The phenomenon of global value chains highlighted the issue of domestic value-added in exports (DVA) and led to the development of alternative trade measures in value-added terms. These, inter alia, enabled an estimation that shows that New EU countries from Central and Eastern Europe (NMS-10) experience an approximately 5 percentage points lower DVA share as compared to old EU countries (EU-15). The lag is on average the highest in knowledge-intensive manufacturing sectors (8 percentage points) and the lowest in knowledge-intensive services (0.3 percentage points). However, this paper follows the assumption that NMS-10 have acquired new knowledge by participating in global value chains (GVCs), and thus gradually started increasing their DVA. Based on the empirical application of the EU trade data, I found that convergence in terms of DVA in exports can be observed in manufacturing, and especially in the services sectors. Additionally, I find that for NMS-10 countries negative relationship between participation in GVCs and DVA in exports is slightly decreasing over time in both sectors.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
The study focuses on a qualitative analysis of five case studies of firms that are part of GVC with services. Except for one firm, their sales are dominantly performed in international markets. The selection of diversified firms enables to illustrate diffferent aspects of services integration into GVC. Development, marketing and customers relationships management are interlinked and mutually complementary phases that contribute the most to the value creation process within GVCs. The largest benefits of firms' own GVCs refer to better performance in the long run, control over entire GVC and the quality of services. When the firms supply to GVCs of other firms the benefits relate to better recognition of their brands and increased push to innovate. The lack of skilled workforce is a common obstacle to both own and other owners GVCs that also poses risk for fast and agile growth. The finding are relevant from the perspective of policy shaping as regards the support to firms with own GVCs and those that are planning to establish them, most notably in services where domestic value added of exports is high. Even if the analysis suffers from a limited number of cases it still enables to revisit the existing theoretical approach to GVCs in services.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
This paper studies the effects of outsourcing and offshoring on the skill structure of firms. The study verifies whether controlling for both activities in one model alters previous empirical studies, which controlled only for one factor in their models; whether controlling for destination country of outsourcing and offshoring brings new insights; and whether controlling for occupational level of workers when defining skills brings additional contribution to the results. Regarding the latter, besides the conventional approach for defining skills, i.e. the educational level, skills are also defined by three major occupational groups; Managers, Professionals and Technicians. To empirically estimate the abovementioned hypotheses, a matched employer-employee dataset for Slovenian manufacturing and service firms during 1997 to 2010, and the methods for panel data analysis were used. Results of the model on average show a positive impact of offshoring on the skill share of firms, while the results for outsourcing are uncommon. When controlling for high- and low-income countries, the results for manufacturing firms show a positive and similar effect of offshoring to both groups of countries on the share of skilled employees. In service firms, results show a weaker impact of offshoring to high-income countries on the relative employment of skilled, compared to offshoring to low-income countries. When taking into account also occupational levels for defining skills, the results show that the impact of education differs between occupational groups, indicating that firms differentiate between more and less educated individuals within the same occupational group.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
COBISS.SI-ID: 23001830