Coronavirus Pandemic and Online Education: Impact on Developing Countries

In this book, eight substantive chapters examine how "developing” countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Mexico confronted the pandemic-driven online education shift. As local instruments, resources, and preferences of specific universities meshed with global platforms, ideas, and knowledge, the book addresses several questions. Was the mix too flaky to survive increasing competitiveness? Were countries capable enough to absorb mammoth software technological changes? Throwing a "developed” country (the United States) in for contrast, the book elaborates on the inequities between these countries. Some of these inequalities were economic (infrastructural provisions and accesses), others involved gender (the role of women), political (the difference between public and private universities), social (accessibility across social spectrum), and developmental (urban-rural divides). In doing so, new hypotheses on widening global gaps are highlighted in the book for further investigation. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Business Cycle Asymmetry and Input-Output Structure: The Role of Firm-to-Firm Networks

We study the network origins of business cycle asymmetries using cross-country and administrative firm-level data. At the country level, we document that countries with a larger number of non-zero intersectoral linkages (denser networks) display a more negatively skewed cyclical component of output. At the firm level, we find that firms with a larger number of suppliers and customers (degrees) display a more negatively-skewed distribution of their output growth. To rationalize these findings, we construct a multisector model with input-output linkages and show that the relationship between output skewness and network density naturally arises once we consider non-linearities in production. In an economy with low production flexibility (inputs are gross complements), denser production structures imply that relying on more inputs becomes a risk that further amplifies the effects of negative productivity shocks. The opposite holds if firms display high production flexibility (inputs are gross substitutes): having more inputs to choose from becomes an opportunity to diversify the effects of negative productivity shocks. We calibrate the model using our rich firm-to-firm network Chilean data and show that more connected firms experience larger declines in output in response to a COVID-19 shock, consistent with the data. We also show that, as in the data, the cross-sectional distribution of output growth in the model displays a fatter left tail during downturns. The previous result is shaped by the interplay between production complementarities and network interconnectedness, rather than by the asymmetry of the shocks. The size of the shock determines the strength of the relationship between degrees and output decline, which highlights the importance of non-linearities and the limitations of local approximations.

GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS IN THE REGIONAL ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK: CASE OF THE EU PERIPHERAL AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURING

Recent transformations following the global financial crisis of 2009, COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains disruptions and newest shocks have radically reshaped global production landscape and challenged comparative benefits of global production networks (GPN) vs global value chains (GVC) paradigms in international production analysis. The study tests the hypothesis that GPN concept allows for a better identification of structural shifts in international production structures while revealing regional patterns of cooperation. In the first section, the main methodological constraints of GVC paradigm are specified. Additionally, the reasons for the application of network-based approach to international production are outlined. The second section dissects the EU automotive manufacturing to support the theoretical propositions. While comparing GVC and GPN quantitative toolkits, the possible trade-off has been reached which is to calculate network indicators (transitivity, centrality, etc.) on the inter-country input-output tables. As a result, the hypothesis was confirmed. Specifically, betweenness centrality metric suggests that Czechia and Slovakia have immediately favoured a positive effect of the entry into the EU, whereas neither of GVC indicators reveals such a shift. Simultaneously, 2008 crisis is depicted via GVC indicators, whilst network metrics suggest no structural changes in the production system. These results corroborate to our theoretical juxtaposition of GVC/GPN approaches. The methodological cohesion of two sets of indicators further advances the views on European regional core-periphery integration and automotive production networks dynamics. At the same time, the findings may contribute to the reassessment of regional integration developments in Europe, as well as in Latin America and Eurasia. © González G. H., Sapir E. V., Vasilchenko A. D. Text. 2023.

The Impact of Industrial Linkage Structures on Urban Economic Resilience in China in the Context of the COVID-19 Shock

The structures of industrial linkages form an essential basis for the economy and have an important impact on urban economic resilience. By analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on China's urban economy in 2020, this study uses China's national input-output table to measure the centrality and diversity of industrial linkage structures. Extracted data from 298 cities in China are used to explore the impact of centrality and diversity on urban economic resilience. The results show that the cities in East China, Central China, and the Chengdu-Chongqing area in western China have a high centrality with respect to industrial linkage structures. Cities in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River city cluster, and the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster have a high diversity of industrial linkages structures. During the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, most cities in China have shown high economic resilience. For cities across the country, diversity shows a significant and positive correlation with economic resilience, and centrality shows a significant and positive correlation with economic resilience. The latter displays an inverted U-shaped relationship between centrality and economic resilience. For cities with different population sizes, there are differences in the impacts of centrality and diversity on urban economic resilience. Different industrial policies can be developed to adjust the centrality and diversity of the cities to enhance urban economic resilience.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Businesses in the US: A Longitudinal Study from a Regional Perspective

Small businesses have suffered disproportionately from the COVID-19 pandemic. We use near-real-time weekly data from the Small Business Pulse Survey (April 26, 2020 - June 17, 2021) to examine the constantly changing impact of COVID-19 on small businesses across the United States. A set of multilevel models for change are adopted to model the trajectories of the various kinds of impact as perceived by business owners (subjective) and those recorded for business operations (objective), providing insights into regional resilience from a small business perspective. The findings reveal spatially uneven and varied trajectories in both the subjectively and the objectively assessed impact of COVID-19 across the U.S., and the different responses to the pandemic shock can be explained by evolving health situations and public policies, as well as by the economic structure and degree of socioeconomic vulnerability in different areas. This study contributes to scholarship on small businesses and regional resilience, as well as identifying policies and practices that build economic resilience and regional development under conditions of global pandemic disruption. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Regional Science Review is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The optimality of age-based lockdown policies.

This paper studies an age-based lockdown that keeps over-60 workers at home as policy response to COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of thirty countries of the European single market. Three main policy issues are addressed, and the results can be summarized as follows. First, age-based lockdown policies are associated with limited output losses and, therefore, are an efficient strategy to limit the spread of the virus in a pandemic, especially in presence of strong age-dependent fatality rates. Second, lockdown policies generate substantial spillover effects; hence, international policy coordination avoiding that too many countries are in lockdown contemporaneously or that such coordination takes place across the countries with the highest integration of over-60 workers along GVCs may be helpful in reducing disruptions. Third, non-targeted lockdowns are much more costly than age-based ones; therefore, other things equal, age-based policies should always be preferred to non-targeted ones. Our analysis also suggests that, in our sample, the over-60 workers are relatively more numerous in sectors where the value added and the integration in GVCs is lower; this feature should be kept in mind in the design of other policies as it might play an important role.

Strategic coupling and institutional innovation in times of upheavals: the industrial chain chief model in Zhejiang, China

For regions that are deeply integrated into the global economy, the question of how to remain competitive and resilient in times of uncertainty is a key concern. While strategic coupling is a useful concept for understanding local-global economic dynamics, the idea that a region can simultaneously couple into multiple production networks organised at different spatial scales and that regional actors can increase their autonomy by creatively combining different coupling scenarios has been little explored. This paper explores how regional institutional innovations can facilitate such multiple couplings. We focus on the industrial chain chief model in China's Zhejiang province, which emerged against the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that this institutional innovation offers a different way of thinking for regions that have long been exposed to the influence of globalisation, and that it increases the agency of local actors in global production networks.

From globalising to regionalising to reshoring value chains? The case of Japan's semiconductor industry

This study evaluates the current situation and challenges of reshoring in the Japanese manufacturing industry, focusing on the semiconductor industry, which once dominated the world. After a recent document analysis and qualitative interviews with firms' representatives and policymakers, it is apparent that the globalised semiconductor industry is unlikely to reshore to Japan even amid supply chain disruptions due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. A review of Japan's semiconductor-related industries, such as semiconductor manufacturing materials, validated that they are embedded in Asian production networks and need to be optimised within a regionalised production system.

Navigating through the storm: conservancies as local institutions for regional resilience in Zambezi, Namibia

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global production networks and challenged the resilience of regional economies to external shocks. The tourism sector was severely affected by the travel bans imposed, as were regions characterised by tourism development, such as Zambezi in northern Namibia. Nonetheless, with the support of the national government, conservancies, as local governance institutions, partly maintained the distribution of value from tourism throughout the pandemic and strengthened agriculture-tourism linkages to achieve long-term transformation. These findings suggest that local institutions are able to create regional resilience through their capacity to drive adaptation and adaptability in a diversified regional economy.

The gendered geographies of dispossession and social reproduction: Homeworkers in the Global South during the COVID-19 pandemic: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory and Society

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed global capitalism’s fault lines and the deep vulnerabilities built into its functionings. This article investigates how Pakistan’s informally employed women homeworkers, who labor at the bottom of global production networks (GPNs), fared during the first year of the pandemic. It empirically demonstrates how the GPN’s disruption wiped out the limited livelihoods of women homeworkers, which significantly jeopardized the social reproduction of their households, devastating entire communities. Through all of this, women homeworkers’ agency was evident in the everyday practices of social reproduction. The pandemic also revealed a collective solidarity that had community and extended family dimensions. The struggles and solidarities should be viewed as agentic acts of survival, against the economic and socio-political conditions of dispossession that come out of laboring in the Global South, as informal workers.

Sectoral Spillovers Across Space and Time

We examine the spillovers from sectoral shocks across sectors, countries, and over time. Using a large cross-country sample from 1995 to 2014 with detailed sectoral information, we show that supply and demand shocks propagate upstream and downstream in the production and distribution network, both domestically and abroad. We estimate substantial domestic sectoral spillovers in our global sample, and find foreign spillovers to be sizeable as well. We document a persistent effect of negative shocks, especially supply shocks coming from the same sector, on a sector's share in aggregate gross value added in a country. We also illustrate our results by quantifying the significant role spillovers played in amplifying the sectoral shocks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings have implications for the design of policies with a sectoral dimension, such as the allocation of sector-specific public investment.

The dynamics of world economy geography and the role of China in economic globalization

From the perspective of economic geography, this paper studies the changing spatial pattern of world economy and China's role in different waves of economic globalization. Firstly, this study finds that the geographical pattern of world economy changes from "core-periphery" to "chain-reconfiguration", and to current "network-imbalance". Meanwhile the driving force of economic globalization shifts from "trade globalization" to "manufacturing globalization". At present, "multiple globalization" is involving into a new engine to driving the development of economic globalization. We then discuss that how China changes its role in economic globalization by changing modes of strategic coupling. We argue that the role transition of China breaks the traditional developing path which developed countries set for developing countries and theoretical spatial order put forward by classical industry gradient transfer, bringing new restructuring power and possibility for changing pattern of globalization. Finally, we discuss the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the development of economic globalization and the development trend of economic globalization in the post-pandemic era. Based on the analysis, we come up with some suggestions regarding to the potential development paths of China under the background of economic globalization. © 2022, Science Press. All right reserved.

Distributed production under the pandemic shock: Vulnerability, resilience and the new stage of globalization

The paper draws attention to a new wave of public and academic debate on the future of globalization and on rationality of countries' further participation in distributed production, i.e., their involvement in global value chains (GVCs) and value-added trade. Raised during the COVID-19 pandemic shock, this debate is the reaction of countries to the global diffusion of downfalls through transborder supplies. We analyze vulnerabilities of GVCs to sudden shocks, demonstrate the role of these risks in escalating the 2020 global recession and in shaping its unique features, as well as scrutinize the emerging post-pandemic strategies of leading MNEs for enhancing the GVC resilience. We argue that despite the collapse of the just-in-time supply system and the crucial dependency of many domestic industries on imports from China, the pandemic shock could neither undermine foundations of distributed production nor lead to mass reshoring. On the contrary, both analyzed practice and surveyed econometric literature confirm that benefits of countries' participation in GVCs outweigh risks of their falling under potential rippling disruptions. Moreover, MNEs' resilience strategies, which we classified into three interrelated lines of action (restructuring of GVCs' supplier networks, production optimization, and GVCs' digital transformation), give globalization a new impetus. We conclude with describing the changing features of distributed production under the ongoing GVCs' restructuring and outline a number of promising export opportunities that objectively open up in the 2020s for developing economies, including Russia. In the course of our study, we examine key properties of resilient systems (robustness, flexibility, redundancy), some new notions (disruption risks, ripple effect, etc.), and new management approaches relevant for all types of economies and businesses under increased uncertainty.

Global supply chains in the pandemic.

We study the role of global supply chains in the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on GDP growth using a multi-sector quantitative framework implemented on 64 countries. We discipline the labor supply shock across sectors and countries using the fraction of work in the sector that can be done from home, interacted with the stringency with which countries imposed lockdown measures. One quarter of the total model-implied real GDP decline is due to transmission through global supply chains. However, "renationalization" of global supply chains does not in general make countries more resilient to pandemic-induced contractions in labor supply. This is because eliminating reliance on foreign inputs increases reliance on the domestic inputs, which are also disrupted due to nationwide lockdowns. In fact, trade can insulate a country imposing a stringent lockdown from the pandemic-shock, as its foreign inputs are less disrupted than its domestic ones. Finally, unilateral lifting of the lockdowns in the largest economies can contribute as much as 2.5% to GDP growth in some of their smaller trade partners.

The Economic and Long-Term Health Consequences of Canadian COVID-19 Lockdowns.

To prevent exponential spread of COVID-19, many governments restricted economic activity through lockdowns. We model these restrictions as shocks to productivity by sector and trace total equilibrium effects across the economy using techniques from production network economics. We combine this economic model with an epidemiological model of income shocks to long-term health. On both long-run health and economic grounds, it is better to keep upstream sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, and wholesale open than consumer-facing sectors such as retail and restaurants.

Pour enrayer la propagation exponentielle de la COVID­19, maints gouvernements ont restreint l'activité économique en procédant à des confinements d'activité. Nous modélisons ces restrictions comme des chocs subis par la productivité dans différents secteurs d'activité et en suivons les répercussions sur l'équilibre économique global, grâce à des techniques inspirées de l'économie des réseaux de production. Nous associons ce modèle économique à un modèle épidémiologique d'incidence des chocs de revenu sur la santé à long terme. Tant sur le plan de la santé à long terme que sur le plan économique, il est plus avantageux de maintenir en activité les secteurs en amont, comme le transport, la fabrication et le commerce de gros, que les secteurs de la consommation directe, comme le commerce de détail et la restauration.

COVID-19 and Alternative Conceptualisations of Value and Risk in GPN Research.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a major disturbance that has rippled across the world's population, states, economy, and central nervous system or global production networks transforming the traditional roles of states, firms, individuals/consumers, and geographies of production. This paper offers a critical and context-based approach to understanding globalization and localization by challenging the conceptualization of 'value' and 'risk' within the current global production networks framework as well as identifying key operational strategies in risk management and national security. An analysis of the adaptation strategies of the GPNs of 91 companies identifies the role played by four different forms of value in configuring production networks. This is to balance 'economic value' with non-price-based sources of value and alternative values. The analysis underscores the critical role of the state in ensuring national and human security as well as its increasing power as a key actor in GPNs and the global economy.