Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The nature and growth of vertical specialization in world trade

2001; Elsevier BV; Volume: 54; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0022-1996(00)00093-3

1873-0353

David Hummels, Jun Ishii, Kei‐Mu Yi,

International Business and FDI

Dramatic changes are occurring in the nature of international trade. Production processes increasingly involve a sequential, vertical trading chain stretching across many countries, with each country specializing in particular stages of a good’s production sequence. We document a key aspect of these vertical linkages — the use of imported inputs in producing goods that are exported — which we call vertical specialization. Using input–output tables from 10 OECD and four emerging market countries we calculate that vertical specialization accounts for 21% of these countries’ exports, and grew almost 30% between 1970 and 1990. We also find that growth in vertical specialization accounts for 30% of the growth in these countries’ exports.