GlobaLISe · Global Value Chains and Local Innovation Systems in Southern Europe: The Coevolution of Technology, Trade and Finance, and the Technological Divide
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-07-02 → 2020-07-01
- EU contribution
- €152,653
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-SE
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Global Value Chains and Local Innovation Systems in Southern Europe:The Coevolution of Technology, Trade and Finance, and the Technological Divide
The increasing technological and organisational complexity and fragmentation and delocalisation of production through corporate outsourcing and offshoring have fomented the rise of global value chains (GVC) as the linchpin of the world economy. The emerging complex global production network (GPN) of intertwined GVCs supports unprecedented flows of trade in intermediate goods that currently outstrip those of final goods. GVCs as pipelines not only of trade and capital but also of technology flows play a paramount role in the diffusion of technological knowledge that drives productivity and growth in advanced industrial economies and is vital for innovation systems to maintain their competitive edge. GVCs thus have a decisive impact on the industrial structure and technological dynamics of local economies, whose position in the GVCs and value creation and capture capacities are determined by their knowledge production capacities. This project studies from a macro perspective the structure, dynamics and inter-layer interactions of the multiplex network, which consists of the overlaying and co-evolving networks generated by flows of trade, capital and technological knowledge, and spans the European Single Market – the largest and most integrated trade bloc in the world with established free movements of goods, services and factors of production and minimal institutional barriers to trade, capital and technology flows. The nodes of this network are not individual business units but entire economies. Trade flows are traced through multiregional input-output (MRIO) data, capital flows through bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) data, and technological knowledge flows through patent co-invention and citation data. Among other hypotheses, the project examines whether and to what extent the technological divide between Europe’s north-west core and south-east peripheral economies is determined by their mode of insertion in the European Production Network (EPN).
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In the post-Bretton Woods world economy, global value chains (GVC) have become the principal pipelines not only of trade, but also of capital and technology flows, with a decisive impact on the industrial structure of local economies and the technological dynamics of their innovation systems. The proposed project aims to investigate from an empirical, theoretical and normative perspective this impact, as well as its macroeconomic repercussions in terms of productivity, growth, employment, income distribution and the core-periphery technological divide. It will also examine the industrial policies needed to mitigate the technology gaps and to enhance the value capture capacities of peripheral innovation systems by ‘upgrading’ within GVCs, against the backdrop of the financial crisis.At the empirical level, the project will focus on GVCs of knowledge-based manufacturing industries in crisis-afflicted Southern European economies. It will employ advanced statistical, computational and analytical methods at different geographical scales, ranging from econometric to social network analysis, agent-based, and stock-flow consistent modelling. At the theoretical level, it aspires to combine evolutionary, institutionalist, Schumpeterian and (post) Keynesian economic theories under a ‘systemic’ research programme on the crossroads of international economics, economic geography, innovation economics, theory of the firm, industrial organisation, and political economy of development. At the normative level, it will have significant implications for industrial, RTDI, trade, and regional development policies. This highly topical project aims to frame the post-crisis EU policy discourse on the future of the ERA, the Innovation Union, Europe 2020 growth strategy, and the ‘European investment plan’, as well as related national policy discourses. It is designed to boost the researcher’s career and to consolidate his expertise and research skills through high-quality training.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- Centre for Planning and Economic Research · AthensCoordinatorGreece
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union