This study examines the potential effects of China's "One-Belt One-Road" initiative (OBOR) on trade flows and global value chain connections. The empirical analysis is based on the augmented gravity model of international trade, which comprises 186 reporters and 199 partners in the period...

The current empirical literature shows that logistics plays a vital role in increasing the total volume of international trade. However, there is scarce literature on the impact of logistics performance on global value chain trade. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to investigate the...

This article describes the development of international trade blocs world wide from the 1950s till 2010. We updated the data on international trade flows and introduced a new trade bloc variable based on the intramax hierarchical clustering technique, which defines trade blocs on actual trade...

Global value chains (GVCs) have shaped the dynamics of globalisation in recent years. This paper reviews key concepts and tools to measure countries’ involvement in GVCs, explores recent trends and investigates the underlying drivers of GVC participation empirically. The analysis in the paper...

The geography of global value chains (GVCs) depends crucially on trade costs between countries hosting various stages of production. Some stages might be more sensitive to trade costs than others. In this paper, we exploit a value-added decomposition of bilateral trade flows to distinguish low...

The principle of reciprocity is central to trade cooperation. Economic theory characterizes reciprocal policy changes that guide nations from noncooperative policies to the Pareto efficiency frontier. This paper extends the theory of reciprocity to a wide range of settings relevant for 21st...

During the last decades, the growth of trade between China and the Netherlands has been larger than the increase in bilateral trade flows between China and most other countries. Using a time series based gravity model, this paper investigates the main determinants of this increase. The empirical...

We show that traditional gravity variables play a significant role in explaining trade flows related to global value chain participation. We find evidence that cooperation costs - measured by linguistic and geographical proximity - are more relevant for trade that reflects cross-border...