South Africa’s agro processing trade in value added, global value chains (GVCs) perspective

With the development of economic globalization, the role of strategic emerging industries embedded in global value chains (GVCs) as clusters to actively participate in the global industrial division of labor has become increasingly significant. The present situation and problems of strategic emerging industry clusters in Anhui are analyzed qualitatively from three aspects: dynamic mechanism, development mode and governance mode, and their status in GVC is inferred quantitatively by using GVC index. Secondly, Bengbu silicon-based new materials industry is used as an example for empirical research, and the GEM model and multiple linear regression model are used to build a data evaluation system and analyze the factors affecting the competitiveness of industrial clusters. Finally, we propose a scientific and reasonable upgrading path and policy suggestions based on GVC perspective, which can provide guidance and reference significance for promoting regional industrial economic development.

Measuring energy usage in the forestry trade is a topic of great significance. In this article, we use the World Input–Output Database and the multiregional input–output model to establish an embodied energy competition network and assess the influence of global value chain (GVC) integration on competition. The results show that (1) the intensity of competition for embodied energy in forestry is higher for exports compared with imports. Additionally, the import competition network exhibits lower connectivity and overall efficiency. (2) The core regions of the competitive network are primarily found in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The United States consistently maintains a competitive advantage. However, forestry policies have led to a decline in the status of the United States, (3) The hierarchical structure of export competition is more pronounced. When the weighting degree exceeds 200, this phenomenon becomes more pronounced. (4) From the perspective of GVC, positive embedding in the GVC is negatively correlated with import competition. Backward GVC embedding is positively correlated with import and export competition. On the basis of the above results, this article proposes that countries where backward embedding is the main method should actively participate in building appropriate export international associations, participating in international organizations, and building a relatively harmonious and stable export competition market, thereby helping to maintain economic development and energy environment management.

The variables the consumer price index (CPI), the producer price index (PPI) and the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) and play major roles in economic forecasting. The overall objective of this study is to assess the inter-relationships between CPI, PPI and PMI as predicting variables. This study is quantitative in nature and employed an ARDL econometric model, error correction model (ECM) and Granger causality approaches to establish long and short-run relationships. The ARDL method was used due to the fact that the variables had a mix of stationarity at levels I (0) and the first difference I (1). Quarterly datasets were obtained from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) and the Bureau of Economic Research (BER) for the period 2000 to 2017. Results from the estimations discovered that variables cointegrate in the long-run. Additionally, evidence of short-run relationships has been determined using ECM. Furthermore, causal relationships were also analysed with results indicating that CPI causes PMI and PPI causes PMI. The implication of the research is the confirmation of the importance of relationships between CPI, PPI and PMI, which is especially significant in the short-run and the three index indicators are important macro-economic indicators for changes in overall economic activity on a macro level.

After the 2008-2009 crisis, the challenge of understanding the mechanisms and structure of the world economy has begun to generate different approaches of economic globalization. This article uses Global Value Chain framework to examine the impact of the crisis on sectorial employment for six selected industries from Romania (Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal, Electrical and Optical Equipment, Transport Equipment, Machinery, Textiles and Textile Products, Chemicals and Chemical Products). With more than 70% of Romanian exports, and almost 14% of the employees these were the main real transmission channels for the crisis, other than financial markets. The study found that dynamic of the employment in these sectors has a different pattern than the national one. Employment in the sectors which are parts of Global Value Chains was very sensitive to global crisis: the average number of employees dropped by 15% in 2009 (comparing to 10% - the percentage for the whole economy) but they didn’t follow the national recovery trend (in 2013 the total number of employees increased by more than 11% in Romania but the numbers stayed almost the same in the six selected industries). These findings suggest that Romania need to understand the specificity of these trends and to use the right policy tools in order to achieve economic growth and development through participation in Global Value Chains.

Re-calculation of responsibility distribution and spatiotemporal patterns of global production carbon emissions from the perspective of global value chain

In the context of economic globalization and production fragmentation, the boom in intermediate and processing trade has made EEIT (emission embodied in international trade) accounting and the recognition of its responsibility more and more complicated, and the drawbacks of traditional gross value statistics more and more conspicuous. The rapid development of global value chain theory in recent years has given rise to a decomposition framework of the trade flow in a country’s export, based on the global value chain, which offers new methods to study EEIT and allocate its responsibility. The combination of global value chain accounting and EEIT research can offer new ways to research EEIT transfer and allocate its responsibility. Utilization of this technique can help understand each country’s “common but differentiated responsibility” in emission reduction. Finally, aiming at the knowledge gaps in current analysis, this paper attempts to discuss the trends, and possible challenges, in research on EEIT, and its responsibility based on the global value chain theory.

The objective of this paper is to analyze structural characteristics and the evolution of "international trade-carbon emissions" network in the equipment manufacturing industry. To do so, we construct four kinds of networks, namely export trade network (E network), export implied carbon emission network (EC network), foreign value-added network (FVA network), and foreign value-added implied carbon emission network (FVAC network) for the said industry. The data obtained from world-input-output table and social network analysis method was used for empirical analysis. The results indicate that (1) the four types of networks show a trend of denseness, which also has the characteristics of trade clustering effect and small-world network. As the equipment manufacturing industry in various countries is increasingly embedded in the global value chain, the value chain is extended globally, which leads to the complexity of the international carbon transfer network. (2) The four types of networks' pattern are basically stable. Germany plays an important intermediary role. Whereas China is deeply involved in the division of global value chain and has achieved the shift from the edge to the core in all four types of networks, but there is still a big gap compared with Germany. (3) The E network and EC network have the obvious core-edge feature, and the two kinds of networks can be divided into developed countries block represented by Germany, Japan, the USA; developing countries block represented by China and India; and European Union block represented by Spain and France. The developing world receives carbon emission transfer from the developed world. Finally, (4) the division of FVA network and FVAC network segment shows that the global value chain under the current international division of labor is characterized by multi-regionalization. Therefore, actively embedding in the regional value chain has become an important way for China's equipment manufacturing industry to upgrade to low carbon.

Accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss have spurred demands for the “greening” of Global Value Chains (GVCs). This article analyzes how Zero-Deforestation Commitments (ZDCs) are conveyed through soy supply chains to producers in Brazil. Informed by the GVC perspective and drawing on corporate reports and interview data, we study how intra-chain power relations shape the transmission of ZDCs with particular attention to how power is distributed and exercised across different nodes. Identifying a pushback from Brazilian soy producers, we challenge the assumption of cascading compliance underpinning academic perspectives and corporate strategies of sustainability management. Our contribution also stresses the pivotal role of state actors in mediating power dynamics within supply chains, as demonstrated by Brazilian authorities’ contestation of European deforestation regulations, such as the European Union Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR). Broadly, our findings reveal the rising market power of Southern agri-food corporations, which have emerged as significant veto-players in the environmental regulation of GVCs.

The global value chain (GVC) perspective assumes that business firms’ occupation of high value-added nodes in the global production network can promote their countries’ socio-economic development. However, I argue that society-wide benefits that may follow from firms’ profit-maximizing activities are often ephemeral. Over time the middle class can shrink, and economic inequality can increase even when firms continue to move up to higher value-added niches and garner huge profit. I illustrate this disjunction between business activities and societal development with Apple’s strategies of tax avoidance and reduction from the Obama to the Trump administration. I then draw on the theoretical framework that Giovanni Arrighi sets out in The Long Twentieth Century and ideas from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus to analyze the Apple case. As my analysis makes clear, the flawed assumption of the GVC perspective reveals its practitioners’ failure to recognize that within global capitalism, permanent and sustained societal affluence is unlikely, and what exists instead is a constant alternation between prosperity and disparity.

Since a new government was elected in 1994, South Africa has become a favoured nation for the many bilateral and multi-lateral agencies providing aid to developing countries. Despite several relatively large pledges of 'transition support', however, external resources constitute less than 2% of the annual government budget. This non-dependence has established a degree of equilibrium in a relationship normally regarded as highly unequal in other African countries. Although international donors funded the antiapartheid movement in South Africa prior to 1994, the new government inherited a chaotic administration that had little institutional experience of conventional development aid. Many of the new cadres entering government had not been exposed to the workings of government, let alone donor, bureaucratic processes. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the first few years after 1994, the aid relationship was characterized by low disbursements, unrealistic expectations and a degree of conflict. Since 1997, however, aid supported projects have started to become more visible. Within the broad objective of supporting transformation of the health system, one of the key areas of donor support is managerial capacity development, particularly of district, hospital and provincial health structures. These initiatives tend to be poorly coordinated, a problem compounded by a quasi-federal system in which provinces have large amounts of autonomy. The contribution of donor aid to strengthening the health system could be enhanced by the establishment of a clear national framework to guide the many externally supported projects building managerial skills and systems.

Based on the global value chain perspective, this study carried out a comprehensive analysis of foreign trade industry in Jiangsu province from four dimensions, including contribution rate of foreign trade industry to GDP, value chain division, value chain dependency and value chain links. Research showed that the four types of industry upgrades (processes, products, functions, chains) could be realized by integrating “Internet +” from the perspective of value chain. Therefore, we planned three proposals to promote the upgrading of Jiangsu foreign trade industry: Integrate and promote the value chain, merge the internet technology; extend the value chain, build Internet platform; reconstruct the value chain and optimize the trade process.

In this study, we provide a theoretical account of the effects of intellectual property rights protection on two crucial innovative entrepreneurships: technology-and market-oriented innovative entrepreneurship, and explore the contingent role of countries’ positions in global value chains. We examine this framework using cross-national data across 43 countries over 9 years from the GEM survey, finding that IPR protection prohibits technology-oriented innovative entrepreneurship, while has an inverted-U shape with market-oriented innovative entrepreneurship. In addition, the aforementioned relationships are strengthened when the countries locate in the upstream of global value chain. Consequently, this study contributes to innovative entrepreneurship theory and practice by uncovering how IPR protection regime impacts innovative entrepreneurship with different orientations and involving the perspective of global value chain to explore the variation of the aforementioned relationships.

The impact of Aid for Trade (AfT) on the development of global value chains (GVCs) has attracted much attention in recent years. Based on the cross-country panel data of China’s AfT and value chain cooperation (VCC) between China and recipient countries from 2000 to 2016, this paper examines the impact of China’s AfT on VCC between China and recipient countries. The study found that China’s AfT can significantly increase the degree of VCC between China and the recipient countries. Further mechanism tests show that China’s AfT has mainly promoted VCC between China and recipient countries through two channels: improving their infrastructure and reducing trade costs. The research shows that AfT can effectively promote win-win cooperation and common development between donor and recipient countries. In addition, from the perspective of GVCs, aid is effective for developing recipient countries.

This article argues that the global value chains (GVC) perspective bridges the firm-specific, private-sector and country-level, societal divide that has separated the international business and international economics literatures. A key mechanism that explains the policy impact of the GVC approach are the networks created between the policy entrepreneurs inside the international organizations (IOs) dealing with economic development and the idea entrepreneurs in the research community. The policy engagement of various segments of the GVC research community with development-oriented IOs has increased the scope and visibility of the GVC literature, and improved the quality and relevance of the findings from selected GVC research programs. However, one of the drawbacks of this collaboration has been the multiple meanings attached to the GVC concept and its policy usages within the IOs and national policy communities. The GVC framework remains centrally involved in contemporary research frontiers, including the impact of tariffs on national competitiveness and innovation systems, the digital economy, the future of manufacturing, the co-evolution between local economic clusters and global production networks, and the role of foreign direct investment in establishing complete value chains as a catch-up strategy in developing economies.

Technology, global value chains and functional specialisation in Europe