Growing like China: Firm performance and global production line position

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and how...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of international economics 2021-05, Vol.130, p.103445, Article 103445
Main Authors: Chor, Davin, Manova, Kalina, Yu, Zhihong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Business schools
China
Exports
Firm heterogeneity
Firm lifecycle
Global value chains
Production line position
Upstreamness
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Summary:Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and how this evolves with productivity and performance over the firm lifecycle. We document a sharp rise in the upstreamness of imports, stable positioning of exports, and rapid expansion in production stages conducted in China over the 1992–2014 period, both in the aggregate and within firms over time. Firms span more stages as they grow more productive, bigger and more experienced. This is accompanied by a rise in input purchases, value added in production, fixed costs incurred, and profits. We rationalize these patterns with a stylized model of the firm lifecycle with complementarity between the scale of production and the scope of stages performed.
ISSN:0022-1996
1873-0353
DOI:10.1016/j.jinteco.2021.103445