The Export Performance of Countries within Global Value Chains (GVCs)

The growing importance of global value chains (GVCs) in the international organisation of productionincreasingly challenges the traditional way of measuring countries’ export performance and henceinternational competitiveness. As a result of growing production fragmentation, a country’s export bundlenowadays incorporates imports of intermediate goods representing a (large) part of its value. In this case,simply looking at the evolution of exports may misrepresent the international competitive position of acountry. This paper discusses the export performance of countries along the value chain by distinguishingupstream activities (i.e. the production of intermediate inputs) and more downstream activities (e.g. thefinal assembly of products). The empirical analysis first shows how imports of intermediates increasinglydetermine the export competitiveness of countries in final products. Second, the paper analyses thedevelopments at the intensive and extensive margins of trade and studies how structural changes in termsof geographical and sectoral composition, largely outside the influence of national policies, havecontributed to countries’ export performance.