This paper unveils a systematic pattern in the People's Republic of China's (PRC) processing trade. In a cross-section of the PRC's provinces, the average distance traveled by processing imports (import distance) is negatively correlated with the average distance traveled by processing exports...

In this paper we argue that export data are an inadequate tool to measure a country's international competitiveness when external trade is dominated by export-processing trade. Export data de not necessarily reflect the value produced in an exporting country, but rather capture the gross value...

The collapse of trade during the great recession of 2008-2009 has raised the question of whether the rise of global value chains (GVCs) has increased or accelerated the international transmission of business cycle shocks. In this paper, we empirically investigate two channels through which a...

The core idea behind the paper is that trade policy matters for the organization of global value chains, a notion largely neglected by economists but which has important implications for our understanding of trade and the international transmission of trade policy shocks. We develop a...

The core idea behind the paper is that trade policy matters for the organization of global value chains, a notion largely neglected by economists but which has important implications for our understanding of trade and the international transmission of trade policy shocks. We develop a...

The collapse of trade during the great recession of 2008–2009 has raised the question of whether the rise of global value chains (GVCs) has increased or accelerated the international transmission of business cycle shocks. In this paper, we empirically investigate two channels through which a...

Previous studies have argued that global value chains (GVCs) have increased the sensitivity of trade to foreign income shocks. This may occur either because GVC trade is concentrated in durable goods industries, which are known to have high income elasticities (a composition effect), or because,...

Vertical specialization is one of the most notable trends in the international organization of production (Hummels, Jun and Yi, 2001; Yi, 2003; Desai, 2009). Thanks to reductions in communication, transportation and other trade costs, multinational firms are slicing up their value chains and are...