value-added terms has become popular in the past decade. Decomposing gross exports in different value-added terms not only allows to remove the double counting of intermediate inputs but also provides useful insights on...

This paper examines the association between participation in global value chains and financial globalisation measured by international net and capital flows. The results show that financial globalisation and the rise of global value chains are related but not two sides of the same coin. In fact,...