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Global value chains (GVCs) have taken the policy world by storm, with many policymakers viewing them as potent tools to boost economic development through industrial upgrading. In this Perspective, the authors argue that zooming in on the roles of tasks, linkages and firms helps clarify the novelty of GVC-oriented policies.

A worldwide and profound techno-economic paradigm transition is currently under way: this is the restructuringtowards a greener global economy, which has important implications for latecomer development. More so than earlier,transition is driven by deliberate changes in polices, strategies and institutions. These changes may create ‘greenwindows of opportunity’ because mission-guided technical change and market development influence the conditionsfor economic development. In this research we draw on insights from China, exploring how opportunities emerge andvary in different renewable energy sectors. We highlight the important role emerging economies may attain in the greentransformation itself and distill implications for policy.

Developing countries are faced with significant challenges related to building and deepening their innovation capabilities. In this chapter, we focus on innovation in global value chains and on the role that such chains play in building and deepening capability. We also focus on the trajectories along which firms, once inserted into global value chains and located in developing countries, acquire or lose innovation capability. To do so, we bring together the global value chains and innovation systems approaches. Our key arguments are that global value chains interact with innovation systems in multiple ways and that these interactions have important implications for the speed, depth, and overall quality of capability building in developing-country firms. We outline five innovation capability trajectories and show how capability building at the firm level interrelates with the various ways in which global value chains and innovation systems co-evolve.

The wine industry is an extremely interesting sector from a catch -up point of view because the latecomers in the international market have changed how wine is produced, sold and consumed and, in doing so, they have challenged the positions of incumbents. Until the end of the 1980s, the European countries, and particularly France and Italy, dominated the international market for wine. Subsequently, significant changes in the market, namely decreases in consumption by traditional consuming countries, the entry of new inexperienced consumers, and the increasing importance of large distribution have threatened this supremacy. Initially, the USA and Australia and later emerging countries such as Chile and South Africa, gained increasing market shares in both exported volumes and value, at the expense of incumbents. However, some of these newcomers (e.g. Australia) have shown slower growth, opening opportunities for newer entrants such as Argentina and New Zealand. At the same time, some of the incumbents (especially Italy) have innovated, challenging the leadership of France in key markets such as the USA. In this article we investigate the different catch-up cycles in the global wine sector that occurred between the 1960s and 2010, through a detailed analysis of export volumes, values and unit prices. We address issues related to the increasing share in the global market of latecomer countries and the relative decline of the incumbents, as well as possible changes in the market leadership within these two groups.

The GVC approach has stressed that inter-firm linkages within GVCs can play a crucial role in transferring technological knowledge and promoting innovation. However, the exact nature of these GVC inter-firms relationships, and their impact on the learning and innovative processes of firms involved in such GVCs in developing countries is still controversial and rather understudied. In this paper we argue that to investigate whether and how firms involved in GVCs (as well as industrial clusters, regions and countries) innovate, scholars should not focus entirely on GVC characteristics and the role of lead firms, but they also should take into account domestic technological capabilities at the firm, industrial cluster/regional and local innovation system-levels. In this study we undertake a systematic review of the literature on GVCs in developing countries to investigate if and how innovation has been undertaken at the local level. With cluster analysis, we have identified three types of GVCs, defined as (a) GVC-led Innovators, consisting of innovative local firms, which intensively use knowledge sources from within the GVC; (b) Independent Innovators also consisting of innovative firms, but whose learning sources mainly come from outside the GVC; c) Weak Innovators, including a large group of scarcely innovative firms, drawing selectively on some of the knowledge sources available within the GVC but poorly using other forms of learning.

We use disaggregated data by country and industry to empirically analyze the host country determinants of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) for the years 2003 to 2011. Our results suggest that the host-country determinants of Chinese FDI differ between high- and low-income countries. While all Chinese FDI is invariably market seeking, other motivations stand out for differing sectors in specific country groups. The resource seeking motivation is relevant for manufacturing FDI to high-income countries with relatively high fuel abundance, and to low-income countries with primary resource abundance (other than fuels). Differently, the strategic-asset seeking motivation, measured by the level of R&D spending on GDP, only positively and significantly affects Chinese manufacturing and service FDI to OECD countries, while higher education levels are an attraction factor for all investing firms. Natural resource is an important attraction factor for Chinese FDI, not only in resource-related sectors, but also in manufacturing and service sectors. Finally, Chinese FDI tends to follow exports (rather than foster them), especially in service sectors.

The present paper is about the ownership choices by Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises (EMNEs) when they invest in Europe through M&As, and the relationship with the main motivations underlying their international expansion. Namely, we claim that EMNEs prefer to acquire less control and keep the local partner when they invest for seeking knowledge. Additionally, EMNEs choose partial acquisitions in case of high dissimilarity in terms of culture, industry and knowledge base. Our empirical analysis relies on a dataset of M&As undertaken by Chinese and Indian MNEs in high and medium-high tech sectors, in the period 2003-2011. We use content analysis of public announcements and company reports for classifying the main motivation of the acquisitions, and econometric analysis for testing our hypotheses. Our results confirm the expectations.

The empirical literature on China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) mainly relies on aggregate data from official statistics, whose international reliability is currently a matter of concern, and that do not take account of some relevant features such as the industry breakdowns, ownership structures and modes of entry. A novel firm-level database (EMENDATA), compiled by matching data from several available sources, on various types of cross-border deals, and including information on group structure, enables new empirical analyses and provides new insights into the rapidly increasing presence of Chinese companies abroad. In this paper, exploring the potential of these data we offer an informative and comprehensive assessment of the geographical and specialization patterns of Chinese outward FDI into Europe and suggest new avenues for further research on this highly policy relevant issue.

International collaboration among researchers is a far from linear and straightforward process. Scientometric studies provide a good way of understanding why and how international research collaboration occurs and what are its costs and benefits. Our study investigates patterns of international scientific collaboration in a specific field: wine related research. We test a gravity model that accounts for geographical, cultural, commercial, technological, structural and institutional differences among a group of old world (OW) and new world (NW) producers and consumers. Our findings confirm the problems imposed by geographical and technological distance on international research collaboration. Furthermore, they show that similarity in trade patterns has a positive impact on international scientific collaboration. We also find that international research collaboration is more likely among peers; in other words, among wine producing countries that belong to the same group, for example, OW producers or newcomers to the wine industry, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie

Using a new firm-level database, EMENDATA, this paper investigates the effects on Chinese multinational enterprises of Outward FDI (OFDI) into advanced European countries. Propensity score matching is combined with a difference-in-difference estimator to reduce the problems of self-selection of treated firms in foreign markets and to eliminate time-invariant and unobservable differences between those firms and the controls. The results provide robust evidence in support of the view that Chinas OFDI had so far a positive impact on domestic activities in enhancing firms productivity and scales of operation, as measured by assets, sales and employment. Distinguishing among such investments on the basis of entry mode shows that acquisitions facilitate early access to intangible assets but are detrimental to financial performance, whereas greenfield investments have a positive impact on the scale and productivity of Chinese investors.

El estudio analiza como las pequeñas y medianas empresas innovan y mejoran su competitividad en el contexto de aglomeraciones productivas (clusters) de distintos sectores económicos, y que se encuentran integradas en cadenas globales de producción. El análisis se basa en datos originales recogidos en doce nuevos estudios de caso en Latinoamérica y en una extensa revisión la literatura de estudios de clusters. Este conjunto de casos es el más grande que se encuentra disponible en la región latinoamericana y sobre el cuál se realizó un ejercicio comparativo. A partir del análisis empírico, los autores explican como ciertas condiciones de un cluster, las economías externas y las acciones conjuntas (la eficiencia colectiva), favorecen la innovación en las pequeñas y medianas empresas. Luego analizan como los niveles de innovación y eficiencia colectiva se relacionan con el tipo de gobierno predominante en la cadena productiva y con las características de distintos sectores económicos. Finalmente, proponen un menú de políticas, algunos de ellas de alcance general y otras enfocadas a sectores económicos específicos.http://www.iadb.org/sds/mic/publication/publication_159_3586_s.htm

In the past century we have witnessed worldwide a growing flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), which have attracted the attention of economists, international business and development scholars. In this scenario, two trends have recently gained momentum: the increasing relevance of Technology-driven FDI (TFDI) and the upsurge of Emerging Economies’ Multinational Enterprises (EMNEs) investing in advanced countries. In this paper, we present a survey of the relevant literature on TFDI, with a focus on both AMNEs and EMNEs. After presenting the different phases of TFDI from Advanced Economy Multinational Enterprises (AMNEs), we focus on EMNEs and discuss the usefulness and limitations of the existing theoretical frameworks to interpret this new phenomenon. Next, the paper reviews the literature on EMNEs’ sources of competitive advantages and their main motivations for investing abroad. Finally, the paper explores the peculiarities of TFDI from emerging economies.

We empirically analyze the host-country determinants of Chinese outbound foreign direct investments (ODI) in the period from 2003 to 2008, using disaggregated data by country and sector and distinguishing between State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately owned firms. Our results show that the pattern of Chinese ODI differs according to corporate ownership. Private firms are attracted by large markets and host-country strategic assets and are averse to economic and political risks when choosing investment locations abroad. Differently, state-owned enterprises follow the strategic needs of their home country and invest more in natural resource sectors, being largely indifferent to the political and economic conditions in the host countries.

One of the most pervasive and disruptive effects of globalisation is the fragmentation of production processes across countries. This phenomenon is the result of delocalisation strategies pursued by firms in industrialised countries to counter increasing competitive pressures from low labour-cost producers in emerging economies. Many Italian industrial districts are deeply interested by this phenomenon. This paper will be focussed on footwear industrial districts. In the Italian footwear sector the increasing globalisation of production is imposing major changes on the organisation of production: · on the one hand, evidence at a national level shows that increasing international competition is spurring a massive fragmentation of production processes through delocalisation of labour-intensive activities abroad (towards Eastern European countries, mainly Romania); · on the other hand, evidence from a previous study of one of the author on one of the most important footwear clusters - Riviera del Brenta - suggests that the overwhelming presence of fashion firms and increasing concentration in distribution is limiting producers' control on some crucial activities, i.e. design, branding, marketing, distribution (Rabellotti R., 2001, ?The effect of globalisation on industrial districts in Italy: the case of Brenta?, IDS Working Paper 144, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton). Overall, these trends are reducing the range of activities carried out within the districts. Consequently, as firms in industrial districts enter international production networks, they are altering their traditional sources of competitiveness, which has traditionally come from intra-cluster relationships. This paper is concerned with the effect of globalisation of production on footwear industrial districts in Italy. The aim is to investigate the changing role of footwear districts within international production networks. The following questions will be tackled: which is the pattern of specialisation of footwear districts in Italy? Is there any common trend towards a reduction of activities carried out within the districts' Or, instead, are different patterns emerging for districts according to their segment of market and according to the value chains they belong to? The paper will explore these issues by analysing the pattern of fragmentation of production in the footwear sector at a regional and ?provincia? level, using data on outward processing trade (OPT) collected by Associazione Nazionale Calzaturifici Italiani (ANCI). This will allow to understand delocalisation strategies by location and to answer the question of whether different trends are emerging at a regional level. By matching this information with the geographical distribution of footwear districts in Italy, it should be possible to throw some light on the pattern of specialisation of different districts. As regards the other trend which might impact on the pattern of specialisation of footwear districts - such as the emergence of big fashion firms in the luxury segment of the market? and which does not show up in the data, primary source information will be collected through surveys to producers in different footwear clusters, to complement the analysis above.

The aim of this paper is to elaborate a framework for analysing policies and instruments adopted by international co-operation to promote the development of the private sector in developing countries. First of all, the paper presents a brief overview of donors' dominant approach in the past two decades and then an analysis of the most recent trends in this field. Both concerning non financial and financial services to the firms, there is a wide consensus on the need of strengthening local supply institutions, promoting their sustainability and effectiveness. Donors should sustain on the supply side, the development of a well functioning and transparent market for services, avoiding interventions which generates long term distortions and on the demand side should help firms in identifying their needs and the best way to satisfy them within the market.