Winkler, Deborah

Person:
Winkler, Deborah

Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice

Fields of Specialization

International economics, Global value chains, Export competitiveness, Foreign direct investment, Offshoring, Trade

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Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice

Last updated: January 28, 2025

Biography

Deborah Winkler is a Senior Economist in the World Bank Group’s Trade Unit of the Economic Policy Department. Deborah has worked on issues of global value chains, offshoring, export competitiveness, foreign direct investment, and trade in services; their determinants; and their economic and social effects. She is particularly interested in the role that policy can play in shaping the trade-development nexus and has offered her policy analysis and advice to a variety of client countries spanning all world regions. Ms. Winkler is the author and editor of several flagship publications at the World Bank, including Making Global Value Chains Work for Development (with Daria Taglioni) and Making Foreign Direct Investment Work for Sub-Saharan Africa (with Thomas Farole). Recently, Deborah was a lead author of the reports Leveraging Trade for More and Better Jobs and Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality as well as a core team member of the World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains. She is a former Research Associate of the New School for Social Research and received her PhD in economics from the University of Hohenheim in Germany where she authored Outsourcing Economics (with William Milberg, CUP) and Services Offshoring and Its Impact on the Labor Market (Springer). Her articles have appeared in several journals and edited volumes.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Leveraging Trade for More and Better Jobs
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-12) Maliszewska, Maryla; Winkler, Deborah
Trade exposure is traditionally seen as key to job creation and poverty reduction, but its efficacy is questioned amid global labor market upheavals and protectionist trends. Drawing on six underlying studies, this report uses disaggregated data from 1995 to 2019 to explore the nuanced impact or trade on jobs. Specifically, it investigates the impact of trade exposure on job creation, labor earnings, productivity, and job quality across countries with varying income levels. It finds that trade exposure, particularly in exports and global value chains, correlates with increased employment, especially in manufacturing where it is also associated with higher female workforce participation. Higher trade exposure is associated with increased labor earnings, with wage inequality decreasing in low- and middle-income countries due to global value chain integration. Labor productivity improves with export growth, especially benefiting unskilled workers in low-tech manufacturing and agriculture in developing countries. Job quality is also enhanced with more exports, transitioning to salaried employment positions and higher value-added activities outside of production. However, the report notes that trade exposure does not significantly boost job numbers or reduce earnings inequality in low- income countries. It also finds that the positive effects of trade on employment, earnings, and productivity have diminished following the global financial crisis of 2007. These findings Offer insights into future job and trade policy strategies.
Linking Export Activities to Productivity and Wage Rate Growth
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-26) Aguilar Luna, Luis; Winkler, Deborah
This paper examines the relationship between trade and job quality, using productivity and wage rate data for export and non-export activities in a sample of 60 countries across all income levels and 45 sectors spanning the whole economy over 1995–2019. First, the analysis finds that workers involved in export activities are more productive and better paid than those in non-export activities. While the productivity premium for export activities is confirmed in low- and middle-income countries, there is no wage rate premium. Second, this study finds a positive relationship between exports and labor productivity at the country-sector level, which can be attributed to productivity gains within export activities as well as spillovers to non-export activities. Countries’ specialization in global value chains and sectors also matters for the relationship between exports and job quality, with manufacturing, agriculture, and business services showing stronger associations. The link between exports and the wage rate is smaller than for productivity. Finally, productivity and wage rate growth decompositions suggest that growth within rather than between activities was the driving force. Within export activities, productivity and wage increases were dominated by within-sector growth, although labor movement toward more productive sectors also matters in low- and middle-income countries.
Linking Trade to Jobs, Incomes, and Activities: New Stylized Facts for Low- and Middle-Income Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-12-19) Winkler, Deborah; Aguilar Luna, Luis; Maliszewska, Maryla
Trade expansion can create more and better jobs. This paper revisits the linkages between trade and jobs, focusing on employment, labor incomes, and job activities across a large sample of countries and sectors over 1995 to 2018. Instrumental variables regressions and new input-output measures of jobs and activities in exports highlight several patterns: Exports and especially imports of intermediate inputs are associated with more jobs and higher incomes, while final imports show weaker correlations. Manufacturing has the biggest potential for job and income creation both directly and indirectly in supplying sectors. As countries move from specialization in commodities to limited manufacturing to advanced manufacturing and services global value chains, export-employment and export-income elasticities increase. Global value chain–intensive developing countries tend to have larger shares of production activities in exports compared to resource-intensive countries. As countries get richer, nonproduction activities in exports, such as support, engineering, and managerial services, become increasingly important. Finally, the paper explores the role of policy for the export job share across countries.
Leveraging Trade for More and Better Job Opportunities in Developing Countries: A Framework for Policy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-12-19) Shepherd, Ben; Winkler, Deborah
Trade and labor markets are intimately connected. This connection presents governments with a dual economic challenge that cannot be resolved without social compromise: maximizing aggregate gains but minimizing disaggregated costs, which can include losses to individuals and groups. This paper draws on recent research to develop a framework for thinking rigorously about these linkages. It then examines aspects of policy design and implementation that relate directly to labor market outcomes. It discusses three sets of policies that are required to help resolve the government’s dual challenge in a sustainable way: policies for people, sectors, and places. The framework includes policies to mitigate losses and facilitate movement of workers, classical trade policies, and a broad set of complementary policies that reduce trade costs. It also looks at the need for fiscal space to implement policies, and highlights the tension between tariff reductions and trade-related taxes, especially in countries where trade taxes account for a significant proportion of total government revenue.
The Role of Global Value Chains for Worker Tasks and Wage Inequality
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-09) Lewandowski, Piotr; Madoń, Karol; Winkler, Deborah
This paper studies the relationship between participation in global value chains, worker routine task intensity, and within-country wage inequality. It uses unique survey data from 47 countries across the development spectrum to calculate worker-level, country-specific routine task intensity and combines them with sectoral measures of backward and forward global value chains participation. Higher global value chains participation is associated with more routine-intensive work, specifically among offshorable occupations, especially in countries at lower development levels. The results by broad sectors contrast sharply: higher global value chains participation is linked to a higher routine task intensity in offshorable occupations in the industry but a lower routine task intensity in non-offshorable occupations in business services. Higher worker-level routine task intensity is strongly associated with lower wages, so global value chains participation indirectly widens the within-country wage inequality through this routine task intensity channel. At the same time, global value chains participation directly contributes to reduced wage inequality, except for the richest countries. Overall, this analysis finds that global value chains participation reduces wage inequality in most low- and middle-income countries that receive offshored jobs but widens wage inequality in high-income countries that offshore jobs.
Pandemic Trade: Covid-19, Remote Work and Global Value Chains
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01) Espitia, Alvaro; Rocha, Nadia; Ruta, Michele; Winkler, Deborah; Mattoo, Aaditya
This paper studies the trade effects of Covid-19 using monthly disaggregated trade data for 28 countries and multiple trading partners from the beginning of the pandemic to June 2020. Regression results based on a sector-level gravity model show that the negative trade effects induced by Covid-19 shocks varied widely across sectors. Sectors more amenable to remote work contracted less throughout the pandemic. Importantly, participation in global value chains increased traders’ vulnerability to shocks suffered by trading partners, but it also reduced their vulnerability to domestic shocks.
Vietnam: Connecting Value Chains for Trade Competitiveness
(World Bank, Hanoi, 2019-12) Pham, Duc Minh; Hollweg, Claire Honore; Mtonya, Brian; Winkler, Deborah Elisabeth; Nguyen, Thuy
Vietnam's export-led growth strategy and global integration are among the key factors behind thecountry's remarkable achievements in growth and poverty reduction over the last two and a halfdecades. During this period, Vietnam's per capita income increased nearly fourfold and povertywas reduced from around 53 percent in 1992 to 2 percent in 2016. Vietnam has become one of themost open economies in the world with a trade-to-GDP ratio of 187.52 percent in 2018. Merchandiseexport growth averaged more than 15 percent per annum in the last ten years; nearly five times theglobal export growth. The country's export basket has improved in its technological content and hasdiversified in both its geographic destination and its product mix. There are nevertheless challenges that continue to confront Vietnam’s export performance. Many of Vietnam's manufacturing exports have low domestic value addition, where Vietnam performs primarily assembly functions. Trade costs remain high compared to the average regional level. Domestic firms' participation in key global value chains (GVCs) is limited, and instead, export performance is largely driven by the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector, accounting for more than 70 percent of total exports. Vietnam will likely be able to maintain its high export performance even if these challenges are not addressed, but there is scope for Vietnam to benefit even more from trade.
Determinants of Global Value Chain Participation: Cross-Country Evidence
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03) Kee, Hiau Looi; Fernandes, Ana; Winkler, Deborah
The past decades witnessed big changes in international trade with the rise of global value chains. Some countries, such as China, Poland, and Vietnam, rode the tide, while other countries, many in the Africa region, faltered. This paper studies the determinants of participation in global value chains, based on empirical evidence from a panel data set covering more than 100 countries over the past three decades. The evidence shows that factor endowments, geography, political stability, liberal trade policies, foreign direct investment inflows, and domestic industrial capacity are very important in determining participation in global value chains. These factors affect participation in global value chains more than traditional exports.
Economic Upgrading through Global Value Chain Participation: Which Policies Increase the Value Added Gains?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) Kummritz, Victor; Taglioni, Daria; Winkler, Deborah
The emergence of global value chains has opened up new ways to achieve development and industrialization. However, new evidence shows that not all countries have gained from participating in global value chains, and that country-specific characteristics matter for economic upgrading in global value chains. This paper uses two panel data sets of developing and industrialized countries at the sectoral level to relate global value chain participation as a buyer and seller to domestic value added. These are combined with a wide range of policy measures at the country level that can play a role in economic upgrading through global value chains, by targeting global value chain integration or the quality and conditions of input and output factors. First, the study finds that global value chain integration increases domestic value added, especially on the selling side, which holds across all income levels. Second, the results highlight the importance of policy for economic upgrading through global value chain integration. Although the study cannot claim causal evidence, all the assessed policy areas are consistently shown to mediate the effects of global value chains and magnify the gains for domestic value added. Third, a detailed analysis shows that several policy areas mediate the gains from global value chains more through integration as a seller. Finally, the study observes that many of the results are driven by high- and upper-middle-income countries.
Making Global Value Chains Work for Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-06-06) Taglioni, Daria; Winkler, Deborah
Economic, technological, and political shifts as well as changing business strategies have driven firms to unbundle production processes and disperse them across countries. Thanks to these changes, developing countries can now increase their participation in global value chains (GVCs) and thus become more competitive in agriculture, manufacturing and services. This is a paradigm shift from the 20th century when countries had to build the entire supply chain domestically to become competitive internationally. For policymakers, the focus is on boosting domestic value added and improving access to resources and technology while advancing development goals. However, participating in global value chains does not automatically improve living standards and social conditions in a country. This requires not only improving the quality and quantity of production factors and redressing market failures, but also engineering equitable distributions of opportunities and outcomes - including employment, wages, work conditions, economic rights, gender equality, economic security, and protecting the environment. The internationalization of production processes helps with very few of these development challenges. Following this perspective, Making Global Value Chains Work for Development offers a strategic framework, analytical tools, and policy options to address this challenge. The book conceptualizes GVCs and makes it easier for policymakers and practitioners to discuss them and their implications for development. It shows why GVCs require fresh thinking; it serves as a repository of analytical tools; and it proposes a strategic framework to guide policymakers in identifying the key objectives of GVC participation and in selecting suitable economic strategies to achieve them.