Investing in Innovation and Skills: Thriving through Global Value Chains

Abstract

This paper investigates empirically the interplay between participation and positioning in global value chains (GVCs), employment demand and supply and workforce’s skills endowment. Results touch upon the way innovation, technology and participation in GVCs shape employment in routine intensive and non-routine jobs; the relationship between participation in GVCs and polarisation of employment; the way the skill composition of a country’s workforce – both the type of skills and their distribution – shapes specialisation and positioning along GVCs; and the complementarities emerging between GVC participation and investment in knowledge-based capital, especially organisational capital and ICT.