Sass and Szalavetz on global value chains

On the other hand, certain studies underline the stabilizing impact of GVCs in terms of sustaining trade levels or at least moderating the fall in trade flows. Thus, seemingly unrelated to our topic, Alfaro and Chen (2010) analysed the reaction and role of foreign direct investment (FDI) during the global financial crisis. They examined firm-level data from more than 100 countries for 2007 and 2009. Their results can be related to the GVC approach, because they distinguished and examined three channels through which FDI impacts upon the performance of companies: production linkages, financial linkages and multinational networks. From our point of view, the most important results are that multinationals engaged in activities with vertical production linkages weathered the crisis better than their local counterparts. On the other hand, horizontal FDI was affected more negatively. Moreover, companies operating as part of a multinational network on average performed better; here again, horizontal production linkages were affected more negatively than vertically integrated linkages. Thus GVCs may have played a stabilizing role. Van Bergeijk (2013) analysed trade data for 42 countries, and found that international value chains had a major alleviating impact on the fall in world trade during 2008–09.

Sass, Magdolna, and Andrea Szalavetz. "Crisis-related changes in the specialization of advanced economies in global value chains." Competition & Change 18.1 (2014): 54-69