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Mar 15, 2024
Christoph Kubitza, Vijesh V. Krishna, Stephan Klasen, Thomas Kopp, Nunung Nuryartono, Matin Qaim
Labor Displacement in Agriculture: Evidence from Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia
We analyze the labor market effects of oil palm cultivation among smallholder farmers in Indonesia. Oil palm requires less labor per unit of land than alternative crops, especially less female labor. Micro-level data and nationally-representative regency-level data show that oil palm adoption, on average, led to an expansion of total cropland at the expense of forestland, resulting in higher agricultural labor demand for men. At the same time, women’s employment rates declined due to a substan...
Mar 15, 2024
Juliane Lang, Stefano Ponte, Thando Vilakazi
Linking power and inequality in global value chains
There is increasing interest in the study of globalization on whether the emergence and consolidation of global value chains (GVCs) have exacerbated inequalities within and across nations and/or how GVCs may be leveraged to mitigate them. Although power asymmetries have been identified as a central factor shaping (un)successful GVC participation, dominant discourses still disregard the links between power and inequality or use these concepts interchangeably. In this article, we provide an analyt...
Mar 15, 2024
Stefano Ponte, Jennifer Blair, Mark Dallas
Power and inequality in global value chains: Advancing the research agenda
Power is a central, but largely undertheorized, concept for scholars of global value chains (GVCs). In this introduction to a special issue on power and inequality in GVCs, the authors summarize the key insights from the articles gathered here and explain how the collection advances our understanding of the types and forms of power operating in GVCs and their effect on different dimensions of inequality.
Mar 15, 2024
Gideon Ndubuisi and Solomon Owusu
Global Value Chains, Job Creation, and Job Destruction among Firms in South Africa
Extant studies suggest that firms’ engagement in global value chain (GVC) trade is associated with productivity gains that result from the continual reallocation of resources to their most productive use. This reallocation generates benefits for transitioning workers but also incurs costs for workers undergoing turnover. A comprehensive understanding of the overall welfare effect of firms’ engage- ment in GVC trade requires a consideration of the productivity gains and the net job reallocati...
Mar 15, 2024
Rachel Alexander and Aarti Krishnan
Upgrading Trajectories in South Africa: Exploring the Roles of Customer and Supplier Link Types in Manufacturers’ Economic, Social and Environmental Upgrading
This study explores determinants of firms’ economic, social and environmental upgrading and downgrading trajectories in South Africa, with a focus on the manufacturing sector. Specifically, it considers connections between firms’ buyer and supplier relationships and their upgrading outcomes. Data is drawn from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys of 2007 and 2020 and analysed using social network and econometric analysis.
Mar 11, 2024
Philipp Herkenhoff, Sebastian Krautheim, Finn Ole Semrau, and Frauke Steglich
Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain
Locating substantial parts of the production process in developing and emerging economies, many firms face an increasing demand by stakeholders for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) along their value chains. Contractual incompleteness between firms and their suppliers at different stages of production can exacerbate the ability to meet these demands. We analyze a model of sequential production with incomplete contracts where CSR by independent suppliers differentiates the final product in th...
Mar 7, 2024
Angela Heucher, Judith Ihl, Michèle Kiefer, Marcus Kaplan, Steffen Schmok, Kathrin Wolf
The Promotion of Sustainable Supply Chains Through German Development Cooperation Based on the Example of the Textile Sector
German development cooperation is pursuing the objective of reducing negative social and environmental effects in global (textile) supply chains and thus, in the long term, contributing to designing them more sustainably. This evaluation examines, in particular, the interaction between various development cooperation instruments and measures to promote sustainable global supply chains in the textile sector.
Mar 4, 2024
Johannes Jäger, Gonzalo Duran, Lukas Schmidt
Expected economic effects of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)
This study assesses the possible economic impacts of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (EU CSDDD). On the theoretical level, perspectives from neoclassical economics are combined with the value chain approach, and with the power resources perspective. Empirically, this study provides a brief overview of economic development, international trade, and human rights with a focus on the Global South. Based on a deductive methodology, comparative-static and dynamic analyses ...
Feb 12, 2024
Ibrahim Nana, Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong
Evolution of Global Value Chains Participation and Economic Growth in Africa
Global value chains offer countries unique opportunities to participate in and benefit from international trade by specializing in specific production stages and tasks. The objective of this study is twofold: (i) to investigate the evolution of African countries participation in global value chains and (ii) assess the impact of global value chains participation on growth. The study uses the EORA Multi-Region Input-Output tables to track the evolution of African countries along global va...
Feb 12, 2024
Jann Lay, Tilman Altenburg, Melanie Müller, Tevin Tafese, Rainer Thiele, Frauke Steglich
Europäische Lieferkettenregulierung nicht aufhalten! Sie ist ein wichtiger Schritt für eine bessere Globalisierung
Im Dezember hatten sich die EU-Staaten und das Europäische Parlament auf eine Richtlinie für Lieferketten – die Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) – geeinigt. Die Zustimmung des Rates am 9. Februar galt als Formsache. Doch nun droht das Veto Deutschlands die Richtlinie auf den letzten Metern zu Fall zu bringen. Eine europäische Lieferkettenregulierung allein kann die Probleme niedriger Löhne, schlechter Arbeitsbedingungen und massiver Umweltschäden in vielen Lä...
Jan 30, 2024
“Sustainable global supply chains in times of geopolitical crises” Annual Report 2023
The overarching topic of this year's report is "The Role of Geopolitics in Global Supply Chains", highlighting ways in which recent geopolitical and geo-economic developments are shaping and influencing current debates and policy processes around global supply chains (GSCs). Following forewords from the network hosts and Dr. Bärbel Kofler (German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), the lead article explores the (re-)configuration of global supply chains in differe...
Jan 19, 2024
Mike Morris
Chinese Firms and Adherence to Global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Standards in Developing Countries: Is there Potential to Create Common Ground?
This paper focuses on analysing how Chinese firms operate in Latin America, Asia and Africa in regard to ESG (environmental, social and governance) standards and sustainability issues. How do they respond to the increasing global value chain requirement to incorporate and maintain ESG standards? Is their space for an alignment between Western development cooperation ESG policies, frameworks, strategies and practices and Chinese political and economic stakeholders in the developing world? The pap...
Jun 24, 2023
Inga Carry, Melanie Müller
Addressing Environmental Injustices in South African Artisanal Gold Mining
Around 30,000 artisanal miners (Zama Zamas) work in and around active and abandoned mines in South Africa. However, weak governance and oversight of illegal mining have resulted in lawlessness, insecurity, and hundreds of deaths over the years. These mining sites have become some of the most violent and hazardous in Africa, plagued by issues like gun violence, child labor, prostitution, water and air pollution, and radioactive waste. This chapter explores the situation of Zama Zamas and the grow...
May 3, 2023
Markus Krajewski & Gabriel Felbermayr
Debate: “Do due diligence laws improve the rights of workers in production countries?”
Markus Krajewski is University Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and holds the Chair in Public Law and Public International Law. Prof. Krajewski is one of the programme directors of the MA in Human Rights and chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN). He also chairs the Board of Trustees of the German Institute for Human Rights and is Secretary-General of the German Branch of the International Law Association. Gabriel Felb...
Apr 21, 2023
What is the effect of environmental standards on agricultural value chains?
Mangos or rice, chocolate or even wood - just to mention a few agricultural products that are heavily exported from several countries in the Global South to the Global North. A growing number of them are grown, harvested and processed in line with environmental standards and labels. These standards are meant to improve environmental conditions. And consumers might think a environment friendly label also improves the social conditions: It just sounds plausible - because whoever cares for the envi...
Mar 23, 2023
Angela Heucher, Amélie Gräfin zu Eulenburg, Judith Ihl, Michèle Kiefer
Global supply chains - especially in the textile sector - face many social and environmental challenges to sustainability. The public has become increasingly aware o f these challenges in the wake of disasters such as the fire in the Ali Enterprises textile factory in Pakistan in 2012 and the collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Bangladesh in 2013. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has stated its intention to prom ote fair and sustainable global...
Feb 15, 2023
Matthew Alford & Margareet Visser
Governance and Power across Intersecting Value Chains: The Case of South African Apples
A prevailing focus of global value chain (GVC) analysis has been on the dominance of highly consolidated Northern retailers over suppliers in the global South. The rise of regional and domestic value chains (RVCs/DVCs) within the Global South which intersect with GVCs, has been found to involve private governance by Southern lead firms. However, we have limited insight into the implications of this changing value chain context for the role of public governance, or different groups of workers. So...
Jan 1, 2023
Melanie Müller, Christina Saulich, Meike Schulze, and Svenja Schöneich
From Competition to a Sustainable Raw Materials Diplomacy
German and European businesses are highly dependent on metals. Demand for these raw materials is expected to grow even further as they will be needed for the green energy and electric mobility transition, digitalisation and other emerging technologies. Geopolitical developments influence security of supply. China’s central role in mineral supply chains is a major factor of uncertainty in this context. The European Union has set ambitious sustainability targets. Implementing these in ...
Dec 30, 2022
Sustainable Global Supply Chains Report 2022
Global Supply Chains (GSCs) have become a key feature of globalisation. Production processes are increasingly broken down into specific tasks and organised across national borders. They are organised and governed by “lead firms” that set many of the standards according to which other firms in the chain operate. About half of all global trade is nowadays organised in GSCs. GSCs have manifold effects on economic, social and environmental sustainability. Changes in the configuration of GSCs –...
Nov 2, 2022
Maria C. Lo Bue, Tu Thi Ngoc Le, Manuel Santos Silva, Kunal Sen
Gender and vulnerable employment in the developing world: Evidence from global microdata
This paper investigates gender inequality in vulnerable employment: forms of employment typically featuring high precariousness, inadequate earnings, and lack of decent working conditions. Using a large collection of harmonized household surveys from developing countries, we measure long-term trends, describe geographical patterns, and estimate correlates of gender inequalities in vulnerable employment. Conditional on individual and household characteristics, women are 7 percentage points more l...
Jul 25, 2022
Decent work through South-South Value Chains?
Moderator Nicolas Martin is joined by Stephanie Barrientos from Manchester, England, where she leads the “Shifting South Project” at the University of Manchester where she is now an Emeritus Professor. Stefanie has dedicated a big portion of her career to development issues, focusing on labor and working conditions. And from South Africa Shane Godfrey is in the show. Shane Godfrey recently retired as director of the Labour, Development and Governance Research Unit at the University of Cape T...
Feb 23, 2022
Kristoffer Marslev, Cornelia Staritz, and Gale Raj-Reichert
Rethinking social upgrading in global value chains around worker power
The concept of ‘social upgrading’ has been instrumental in bringing the situation of workers in export sectors across the global South to the fore in research on global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs). Responding to accusations of ‘labour-blindness’ (Taylor, 2007), scholars in the field defined social up-grading as the “process of improvement in the rights and entitlements of workers as social actors” (Barrientos et al., 2011, 324). It includes measurable st...
Jan 12, 2022
Philipp Herkenhoff, Sebastian Krautheim, Finn Ole Semrau, and Frauke Steglich
Corporate Social Responsibility along the Global Value Chain
Firms are under increasing pressure to meet stakeholders’ demand for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) along their global value chains. We study the incentives for and investments in CSR at different stages of the production process. We analyze a model of sequential production with incomplete contracts where CSR by independent suppliers differentiates the final product in the eyes of caring consumers. The model predicts an increasing CSR profile for suppliers along the value chain: from up...
Sep 1, 2021
Janina Grabs, Federico Cammelli, Samuel A. Levy, Rachael D. Garrett
Designing effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies
In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how they influence producers’ opportunity to access sustainable markets and related livelihood...
Jun 28, 2021
Sustainability and Mineral Supply Chains – Trends in the Mining Industry
In this podcast episode, we take a closer look at mineral supply chains. Mining often happens under poor working conditions, the transport of raw materials is energy intensive and the recycling of used minerals is often not profitable and may actually illude today's state of the art. In this podcast we want to ask: How can mineral supply chains become more sustainable? Are voluntary goals of the industry enough or do they need stronger legislative guidelines?
Apr 1, 2021
Lindsay Whitfield and Tilman Altenburg
Automation versus relocation in clothing global value chains: Will investments shift from China to Africa at a big scale?
Since the beginning of this century, China has emerged as the workbench for the world’s clothing industry, increasing its share in global exports from 18% at the turn of the century to about 40% in 2015 (Lu 2016). This had important implications for poor countries, as participation in global clothing value chains historically had been an accelerator of industrialization and poverty reduction (Whitfield, Marslev & Staritz 2021). In the last 50 years, especially a number of Asian countries h...
Feb 17, 2021
Alvaro Espitia, Aaditya Mattoo, Nadia Rocha, Michele Ruta, Deborah Winkler
Pandemic trade: COVID‐19, remote work and global value chains
This paper studies the trade effects of COVID-19 using monthly disaggregated trade data for 28 countries and multiple trading partners from the beginning of the pandemic to June 2020. Regression results based on a sector-level gravity model show that the negative trade effects induced by COVID-19 shocks varied widely across sectors. Sectors more amenable to remote work contracted less throughout the pandemic. Importantly, participation in global value chains increased traders’ vulnerability to...
Feb 11, 2021
Tilman Altenburg and Gary Gereffi
The biggest risks for supply chains
In our first podcast episode we talked to Professor Gary Gereffi and Dr. Tilman Altenburg. Professor Gary Gereffi is the godfather of global value chains. In Durham, North Carolina he is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Global Value Chains Center at Duke University. Tilman Altenburg is the head of the programme Transformation of Economic and Social Systems at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (IDOS). Host of the first episode...
Jan 1, 2021
Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, Harpreet Kaur, and Salil Tripathi
How the Pandemic has Impacted the Various Layers of the Global Garment Supply Chain
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world’s economy and supply chains worldwide, and the global garment industry is certainly no exception. During the time of a global crisis such as the pandemic, these already difficult conditions have been made even more precarious for the millions who depend on these jobs for their livelihoods. This global pandemic has put a spotlight on many of the inequalities and unequal power dynamics that were always present in the system. In this chapter, the authors...
Jan 1, 2021
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, Andrea Lenschow, Edward Challies, Benedetta Cotta, Jens Newig
Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil
The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access to land and water in western Bahía state in the...
Jan 1, 2021
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor
Integrating Human Rights and the Environment in Supply Chain Regulations
To address the negative externalities associated with global trade, countries in the Global North have increasingly adopted supply chain regulations. While global supply chains cause or contribute to interconnected environmental and human rights impacts, I show that supply chain regulations often exclusively target one policy domain. Furthermore, an analysis of the first experiences with the implementation of the French Duty of Vigilance law, which covers and gives equal weight to environmental ...
Jan 1, 2021
Laura Boudreau, Julia Cajal-Grossi, and Rocco Macchiavello
Global Value Chains in Developing Countries: A Relational Perspective from Coffee and Garments
There is a consensus that global value chains have aided developing countries' growth. This essay highlights the governance complexities arising from participating in such chains, drawing from lessons we have learned conducting research in the coffee and garment supply chains. Market power of international buyers can lead to inefficiently low wages, prices, quality standards, and poor working conditions. At the same time, some degree of market power might be needed to sustain long-term supp...
Jan 1, 2021
Larissa Rodrigues, Felipe Bastos, Radolfo Finatti, Marta Salomon
What is the real socioeconomic impact of gold and diamond exploration in the Amazon?
Gold and diamond mining in the Amazon has become a major debate topic in recent years, and has intensified during the term of the current federal administration, alongside the issues of increased deforestation and armed conflict over land use. The question remains: does mineral exploration actually bring about socioeconomic advances? And how long do such advances really last? These and other questions were addressed during an Instituto Escolhas Webinar on 28 January, which presented the results ...
Jan 1, 2021
Larissa Rodrigues, Felipe Bastos, Radolfo Finatti, Marta Salomon
Protected areas or threatened areas? The endless gold rush in the Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units of the Amazon
This study features updated data until 2020 on the size of the threat that gold poses to protected areas in the Legal Amazon. To accomplish this, the study analyzed all gold prospecting requests (prospecting applications and permits) registered with the National Mining Agency (Agência Nacional de Mineração – ANM) – since these requests indicate private interest in the areas – while being careful to not only check the public databases but also to ask the agency itself for truly active re...
Jan 1, 2021
Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, Nancy Reyes Mullins, and Salil Tripathi
The Weakest Link in the Global Supply Chain – How the Pandemic is Affecting Bangladesh’s Garment Workers
The readymade garment industry employs millions of workers in Bangladesh and has contributed to the nation's development. The COVID19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the sector as malls and factories had to close and workers faced uncertain futures. This report evaluates global retailers’ response to the pandemic and its effect on Bangladesh garment workers through in-depth interviews with major international brands, Bangladeshi suppliers, trade union representatives, and inte...
Jul 29, 2020
Adriana Erthal Abdenur
Gender, Climate and Security in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Diagnostics to Solutions
The evidence base on the relationship between climate change and security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has expanded over the past two years. Recent research has shown that a wide variety of phenomena—from extreme weather events in the Caribbean, to soil erosion in Central America, to changing rainfall patterns in the Amazon basin, to melting glaciers in the Andes—multiply risks around water, food and energy security for millions of people. These impacts will have a high price,...
Jan 1, 2020
Weiß, Daniel, Garcia Bibiana
Respect for Human Rights in Global Value Chains: Risks and Opportunities for German Industries.
The German Federal Government adopted the National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights (NAP) in 2016. This plan lays down German companies’ responsibility to respect human rights. In addition, it provides for a bundle of measures to assist companies with implementing and organising their due diligence with regard to human rights. The study “Respect for Human Rights in Global Value Chains. Risks and Opportunities for German Industries” is one of these measures. It analyses human rig...
Jan 1, 2020
Erik Churchill, José-Antonio Monteiro, Victor Stolzenburg & Deborah Winkler
Women and Trade: The role of trade in promoting gender equality
In view of the complexity of the relationship between trade and gender, it is important to assess the potential impact of trade policy on both women and men and to develop appropriate policies to ensure that trade contributes to enhancing opportunities for all. Building on new analysis and data broken down by gender, “Women and Trade: The role of trade in promoting gender equality” aims to advance understanding of the relationship between trade and gender equality and to identify opportuniti...
Jan 1, 2020
Janpeter Schilling; Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, Riccarda Flemmer, Rebecca Froese
A political ecology perspective on resource extraction and human security in Kenya, Bolivia and Peru
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human security in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human security can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multi-dimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries mediating the distribution of costs and benefits ...
Jan 1, 2020
Giovanni Pasquali, Shane Godfrey, Khalid Nadvi
Understanding regional value chains through the interaction of public and private governance: Insights from Southern Africa’s apparel sector
Regional value chains (RVCs) and South–South trade are increasingly considered key features of 21st-century globalisation. This article investigates how RVCs are shaped by the interaction of private and public governance. It evaluates how this interaction unfolded in Southern Africa’s apparel RVCs, exploring trade, investment and labour regimes across three levels of analysis: national, regional, and global. The paper draws on trade data, secondary literature, and interviews with suppliers a...
Jan 1, 2020
Jedrzej George Frynas, Lars Buur
The presource curse in Africa: Economic and political effects of anticipating natural resource revenues
The notion of the ‘resource curse’ suggests that large inflows of extractive industry revenues cause many adverse macro-economic and political effects. The resource curse literature focuses on the impact of actual inflows of extractive resource revenues. However, anticipation of future resource revenues can also lead to negative macro-economic and political effects even before resource extraction takes place, which points to the role of behavioral aspects of the ‘resource curse’. Using e...
Jan 1, 2020
Gale Raj-Reichert, Helena Gräf
Socially responsible public procurement by the city and districts of Berlin: protecting workers in global supply chains
Workers in factories of global supply chains in the global South producing goods governments purchase often face poor working conditions. A governance tool to improve the situation is socially responsible public procurement. We assess this potential vis-à-vis the newly revised public procurement law in Berlin. While challenges include limited knowledge, resources and fragmented purchasing, there are opportunities for ensuring social criteria in procurement contracts of goods at risk of violatin...
Jan 1, 2020
Mark Alan Heuer, Usman Khalid, Stefan Seuring
Bottoms up: Delivering sustainable value in the base of the pyramid
Despite a wealth of expertise involving leading institutions over at least 15 years, a base of the pyramid (BoP) model resulting in scalability has yet to emerge. We posit that institutional gaps between BoP goals of developing human and social capital on one hand and a short-term profit focus of business on the other contribute to the lack of scalability. We address this gap by proposing a social intermediary to link the BoP with firms involved in the BoP. The social intermediary will coordinat...
Jan 1, 2020
Neil M. Coe
Logistical geographies
Although logistics are fundamentally geographical and of critical importance to contemporary society, it is only relatively recently that human geographers and cognate social scientists have started to meaningfully engage with the topic. This paper explores this recent growth of interest, which encompasses the work of transport geographers, economic geographers, labour geographers, mobilities scholars and critical logistics scholars. It synthesises, reviews and evaluates this research around fou...
Jan 1, 2020
Lars Buur, Rasmus H. Pedersen, Malin J. Nystrand, José J. Macuane, and Thabit Jacob
The politics of natural resource investments and rights in Africa: A theoretical approach
Over the past decade and a half, large-scale investments in natural resources in African countries have increased dramatically. While investments in natural resources and agriculture have become more important for African economies, since they have stimulated economic growth and made regimes dependent on rents and revenues for their own survival, surprisingly many investments fail to be implemented or fall through during implementation. Furthermore, natural resource investments often end up viol...
Mar 4, 2019
Ben Shepherd
Mega-regional trade agreements and Asia: An application of structural gravity to goods, services, and value chains
We use a flexible estimation and simulation platform built on the standard structural gravity model to analyze the trade and welfare implications of mega-regional trade agreements for Asian countries. Our counterfactuals suggest that all current mega-regional scenarios have the potential to generate significant export gains for Asian economies, but that welfare improvements are much lower relative to baseline. This finding suggests a political economy problem, as trade-related reallocations of l...
Jan 1, 2019
Stefano Ponte, Gary Gereffi, Gale Raj-Reichert (ed.)
Handbook on Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries and countries, and how they have evolved over time in response to economic and political forces. With chapters written by leading interdisciplinary scholars, the Handbook unpacks the key concepts of G...
Jan 1, 2019
Sanchita Banerjee Saxena
Labor, Global Supply Chains, and the Garment Industry in South Asia: Bangladesh after Rana Plaza
This book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Using the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as a departure point, and to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future, this book presents an interdisciplinary analysis to address the disaster which resulted in a radical change in the functioning of the gar...
Jan 1, 2019
Sourafel Girma, Holger Görg, Erasmus Kersting
Which boats are lifted by a foreign tide? Direct and indirect wage effects of foreign ownership
The attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered to be of particular importance for emerging economies because it represents a channel through which international convergence in standards of living may be achieved. One important effect of FDI is its impact on wages, both within the targeted firm (direct) and the local firms within the same geographic region and sector (indirect). In this paper, we investigate the question whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) raise or lower wag...
Jan 1, 2019
Gale Raj-Reichert
Global Value Chains, Contract Manufacturers, and the Middle-Income Trap: The Electronics Industry in Malaysia
The electronics industry has been a cornerstone to the successful industrialisation process in Malaysia since the 1970s. However, since the 2000s the industry, which is deeply integrated in global value chains, has failed to upgrade. Its stagnation is indicative of the general economic situation in Malaysia which has contributed to its middle-income trap. This paper argues two key factors combined have led to the electronics industry’s inability to upgrade within the global value chain. First ...
Jan 1, 2019
World Bank
World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production close...
Jan 1, 2019
Ismail Doga Karatepe, Christoph Scherrer
Collective Action as a Prerequisite for Economic and Social Upgrading in Agricultural Production Networks
This article highlights the importance of collective action and the role of the state in upgrading the social and economic conditions of farmworkers and smallholders. It is argued that economic upgrading does not automatically translate into social upgrading for workers and small producers and explores the conditions conducive to social upgrading. The asymmetric power relations among actors in the agricultural value chain erect barriers that hinder social upgrading of smallholders and farmworker...
Jan 1, 2019
Stephanie Barrientos, Lara Bianchi, and Cindy Berman
Gender and governance of global value chains: Promoting the rights of women workers
Private governance channelled through social compliance programmes and gender initiatives of multinational companies have had limited impact in tackling gender discrimination in global value chains (GVCs). The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) provide a public–private governance framework to address human rights globally, including gender equality. This article considers whether the UNGPs can provide a more effective governance framework for addressing wome...
Jan 1, 2019
Gale Raj-Reichert
The powers of a social auditor in a global production network: the case of Verité and the exposure of forced labour in the electronics industry
Research on labour governance actors in global production networks (GPNs) has been limited to civil society organisations, firms and governments. Understanding the influence of actors in GPNs has been dealt with singular and overt modes of relational power. This paper contributes to both debates by examining an intermediary actor—the social auditing organisation Verité—and its exercise of multiple modes of overt and covert powers to illustrate the complex terrain of change in GPNs. Verité,...
Jan 1, 2019
Janina Grabs, Stefano Ponte
The evolution of power in the global coffee value chain and production network
The configurations of global value chains and production networks are constantly changing, leading to new trajectories and geographical distributions of value creation and capture. In this article, we offer a 40-year evolutionary perspective on power and governance in the global coffee value chain and production network. We identify three distinct phases that are characterized by different power dynamics, governance setups and distributional configurations. We find that the kinds of power exerci...
Jan 1, 2019
Stephanie Barrientos
Gender and Work in Global Value Chains
This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialised production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or mid...
Jan 1, 2019
Sotiris Blanas, Adnan Seric, Christian Viegelahn
Job Quality, FDI and Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
Using a unique sample of foreign-owned and domestic firms in Sub-Saharan Africa, we study the differences in the quality of jobs that they offer, and identify how these differences are associated with country-level institutional factors. We find that foreign-owned firms offer more stable and secure jobs than domestic firms, as evidenced by their higher and lower shares of permanent full-time and temporary employment, respectively. The job stability and security advantage of foreign-owned firms i...
Jan 1, 2019
Janpeter Schilling
An Environment of Insecurity: The Relationship between Environmental Change and Violent Conflict in Northwest Kenya
About the book: Security threats today are increasingly complex, dynamic, and asymmetric, and can affect environmental factors like energy, water, and food supply. As a result, it is becoming evident that the traditional model of nation-state based security is incomplete, and that purely military capabilities, though necessary, are insufficient to protect the United States and other democracies from the array of threats that challenge liberty and the free flow of people and commerce. A more ...
Jan 1, 2018
Günther Maihold
Colombia’s Peace and Venezuela’s Turmoil. An Emerging Regional Crisis Landscape in South America
Despite concerted political efforts to isolate the Colombian peace process from Venezuela’s internal unrest, the signs suggest coalescence and tectonic strife in the region. There are justified concerns that the increasingly interconnected constellation of precarious peace in Colombia and growing authoritarianism in Venezuela could generate new dynamics of violence. The two Andean neighbours are so closely connected by ideological confrontation, border disputes, illegal violent actors, migrati...
Jan 1, 2018
Thomas Farole, Claire Hollweg and Deborah Winkler
Trade in Global Value Chains: An Assessment of Labor Market Implications
The paper is structured in six further sections following this introduction. Section two develops a conceptual framework, and reviews the literature on the relationship between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Section three outlines the empirical framework and data used in the analysis. Section four presents results on the relationship between overall trade integration (through exports) and labor market outcomes. Section five then focuses specifically on GVC trade, and assesses the r...
Jan 1, 2018
Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Adnan Seric
Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Supply Chains: Deeds Not Words
The disconnect between the lofty aspirations of firms claiming Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their shortcomings in practice have caused some observers to question its usefulness. The fallout from events like the Rana Plaza catastrophe has highlighted some of these shortcomings—namely, deficiencies in how multinational enterprises (MNEs) transact with suppliers in developing countries. Specifically, our paper aims to investigate whether or not MNEs behave hypocritically by examining...
Jan 1, 2018
Christina Saulich; Siegmar Schmidt
Das Konfliktpotential großer Rohstoffvorkommen in Mosambik
Current protests and acts of violence have sparked a debate on a potential resource curse in Mozambique. This paper analyses the role of resource abundance in recent societal conflicts in Mozambique. The strand of literature on resources and conflicts sheds no light on the underlying structural sources of conflict in resource rich countries. The authors therefore draw on Edward E. Azar’s model of Protracted Social Conflicts with the aim to develop an analytical framework that combines Azar’s...
Jan 1, 2018
Markus Krajewski
State duty to protect and corporate responsibility for human rights in global supply chains
The responsibility of transnational corporations for human rights violations in global supply chains continue to be of public interest: Fires in textile factories in Pakistan, environmental destructions due to oil production or worst forms of child labour in mines which produce minerals for electronic goods are just a few examples. Even if companies are not formally bound to internationally binding human rights according to current legal doctrine, a number of legal and political instruments emer...
Jan 1, 2018
Christoph Scherrer
Labour surplus is here to stay: why ‘decent work for all’ will remain elusive
In 2015, the United Nations agreed to pursue the Sustainable Development Goal #8 ‘To promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all’. The paper argues that this goal will not be achieved. The abundance of persons offering their labour power in relationship to the limited demand for their labour stems from the insufficient absorption of peasants set free from their land. In many late industrialising...
Jan 1, 2017
Melanie Müller
Deutsche Kupferimporte: Menschenrechtsverletzungen, Unternehmensverantwortung und Transparenz entlang der Lieferkette
Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, wie deutsche Unternehmen im Kupferbereich über die Herkunft ihrer Rohstoffe sowie über ihre Menschenrechtsstandards berichten. Die Studie geht dabei in fünf Schritten vor: Das erste Kapitel führt in die Thematik der Unternehmensverantwortung in globalen Lieferketten ein. Es beschreibt die Grundzüge der UN-Leitprinzipien für Wirtschaft- und Menschenrechte, geht auf die Umsetzung durch die deutsche Bundesregierung ein und stellt zudem weitere Initiativen ...
Jan 1, 2017
Axel Berger, Dominique Bruhn
Vietnam’s Preferential Trade Agreements: Implications for GVC Participation and Upgrading
Vietnam is a lower-middle–income country and, like many of its peers, faces the challenge of upgrading to higher value-added tasks in global value chains (GVCs). Participation and upgrading are not an arbitrary policy objective: both may be of decisive importance for Vietnam’s future economic development path. While the economy currently is highly competitive in relatively low-skilled, labor-intensive tasks, history has shown that wages eventually will rise and this comparative advantage wil...
Jan 1, 2017
Kunal Sen
What Explains the Job Creating Potential of Industrialisation in the Developing World?
This paper examines why job creation in the manufacturing sector has differed widely across developing countries, using a modified Lewis model that captures the scale, composition and labour intensity effects of industrialisation on job creation. We show that while the scale effect has been mostly positive, labour intensity and composition effects have been mostly negative. Trade integration has a positive impact on manufacturing employment via the scale and composition effects, but a negative i...
Jan 1, 2017
Melanie Müller, Bettina Engels, and Kristina Dietz
Ausgebaggert: Weltweite Proteste gegen den Bergbau
Editorial: In der Aktuellen Analyse diskutiert Ulrich Frey die Chancen und Grenzen ziviler Konfliktbearbeitung gegen den Terrorismus. Der Beitrag beschreibt zunächst die Grundzüge zivilgesellschaftlicher Konfliktbearbeitung und zivilgesellschaftlicher Interventionen. Er setzt sich dann mit den Interventionsmöglichkeiten gegen den Terrorismus auseinander und analysiert die Möglichkeiten des Instruments. Im Hauptteil dieses Hefts widmen wir uns den weltweiten Protesten gegen den Abbau von R...
Jan 1, 2017
Matthew Alford, Stephanie Barrientos, Margareet Visser
Multi-scalar Labour Agency in Global Production Networks: Contestation and Crisis in the South African Fruit Sector
Integration into global production networks poses significant challenges, and also opens up opportunities, for labour agency. Governance by lead firms affects working conditions and can drive precarious employment; this interacts with and can constrain national labour legislation covering labour rights. The global production networks (GPN) approach facilitates examination of commercial value chains, their interaction with institutionally and societally embedded labour markets, and potential leve...
Jan 1, 2017
Ahmad, N, Primi A.
From domestic to regional to global: Factory Africa and factory Latin America?
This chapter provides a brief overview of upgrading and GVC terminologies, providing insights on interpretability pitfalls. It offers evidence of the complementarities between strong domestic supply chains and imports and then demonstrates the importance of strong regional value chains for integration at a global level. And to illustrate the complementarities, it ends with examples of broad and targeted policies that countries are implementing for the motor vehicle value chain.
Jan 1, 2016
Günther Maihold
Intervention by Invitation? Shared Sovereignty in the Fight against Impunity in Guatemala
This article deals with the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a joint hybrid commission to investigate impunity in the context of illegal security networks and organized crime. It was set up as an external governance intervention through an agreement between the UN and the State of Guatemala in 2006 to strengthen state institutions in the face of a worsening security situation. Based on a delegation of governance in the modality of shared sovereignty, CICIG has been...
Jan 1, 2016
Thomas Farole
Do global value chains create jobs?
Global value chains (GVCs) describe the cross-national activities and inputs required to bring a product or service to the market. While they can boost exports and productivity, the resulting labor market impacts vary significantly across developing countries. Some experience large-scale manufacturing employment, while others see a shift in demand for labor from manufacturing to services, and from lower to higher skills. Several factors shape the way in which a country’s labor market will be i...
Jan 1, 2015
Sadaat Ali Yawar, Stefan Seuring
Management of Social Issues in Supply Chains: A Literature Review Exploring Social Issues, Actions and Performance Outcomes
The social dimension of sustainable develop- ment and its impact on supply chains have so far received less attention than the environmental dimension. The aim of the research is to explore the intersection between social issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions and performance outcomes. A structured literature review of social issues in supply chains is presented, analysing the research published so far in peer-reviewed publications. Linking CSR and supply chain management allows t...
