SéMINAIRE DE RECHERCHE EN éCONOMIE - GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne : Charlie JOYEZ

Charlie Joyez, University Nice Côte d'Azur-GREDEG, présentera un séminaire intitulé : Alignment of Multinational Firms along Global Value Chains : A Network perspective.

Thème de recherche / Main topics : International Economics, Multinational Firms, Network Analysis.

Résumé / abstract  : The multiple location choices of firms respond to a complex design of simultaneous and related goals. This paper reveals how the geographic coverage of French multinational firms is increasingly determined by Global Value Chains (GVCs) since the mid-1990s. I study the network structure of French multinationals using firm-level data, and of the Global Value Chains using the bilateral value added (VA) content of exports (from international Input-Output tables). The comparison of the two networks reveals an alignment of firms’ plants along global value chains, supported by several econometric estimations including a multiple regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure and a panel OLS defined at the country-pair level. Multinationals have modified their foreign affiliates’ locations to settle in countries engaged in sequential production, and this result holds when controlling for gravity-like location’s determinants and raw international trade flows. Specifically, I report how MNEs are moving up the value chain, as their new locations turned to be more driven by an upstream alignment on GVCs (toward the VA source) rather than a downstream one (toward VA destination). Eventually, the GVCs’ attraction increased after the 2008 crisis, even though GVCs were experiencing a slowdown. Therefore, firm’s vulnerability to the dismantling of GVCs similarly increased.

Keywords : Global Value Chains ; Multinational Firms ; Location Choices ; Weighted Directed Networks.

Charlie Joyez