Jobs in Global Value Chains: New Evidence for Four African Countries in International Perspective

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Labor Productivity Growth and Industrialization in Africa

“…Thus, participation in global value chains tends to increase labor productivity, but not employment (Pahl and Timmer 2020). Indeed, Pahl et al (2019) show that technological change in formal manufacturing has led to employment declines in Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa. This confluence of events makes it more difficult for low-income African countries to gain a foothold in formal manufacturing-even in their own domestic markets.…”

Cling together, swing together: The contagious effects of COVID‐19 on developing countries through global value chains

“…An advantage of using data from Pahl et al. (2019) is the yearly variation in the input data in those ratios for each of the covered sectors and industries. Second, the construction in Pahl et al.…”

“…Second, the construction in Pahl et al. (2019) provides a careful treatment of trade flows (e.g. re‐exports, missing trade flows, classification by use category), which is paramount to depicting the cross‐country relationships in A .…”

“… Source: Authors' calculation based on Pahl et al. (2019) and estimates on industrial production (Eurostat, 2020; FRED, 2020; NBS, 2020a). …”

“…In this paper, we explore the vulnerability of developing countries to both the demand and the supply shock of the pandemic occurring in major economic hubs. Using global input‐output tables, we map countries' value added to final demand in specific consumer markets (as in Johnson & Noguera, 2017) and to the production within specific value chains (in accordance with Los et al., 2015; Pahl et al., 2019; Timmer et al., 2013). This allows us to provide first estimates on potential GDP effects of the demand and supply shock, running through trade in GVCs.…”