This research volume is concerned with the causes and consequences of global value chains — the fragmentation of production across firms and international boundaries. Figure 1 provides a schema for thinking about these phenomena. The total value of inputs used in producing a given level of...

In the past decade, policymakers and others in a number of developed countries have expressed concern that firms in their countries appear to be increasingly locating their R&D facilities outside the home country. For example, in Foray and van Ark (2007), we read: “There are concerns expressed...

This paper examines Japan's response to ‘external pressure', mainly from Europe and the US, focussing on the ‘mercantile response' by merchants and financiers. Before the beginning of free trade in 1859, many money exchange merchants in Osaka transacted with merchants and wealthy farmers...