Correlation between upstreamness and downstreamness in random global value chains

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Bartolucci, Silvia, Caccioli, Fabio, Caravelli, Francesco, Vivo, Pierpaolo
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2023
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author Bartolucci, Silvia
Caccioli, Fabio
Caravelli, Francesco
Vivo, Pierpaolo
author_facet Bartolucci, Silvia
Caccioli, Fabio
Caravelli, Francesco
Vivo, Pierpaolo
contents This paper is concerned with upstreamness and downstreamness of industries and countries. Upstreamness and downstreamness measure respectively the average distance of an industrial sector from final consumption and from primary inputs. Recently, Antràs and Chor reported a puzzling and counter-intuitive finding in data from the period 1995-2011, namely that (at country level) upstreamness appears to be positively correlated with downstreamness, with a correlation slope close to $+1$. We first analyze a simple model of random Input/Output tables, and we show that, under minimal and realistic structural assumptions, there is a natural positive correlation emerging between upstreamness and downstreamness of the same industrial sector/country, with correlation slope equal to $+1$. This effect is robust against changes in the randomness of the entries of the I/O table and different aggregation protocols. Secondly, we perform experiments by randomly reshuffling the entries of the empirical I/O table where these puzzling correlations are detected, in such a way that the global structural constraints are preserved. Again, we find that the upstreamness and downstreamness of the same industrial sector/country are positively correlated with slope close to $+1$. Our results strongly suggest that (i) extra care is needed when interpreting these measures as simple representations of each sector's positioning along the value chain, as the ``curse of the input-output identities'' and labor effects effectively force the value chain to acquire additional links from primary factors of production, and (ii) the empirically observed puzzling correlation may rather be a necessary consequence of the few structural constraints (positive entries, and sub-stochasticity) that Input/Output tables and their surrogates must meet.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_06603
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Correlation between upstreamness and downstreamness in random global value chains
Bartolucci, Silvia
Caccioli, Fabio
Caravelli, Francesco
Vivo, Pierpaolo
Applications
Statistical Mechanics
General Economics
Economics
Statistical Finance
This paper is concerned with upstreamness and downstreamness of industries and countries. Upstreamness and downstreamness measure respectively the average distance of an industrial sector from final consumption and from primary inputs. Recently, Antràs and Chor reported a puzzling and counter-intuitive finding in data from the period 1995-2011, namely that (at country level) upstreamness appears to be positively correlated with downstreamness, with a correlation slope close to $+1$. We first analyze a simple model of random Input/Output tables, and we show that, under minimal and realistic structural assumptions, there is a natural positive correlation emerging between upstreamness and downstreamness of the same industrial sector/country, with correlation slope equal to $+1$. This effect is robust against changes in the randomness of the entries of the I/O table and different aggregation protocols. Secondly, we perform experiments by randomly reshuffling the entries of the empirical I/O table where these puzzling correlations are detected, in such a way that the global structural constraints are preserved. Again, we find that the upstreamness and downstreamness of the same industrial sector/country are positively correlated with slope close to $+1$. Our results strongly suggest that (i) extra care is needed when interpreting these measures as simple representations of each sector's positioning along the value chain, as the ``curse of the input-output identities'' and labor effects effectively force the value chain to acquire additional links from primary factors of production, and (ii) the empirically observed puzzling correlation may rather be a necessary consequence of the few structural constraints (positive entries, and sub-stochasticity) that Input/Output tables and their surrogates must meet.
title Correlation between upstreamness and downstreamness in random global value chains
topic Applications
Statistical Mechanics
General Economics
Economics
Statistical Finance
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.06603