Crisis-Related Changes in the Specialization of Advanced Economies in Global Value Chains

Analysis of globalization-induced gains and losses necessitates not only new types of data to complement that compiled in traditional trade statistics but also new analytical approaches. This article surveys the literature that addresses the evolution of the global value chain approach, an analytical perspective that is able to capture in greater depth than earlier theories the causes and consequences of the ongoing process of global reorganization of production. Our specific focus is, on the one hand, changing activity specialization within the new global division of labour and the related changes in competitiveness of advanced economy actors; and, on the other hand, crisis-related changes in global value chains. We conjecture that advanced economy actors have been continuously shifting their specialization towards ‘the edges of the value chains’ into activities requiring higher skills, which result in the capture of higher value for them. We show that this process has further accelerated during the financial crisis.