Research on global value chain and China's industrial upgrading

This project studies the theory, path and policy design of China's industrial upgrading in the context of global value chains. It explores the theoretical modeling and quantitative characterization of global value chains. It compares the drivers of industrial upgrading across countries, measures the evolution of China's industry-level division of labor along global value chains, and analyzes the upgrading strategies from innovation, the Belt and Road Initiatives, servitization of manufacturing, and other aspects. Finally, it builds a GVC-based CGE model for policy evaluations. This project will answer some important questions related to China's upgrading along global value chains, make a series of innovations on theory and methodology, promote Chinese studies in the field to the world's frontier, and propose suggestions for firms' strategic decision-making and government's policy formulation.