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 - 7 of 7
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Publication
Foreign Firm Characteristics, Absorptive Capacity and the Institutional Framework
(World Bank, Washingon, DC, 2012-11)Using a cross-section of more than 25,000 domestic manufacturing firms in 78 low and middle-income countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, this paper assesses how mediating factors influence intra-industry productivity spillovers to domestic firms from foreign direct investment. It identifies three types of mediating factors: (i) foreign direct investment spillover potential, (ii) domestic firm absorptive capacity, and (iii) the host country's institutional framework. It finds that all three affect the extent and direction of foreign direct investment spillovers on domestic firm productivity. However, the impact of mediating factors depends significantly on the level of domestic firms' productivity and the structure of foreign ownership. -
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. -
Publication
Why the Manufacturing Sector Still Matters for Growth and Development in Indonesia
(World Bank, Jakarta, 2012-09)Is Indonesia's manufacturing sector still relevant for growth and development? As a result of the last boom in global commodity prices between 2003 and 2008, resources in Indonesia shifted towards commodities and resource-based manufacturing as these sectors seemed to promise higher returns on investment. In recent quarters, however, the manufacturing sector has exhibited stronger output growth rates and attracted more investment. This note argues that building on the current momentum of manufacturing growth is critical for Indonesia's development (i) to support the creation of higher-productivity jobs, (ii) to sustain higher economic growth and progress in structural change, and (iii) to achieve long-term prosperity. Finally, this note also shows how the Master Plan for the acceleration and expansion of Indonesia's economic development (MP3EI) acknowledges the importance of the manufacturing sector for economic growth. -
Publication
Trade in Global Value Chains: An Assessment of Labor Market Implications
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07-16)The paper is structured in six further sections following this introduction. Section two develops a conceptual framework, and reviews the literature on the relationship between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Section three outlines the empirical framework and data used in the analysis. Section four presents results on the relationship between overall trade integration (through exports) and labor market outcomes. Section five then focuses specifically on GVC trade, and assesses the relationship between labor market outcomes and GVC integration as a buyer and as a seller. Section six tests if select policy indicators mediate these relationships between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Finally, section seven concludes, with a summary of results and areas for future research. -
Publication
Economic Upgrading through Global Value Chain Participation: Which Policies Increase the Value Added Gains?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)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. -
Publication
Pandemic Trade: Covid-19, Remote Work and Global Value Chains
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01)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.