Foreign direct investment (FDI) is becoming increasingly critical to the economies of developing countries, in part due to a major expansion in the scope of global value chains (GVCs), whereby lead firms outsource parts of their production and services activities across complex international...

Using a cross-section of more than 40,000 manufacturing and services firms in 79 developing countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys Database, this paper assesses how firm location determines the likelihood and extent of exporting in developing countries. Descriptive statistics confirm...

The recent large and rapid slowdown in economic activity has resulted in even larger and more rapid declines in international trade. As world trade is set to rebound, this paper addresses three questions: (i) Will trade volumes rebound in a symmetric fashion as world economic growth rebounds?...

Using a cross-section of more than 29,000 manufacturing firms in 64 developing and emerging countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, this paper assesses whether trading firms have a female labor share premium relative to non-trading firms. It focuses on four types of trading firms:...

This paper studies the relationship between participation in global value chains, worker routine task intensity, and within-country wage inequality. It uses unique survey data from 47 countries across the development spectrum to calculate worker-level, country-specific routine task intensity and...

Trade expansion can create more and better jobs. This paper revisits the linkages between trade and jobs, focusing on employment, labor incomes, and job activities across a large sample of countries and sectors over 1995 to 2018. Instrumental variables regressions and new input-output measures...

The past decades have witnessed big changes in international trade with the rise of global value chains (GVCs). Some countries, such as China, Poland, and Vietnam rode the tide, while other countries, many in the Africa region, faltered. This paper studies the determinants of countries' GVC...

Using a cross-section of more than 25,000 domestic manufacturing firms in 78 low and middle-income countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, this paper assesses how mediating factors influence intra-industry productivity spillovers to domestic firms from foreign direct investment. It...

Trade and labor markets are intimately connected. This connection presents governments with a dual economic challenge that cannot be resolved without social compromise: maximizing aggregate gains but minimizing disaggregated costs, which can include losses to individuals and groups. This paper...

This paper examines the relationship between trade and job quality, using productivity and wage rate data for export and non-export activities in a sample of 60 countries across all income levels and 45 sectors spanning the whole economy over 1995-2019. First, the analysis finds that workers...