• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.11-19
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic literature review related to environmental upgrading in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and suggest possible future research agendas in advancing environmental upgrading and ultimately GVC boundaries. Research design, data, and methodology - The academic databases such as Science Direct, EBSCO, ProQuest and Google Scholar were explored using a structured keywords searches to identify relevant research in the environmental upgrading area in GVCs. Only relevant papers were selected after reading the abstracts, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results - Overall analysis of the literature review suggests two critical developments in the field of environmental upgrading. The first and foremost major development is an enhanced understanding of environmental upgrading as a concept and phenomenon. The second significant development is that environmental upgrading has been empirically proven to be fundamentally based on relationships and power structures within GVCs. Conclusions - Environmental upgrading in GVCs has been studied individually and not in relation to financial outcomes and social upgrading. Hence, the relationship of environmental upgrading with financial outcomes and social upgrading needs to be investigated. Furthermore, the impact of the interaction of varying institutional structures on environmental upgrading is worthy of future study.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.97-106
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• 2020

Purpose: Participation of firms in Global Value Chains (GVC) has contributed significantly to the improvement of economic outcomes for firms in developing countries. However, evidence suggests that these economic outcomes are gained at the cost of labourers' poor working conditions. This research contributes to existing literature on GVCs by investigating the influence of different governance structures on economic and social upgrading of firms participating in GVCs. Furthermore, the research attempts to understand the relationship between economic and social upgrading in GVCs. Research design and methodology: Detailed qualitative primary research was carried out in the football industry of Sialkot, Pakistan. The case study approach was employed, and football firms were the unit of analysis. Semi-structured interviews with firms' representatives were conducted. Results: Findings reveal that most firms were found in captive, relational and market governance structures. Furthermore, product and process upgrading were witnessed in all firms; however, social upgrading was observed mostly in captive and relational GVCs. Moreover, social upgrading was linked to economic upgrading in captive and relational networks. Conclusions: The findings from the Sialkot football industry reflect that buyers pay higher prices and margins to their suppliers once they upgrade their products and processes.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.103-114
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper investigates the structure of exports across countries in terms of value added. Exports value added is examined under two categories, domestic and overseas. Using a statistical classification method by distance based on these two value added categories, this paper estimates the similarity of exports value added across countries including Korea. Design/methodology - The model of study is to employ a generalized distance function and then derive the Manhattan and Euclidean distances. The paper also performs cluster analysis using the Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) and hierarchical methods to classify the 44 sample countries considered in this study. Findings - Our main findings are as follows. The 44 countries can be classified under 5 groups by their domestic and overseas value added in exports. Korea has a sandwich global value chains (GVCs) position between Japan, China, and Taiwan in the East Asian region. Originality/value - Existing papers point out the double counting problem of trade statistics as the intermediate goods trade across borders increases. This paper addresses the double counting problem by using the World Input-Output Table. The paper shows the need to explore the similarity of value added in exports structure across countries and investigate the GVCs position and role of each country.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.239-260
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• 2020

This research was conducted on 176 GVCs-related research papers listed in the Index of Korean Academic Writers. The analysis methodology used the keyword network analysis methodology of big data analysis. For the comprehensive analysis of research trends, the research trends through word frequency (TF), important topic (TF-IDF), and topical modeling were analyzed in 176 papers. In addition, the research period of GVCs was divided into the early stages of the first study (2003-2014), the second phase of the study (2015-2017), and the third phase of the study (2018-2020). According to the comprehensive analysis, the GVCs research was conducted with the keyword 'value added' as the center, focusing on the keywords of export (trade), Korea, business, influence, and production. Major research topics were 'supporting corporate cooperation and capacity building' and 'comparative advantage with added value of overseas direct investment'. According to the analysis of major period-specific research trends, GVCs were studied in the early stages of the first phase of the study with global value chain trends and corporate production strategies. In the second research propulsion period, research was done in terms of trade value added. In the recent third phase of the study, small and medium-sized enterprises actively participated in the global value chain and actively researched ways to support the government. Through this study, the importance of the global value chain has been confirmed quantitatively and qualitatively, and it is recognized as an important factor to be considered in the strategy of enhancing industrial competitiveness and entering overseas markets. In particular, small and medium-sized companies' participation in the global value chain and support measures are being presented as important research topics in the future.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.45-76
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• 2016

This paper measures the extent to which South Korea participated in global value chains (GVCs) from 1995 through 2011 and scrutinizes the consequences of such participation on the Korean economy. To this end, the World Input Output Database is utilized to calculate GVC income, GVC employment, and value-added exports created by Korean and foreign industries. Our findings show that Korea radically internationalized its production activities during the sample period, widening the gap between gross exports and value-added exports. We also document that Korea's participation in GVCs has changed the value-added and employment structures in domestic industries in accordance with their comparative advantages while exacerbating the degree of wage inequality.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.389-416
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• 2020

This paper provides empirical evidence on the reorganization of GVCs in East Asia, highlighting that structural trends explain a decrease in the fragmentation of production after 2011 but that it is not the result of rising trade costs along the value chain. Using harmonized inter-country input-output tables, the paper first analyzes the global import intensity of production to document changes in the structure of GVCs. It then calculates theory-consistent bilateral trade costs for intermediate and final products using an approach derived from the gravity literature and introduces a new index of cumulative trade costs along the value chain. These data are used to discuss whether the decrease in global imports is the consequence of shifts in demand, efficiency-enhancing strategies of firms or rising trade costs. Between 2011 and 2016, cumulative trade costs have decreased in East Asian GVCs. However, as COVID-19 is likely to intensify trade and investment uncertainties, trade costs could increase in the future. Policies aimed at reducing uncertainties and preserving the gains from trade and investment liberalization will be key in this new environment.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.233-254
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• 2022

Although there is growing literature evidence of linkages between global value chains (GVCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI), the results are mixed and ambiguous by geographic dimension, time period and sectoral scope. Moreover, bilateral approaches on these connections have been rarely analyzed. In this context, we investigate the effect of bilateral greenfield FDI and cross-border M&A on GVC linkages between host countries and source countries. We match three-year averages of bilateral FDI and UNCTAD-Eora GVC value-added data from 2005 to 2019 between 37 OECD sources and 176 host countries (37 OECD versus 139 non-OECD countries). In the structural gravity model, the empirical specification includes bilateral and country-period fixed effects and uses a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator. We find that greenfield and M&A FDI promote forward and backward GVC linkage for all sectors between OECD countries, whereas greenfield FDI promotes backward GVC linkage between OECD and non-OECD countries. In addition, the results indicate that the degree of influence of GVCs by FDI flows is greater for forward GVC than backward GVC among OECD countries.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.95-112
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• 2021

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) signed by the 15 Asian countries in 2020 forms the world's largest free trading bloc. Using data for the period 2001 - 2019, this study evaluates global value chains (GVCs) among the RCEP members, with a primary focus on GVC backward participation which involves imports intermediates embodied in exports. This study finds that the RCEP's intra-regional linkages, particularly with the ASEAN members, are significantly higher than its extra-regional linkages in trade and GVC backward participation. Among the individual RCEP member countries, Korea is found to have a particularly strong intra-regional linkages with the ASEAN members in both trade and GVC participation.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.209-228
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze the changes in trade and industry of Korea and suggest implications from the perspective of global value chains following the spread of COVID-19. To this end, products for prevention of epidemics which is directly related to COVID-19 and IT industries with high GVC participation were analyzed. Due to the spread of COVID-19, the variation in import and export of products for prevention of epidemics was large. In the case of masks, import and export of final goods changed drastically, but the change in intermediate goods was not significant relatively. Korea's IT industry has been differentiated according to major trading partners amid overall changes in GVCs which is summarized as higher forward participation and lower backward participation. While no particular change resulted from COVID-19 has yet been made directly, the need for diversification strategies should be taken into account at a time when the production links with China and Vietnam are close and the dependence on trade with these countries is high. The COVID-19 is still in progress, requiring corporate strategies and policy efforts to respond to changes in GVCs in the post-COVID-19 era.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.113-134
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• 2021

This study analyzed the centrality of the GVCs network and the value-added-based production structure of the electrical and electronic industries using ADB-MIRO and social network analysis methods. According to the analysis, the centrality and power of the GVSc intermediate goods network were differentiated into China, the United States, and the EU due to the advancement of industrial structure in Asia. In the 2000 network, the United States and Japan had a very strong influence in all aspects, including connectivity and strength. However, in 2017, China's power index rose to number one among 62 countries in the network. Furthermore, this study presented strategic implications of the Korean electrical and electronic industries to respond to the reorganization of GVSs based on the analysis results.