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This paper aims to examine the relationship between global value chains (GVCs) and domestic value-added content (DVA) in a panel of 58 countries for the period 2005–2015.

First, the authors quantify the refined measures of GVC linkages by using the Borin and Mancini (2019) decomposition technique. Second, the authors apply the feasible generalised least squares method to test the relationship between GVCs and DVA empirically.

First, the authors find that GVC links are crucial to the enhancement of DVA. Second, a study at the sectoral level reveals that GVC links in the primary sector raise DVA whilst reducing DVA in the services sector. Third, the authors find that only upstream activities enhance value-added content. Fourth, the authors note the augmenting role played by national policies in mediating the gains associated with GVCs. Finally, the authors note that the outcomes associated with GVCs are consistent when the sample of countries is divided into groups based on income.

The results lead us to urge policymakers to promote greater integration of business activities into GVCs to reap their benefits.

This paper contributes to the research on the impact of GVCs on DVA by emphasising the significance of the types of GVC activities and policies that improve DVA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nexus between financial integration and export diversification.

The authors consider 96 economies spanning over the period 1995-2014. To provide broader insights, the authors categorize 96 economies into developed, developing, high and low diversified panels. Both volume and equity-based measures of financial integration are used. The generalized method of moments (GMM) method is used to analyze the link between financial integration and export diversification.

The results derived from GMM indicate that financial integration is a vital factor of export diversification. Further, the findings reveal similar conclusions for developed, developing, high and low diversified panels.

The outcome of this study suggests that promoting the financial integration of markets by lowering the restrictions on capital inflows helps countries to lower the risk and diversify their exports.

Though there exists enormous literature on export diversification, the nexus between financial integration and export diversification is limited. The present study bridges this research gap.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the electricity consumption patterns across Indian states do converge.

This study considers 18 Indian states spanning over the period 1970-1971 and 2014-2015, using the recently developed Phillips and Sul panel convergence technique that accounts the multiple steady states.

The results provide the following insights. First, the authors find evidence of convergence in electricity consumption among all Indian states. This suggests that electricity consumption patterns for Indian states are converging to a common steady state. Second, to provide broader insights, we further investigate the convergence in electricity consumption among user groups such as agriculture, industry, commercial, domestic and miscellaneous. The results reveal that commercial, domestic and miscellaneous groups are also converging. Third, the non-convergence patterns in agriculture and industry enable us to investigate the possibility of clubs or the multiple common steady states. The results indicate the occurrence of three clubs in case of agriculture and two clubs in case of the industry. Fourth, this study also inspects the relative speed of convergence among the user groups. The results reveal the higher speed of convergence in case of the domestic user group.

The findings enable policymakers to formulate an appropriate energy policy to accommodate the future electricity demand across Indian states and prioritize low electricity consumption states so that they receive a greater share.

This is the first study that examines the convergence in electricity consumption across Indian states at aggregate and user groups using a new panel club convergence technique.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the global value chain (GVC) participation and the associated improvements in labour productivity and employment among 16 Asia-Pacific countries.

First, the indicators of GVC participation are computed using annual multi-region input-output tables over the period 1990-2014. Second, the study examines the long-run association between GVCs and labour productivity through Pedroni (2004) and Westerlund (2007) panel cointegration techniques. Then in the third step, the long-run elasticities are estimated using dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fixed-random effects models. Finally, the direction of causality is examined using the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) panel causality technique.

The result shows an increasing participation of GVCs among Asia-Pacific countries. The findings also show the long-run relationship between GVCs and labour productivity. The long-run elasticities suggest the positive association of GVCs with labour productivity and employment. Further, the categorization of Asia-Pacific countries based on income groups reveals that improvement in labour productivity and employment outcomes is significantly greater in the case of middle-income countries. Finally, the results from panel causality infer that the direction of causality runs from GVCs to labour productivity and GVCs to employment.

The findings enable policymakers to formulate appropriate policies in Asia-Pacific countries to keep the momentum of increasing their participation in GVC for boosting labour productivity and employment gains.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study examining the spillover effects of GVC on labour productivity and employment in case of Asia-Pacific countries.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether the classification of industries into the tradable and nontradable matters for the Balassa–Samuelson (BS) effect.

The study uses annual data for 38 countries from 1995 to 2014. To examine whether the classification of industries matter, the study proceeds with two approaches, that is, “traditional” and “benchmark”.

First, by applying panel cointegration tests of Pedroni and Westerlund, the results validate the BS hypothesis. However, the coefficients of long-run elasticities show appreciation of real exchange rate (RER) due to increase in productivity in the case of “traditional approach”, whereas depreciation of RER in the case of “benchmark approach”. Second, by applying the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel Granger causality test, the results reveal the bi-directional causality among RER and productivity for both the approaches. Further, to provide more insights, the study employs a fixed-effects panel threshold model. The results indicate that increase in productivity leads to both appreciation and depreciation of RER depending on threshold regimes.

The study ascertains that the evidence of BS effect depends on the choice of approach considered. However, irrespective of the classification, there exists a BS effect beyond a threshold.

Although the BS effect is well established in the literature; there is no study examining the importance of classification of industries at a disaggregated level. Furthermore, there is no consideration of threshold effects.

This paper aims to investigate whether improvement in human capital can foster energy conservation by reducing the energy consumption in India using annual data from 1980 to 2014. Further, this study examines the relationship between human capital and various forms of energy consumption such as electricity, coal, natural gas, hydrocarbon gas and petroleum consumption.

To attain the objective, the study investigates this relation through the auto-regressive distributed lag model (ARDL) technique to find a long-run and short-run relationship. Second, to check the robustness of the results, the authors use alternative econometric methods such as dynamic ordinary least squares and fully modified dynamic ordinary least squares.

The results reveal a negative relationship between human capital and energy consumption, which implies that improvement in human capital lowers the energy consumption and various forms energy consumption, except for petroleum consumption. The results derived from ARDL show that there exists a long-run and short-run association between human capital and energy consumption. The results are consistent across the econometric techniques.

Because G20 countries including India aim at reducing carbon emission to a certain level, this study provides an insight that by emphasizing on human capital, India can reduce energy consumption, which would foster energy conservation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this the first study in India which attempts to examine the effect of human capital on energy consumption and its various forms.