Cingolani Isabella, Panzarasa Pietro, Tajoli Lucia
1Big Data and Analytical Unit, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK.
2School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Appl Netw Sci. 2017;2(1):21. doi: 10.1007/s41109-017-0041-4. Epub 2017 Jul 12.
The international exchange of goods and services is increasingly organised along global value chains in which the various production stages are carried out at many different locations all over the world. A country can be seen as holding a central position in global trade to the extent that it is involved in a large number of economic transactions with alternative potential suppliers and has a wide access to different important markets. However, the centrality of countries' positions in the international production of goods and services may vary according to the specific stages of the production process that countries occupy. Here we adopt a network-based perspective, and propose a novel three-faceted measure of centrality that captures countries' distinct roles at the upstream, midstream, and downstream stages of the international production process. Findings suggest that rankings of countries based on our measures of centrality vary across production stages. While emerging and developing countries tend to secure central positions at upstream and midstream production stages, high-income countries tend to exert prevailing roles at downstream stages. Moreover, rankings based on our measures differ from alternative rankings obtained from traditional measures of market power simply reflecting aggregate trade values. This is especially the case within more traditional industries, such as Textiles and Apparel, in which small and less developed countries can play relevant roles at various stages of the production process.
商品和服务的国际交换越来越多地沿着全球价值链进行组织，在全球价值链中，各个生产阶段在世界各地的许多不同地点进行。一个国家如果参与了大量与潜在替代供应商的经济交易，并且能够广泛进入不同的重要市场，那么就可以被视为在全球贸易中占据中心地位。然而，各国在国际商品和服务生产中的中心地位可能会因各国在生产过程中所处的具体阶段而有所不同。在这里，我们采用基于网络的视角，并提出一种新颖的三方面中心性度量方法，该方法能够捕捉各国在国际生产过程的上游、中游和下游阶段所扮演的不同角色。研究结果表明，基于我们的中心性度量方法对各国的排名在不同生产阶段有所不同。新兴国家和发展中国家往往在上游和中游生产阶段占据中心地位，而高收入国家则往往在下游阶段发挥主导作用。此外，基于我们的度量方法得出的排名与从简单反映总贸易价值的传统市场力量度量方法获得的替代排名不同。在纺织和服装等更传统的行业中尤其如此，在这些行业中，小国和欠发达国家在生产过程的各个阶段都可以发挥相关作用。
