Participation in Global Value Chains: macro and micro evidence for North Africa

Davide Del Prete, Giorgia Giovannetti () and Enrico Marvasi

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: This paper analyzes North African countries' participation into international production networks and estimates if/to what extent being part of a global value chain affects firms' performance. Using new Input-Output data from UNCTAD-Eora, we describe regional and country GVC participation. Results show that North African countries have not been able so far to integrate into international production networks. However, large part of their (low) trade is due to global value chains related activties, mainly in the upstream phases, and the importance of global linkages has been increasing over time. To better understand the impact of international fragmentation of production, we perform a micro, firm-level analysis. We show that firms' performance, measured by several indicators, is positively associated with internationalization modes as well as GVC participation. These results confirm those of our sectoral analyses and are in line with existing anecdotal evidence. Enhancing GVC participation of North African countries is likely to substantially benefit the area. However, the ability to retain such benefits relies on specific characteristics, such as the level of human capital, the logistics, the presence of trade barriers, thus leaving room for policy intervention.

Keywords: global value chains; firms' heterogeneity; North Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F15 L23 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.disei.unifi.it/upload/sub/pubblicazioni/repec/pdf/wp11_2015.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2015_11.rdf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa Via delle Pandette 9 50127 - Firenze - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giorgio Ricchiuti ().