Growing Like China: Firm Performance and Global Production Line Position

Davin Chor, Kalina Manova and Zhihong Yu ()

No 27795, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and how this evolves with productivity and performance over the firm lifecycle. We document a sharp rise in the upstreamness of imports, stable positioning of exports, and rapid expansion in production stages conducted in China over the 1992-2014 period, both in the aggregate and within firms over time. Firms span more stages as they grow more productive, bigger and more experienced. This is accompanied by a rise in input purchases, value added in production, and fixed cost levels and shares. It is also associated with higher profits though not with changing profit margins. We rationalize these patterns with a stylized model of the firm lifecycle with complementarity between the scale of production and the scope of stages performed.

JEL-codes: F10 F14 F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cna, nep-eff, nep-int and nep-tid
Note: ITI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published as Growing like China: Firm Performance and Global Production Line Position , Davin Chor, Kalina Manova, Zhihong Yu. in NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2020 , Tesar. 2021
Published as Chor, Davin & Manova, Kalina & Yu, Zhihong, 2021. "Growing like China: Firm performance and global production line position," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

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Related works:
Journal Article: Growing like China: Firm performance and global production line position (2021)
Chapter: Growing like China: Firm Performance and Global Production Line Position (2020)
Working Paper: Growing like China: firm performance and global production line position (2020)
Working Paper: Growing Like China: Firm Performance and Global Production Line Position (2020)
Working Paper: Growing Like China: Firm Performance and Global Production Line Position (2020)
Working Paper: Growing like China: firm performance and global production line position (2020)
Working Paper: Growing like China: Firm performance and global production line position (2020)
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