Speaker: Enrico Marvasi (Università di Roma III)
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between digitalization and the regionalization of Global Value Chains (GVCs) in the European industries. While digital technologies can facilitate the coordination of production across geographically dispersed stages, on the other hand, they may also enhance complementarities and economies between closely located units or bring several activities within a location. By using country-sector data from OECD-TiVA and EU-KLEMS, we provide novel evidence on the link between GVC regionalization and digital technologies for a sample of European countries in the period 2005–2018. We build a GVC regionalization index distinguishing between Intra-EU and Extra-EU GVC-related trade. To identify econometrically the effect of digital technologies on regionalization, we exploit a Bartik IV strategy exploiting ICT and AI patent data. Two are our main findings: i) digital technologies are positively associated with GVC participation; ii) digital technologies seem to exhibit an asymmetrical impact by enhancing the Intra-EU flows more than the Extra-EU ones, thus contributing to the regionalization of GVCs in Europe.