Person:
Winkler, Deborah
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
International economics,
Global value chains,
Export competitiveness,
Foreign direct investment,
Offshoring,
Trade
Degrees
Departments
Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
May 9, 2023
Biography
Deborah Winkler is a Senior Economist in the World Bank Group’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice. 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 Women and Trade Report: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality and 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.
Publication Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
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Publication
Making Global Value Chains Work for Development
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05)Global value chains (GVCs) are playing an increasingly important role in business strategies, which has profoundly changed international trade and development paradigms. GVCs now represent a new path for development by helping developing countries accelerate industrialization and the servicification of the economy. From a firm perspective, production in the context of GVCs highlights the importance of being able to seamlessly connect factories across borders, as well as protect assets such as intellectual property. From the policy maker perspective, the focus is on shifting and improving access to resources while also advancing development goals, and also on the question of whether entry into GVCs delivers labor-market-enhancing outcomes for workers at home, as well as social upgrading. GVCs can lead to development, but, at the country level, constraints such as the supply of various types of labor and skills and inadequate absorptive capacity remain. GVCs can create new opportunities on the labor demand side, but supply and demand cannot meet if the supply is missing. This potential gap illustrates the importance of embedding national GVC policies into a broader portfolio of policies aimed at upgrading skills, physical and regulatory infrastructure, and enhancing social cohesion. -
Publication
Potential and Actual FDI Spillovers in Global Value Chains : The Role of Foreign Investor Characteristics, Absorptive Capacity and Transmission Channels
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)Using newly collected survey data on direct supplier-multinational linkages in Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Vietnam, this paper first evaluates whether foreign investors differ from domestic producers in terms of their potential to generate positive spillovers for local suppliers. It finds that foreign firms outperform domestic producers on several indicators, but have fewer linkages with the local economy and offer less supplier assistance, resulting in offsetting effects on the spillover potential. The paper also studies the relationship between foreign investor characteristics and linkages with the local economy as well as assistance extended to local suppliers. It finds that foreign investor characteristics matter for both. The paper also examines the role of suppliers' absorptive capacities in determining the intensity of their linkages with multinationals. The results indicate that several supplier characteristics matter, but these effects also depend on the length of the supplier relationship. Finally, the paper assesses whether assistance or requirements from a multinational influence spillovers on suppliers. The results confirm the existence of positive effects of assistance (including technical audits, joint product development, and technology licensing) on foreign direct investment spillovers, while the analysis finds no evidence of demand effects.