Person:
Hollweg, Claire H.
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
International trade,
Global value chains,
Services,
Labor markets,
Development economics
Degrees
Departments
Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Claire H. Hollweg is a senior economist with the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice of the World Bank. Before studying economics, she worked as a journalist. She has worked with the government of South Australia and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council in Singapore. Her research interests include development economics, with a focus on the nexus between trade, labor markets, servicification of manufacturing, and upgrading in global value chains. She holds a PhD and an MA in economics from the University of Adelaide.
Publication Search Results
1 - 9 of 9
-
Publication
Monitoring Export Vulnerability to Changes in Growth Rates of Major Global Markets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)Interest in assessing the impacts on developing countries of changes in major markets' economic performance has risen in tandem with global economic uncertainty over short- and medium-term growth prospects. This paper proposes a methodology to measure the vulnerability of a country's exports to fluctuations in the economic activity of foreign markets. Export vulnerability depends first on the overall level of export exposure, measured as the share of exports in gross domestic product, and second on the sensitivity of exports to fluctuations in foreign gross domestic product. The authors capture this sensitivity by estimating origin-destination specific elasticities of exports with respect to changes in foreign gross domestic product using a gravity model of trade. Furthermore, export vulnerability is computed separately for commodities and differentiated products. This methodology is applied to six developing countries, one from each World Bank region, selected to be otherwise similar yet differ in terms of the level of exposure to major global markets as well as the product composition of their export basket. Although the results suggest differences in elasticity estimates across regions as well as product categories, the principal source of international heterogeneity in export vulnerability results from differences in export exposure to global markets. This result calls for developing countries to diversify their export markets rather than shielding themselves from international markets, which would actually raise economic risk and vulnerability. -
Publication
The Labor Content of Exports in South Africa and Botswana: A Preliminary Exploration
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01)The LACEX dataset has been recently assembled to compute the (direct and indirect) value of the compensation of employees linked to exports for each sector/country/year. The data has been computed on the basis of a panel of global input-output data spanning intermittent years from 1995 to 2007 from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP). This represents a form of social accounting data - a variation on the social accounting matrix (SAM) where incomes are shown in the rows of the SAM while expenditures are shown in the columns. The structure of the data provides a comprehensive and consistent record of national income accounting relationships between different sectors and regions, including intermediate and final demand linkages. This structure of the dataset allows one to obtain the value added content of final output and exports, including its compensation of employees’ component. That includes both the direct and indirect compensation, based on the backward linkages of each sector with the rest of the economy. In order to obtain these labor value added measures, two intermediate multiplier matrixes need to be calculated. The first is the Leontief inverse matrix, which measures the inputs contained in a unit of final output. This matrix contains both direct and indirect inputs. Next, one needs to calculate a matrix which has the compensation of employees’ shares of total output. Using these two matrixes as multipliers one can obtain the compensation of employees’ shares of exports and final outputs. These shares are also split between skilled and unskilled workers. -
Publication
Services for Trade Competitiveness: Country and Regional Assessments of Services Trade
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-06-04)Recognizing that services affect the ability of countries and their firms to compete on international markets, the World Bank’s Trade and Regional Integration Unit has developed an extensive work program to promote the performance of countries’ domestic services sectors, including services trade. Services for Trade Competitiveness presents selected applications of new methodologies that were developed to assess the competitiveness of countries’ services sectors, discern the types of barriers to services that exist in the regulatory environment, and identify the resulting policy implications. Its assessments are designed for a wide audience, including policy makers in developing countries and development practitioners in international organizations, policy-making institutions, and academia. The purpose of this book is to help developing countries make informed policy choices to increase their chances of benefiting from the increasing prominence of services in international trade. -
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
Cambodia’s Future Jobs: Linking to the Economy of Tomorrow
(World Bank, Phnom Penh, 2019)Jobs are an important part of Cambodia’s story of development success. There are eight million jobs in Cambodia, and eighty percent of Cambodian adults above the age of fifteen are working in contrast to 62.5 percent of adults in East Asia Pacific region. Cambodia will need to enact substantive reforms to secure more, better, and more inclusive jobs in the long term. Fundamentally, Cambodia needs to upgrade and integrate the two sides of its economy namely the exports sector, which includes foreign- owned (FDI) firms, and the domestic sector made up of household enterprises (HHEs) and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Meanwhile, Cambodian workers need to increase their skills and ability to pursue the job opportunities that will materialize as these sectors increase their competitiveness. -
Publication
GVC Participation and Deep Integration in Brazil
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11)The production of export goods has become increasingly unbundled, and countries positioning to become more integrated in the global economy are increasingly looking toward global value chains. This paper uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/World Trade Organization's Trade in Value Added Database to assess Brazil's current integration in global value chains. It uses a structural gravity model estimated with parts and components to analyze the scope for Brazil to increase global value chain–related trade. One avenue to raise participation in global value chains is through (deeper) preferential trade agreements, and to this end the paper characterizes the level of integration of Brazil's current preferential trade agreements. Brazil has witnessed high growth in total domestic value added embodied in gross exports since 1995, yet it exhibits lower international engagement in global value chains, but tends to be stronger as a seller than a buyer. Most of the participation on the selling side comes from indirect linkages with domestic input sectors, and services sectors have been important for growing the indirect value added in global value chain–oriented exports. A deep integration agenda focusing not only on border measures, but also on beyond-the-border measures, would help Brazil to maximize the benefits from participation in global value chains. Other than its natural partners, Brazil should integrate with countries where global value chains are taking place. New agreements signed by Brazil and Mercosur with other regional members such as the Pacific Alliance should also take into consideration provisions such as investment, competition policy, and intellectual property rights, which are demonstrated to be very important for integration in global value chains. -
Publication
Firm Compliance and Public Disclosure in Vietnam
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-09)Global consumers, international brands, and governments in producing and outsourcing countries aim to improve working conditions in global value chains, but uncertainty exists about what is the best approach. This research uses firm-level data from the International Labour Organization–International Finance Corporation Better Work Vietnam program to assess the relationship between transparency on working conditions and firm compliance in the apparel sector in Vietnam between 2010 and 2018. It exploits a change in the policies of Better Work Vietnam when, in 2015, the program announced the launch of a new public disclosure program that would see factories' names made publicly available along with their compliance (or lack thereof) with certain "critical issues." The paper first examines which firm characteristics correlate with reductions in noncompliance rates over time, and then examines the impact of the public disclosure policy on compliance rates and firm dropout using different empirical techniques. It finds that while continued participation in the Better Work Vietnam program has the strongest effect on changes in firm compliance with labor standards over time, public disclosure is also associated with increased compliance, with stronger effects in some compliance points, including occupational health and safety, work time, and child labor. There is some evidence of increased dropout, but no evidence of firms only making progress on the critical issues is found. The research findings suggest that public disclosure within global value chains matters for firm behavior. -
Publication
How Does Participation in Value Chains Matter to African Farmers?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07)Trade and participation in global value chains can play a key role in economic diversification and development. This paper deepens the discussion about productivity growth and upgrading in agriculture in Africa, and the role of national, regional, and international value chains in supporting such structural change. The analysis in this report is based on quantitative and qualitative surveys undertaken in 2016 in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia, where 3,935 farmers, 60 aggregators, and 56 buyers in the maize, cassava, and sorghum value chains were interviewed in the three countries. The descriptive results show that farmers who were on a contract saw greater structural transformation; higher output; and better access to seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, technology, and extension services compared with farmers who were not on a contract. To identify more robustly the link between value chain participation and contract farming with productivity and upgrading, the paper looks at the relationship using a variety of empirical methodologies, ranging from ordinary least squares and probit regressions to propensity score matching. Based on the empirical evidence, the hypothesis that value chain participation leads to structural transformation cannot be confirmed. The paper does find evidence that formal or informal contractual arrangements that regulate the provision of inputs to production, such as fertilizer, technology, extension services, and market information, positively affect upgrading. It remains nevertheless important to understand the impact of government policies on the emergence of value chains given that value chains support contractual arrangements. -
Publication
Vietnam at a Crossroads: Engaging in the Next Generation of Global Value Chains
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-03-07)Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can grow as an export platform for GVCs, specializing in low value-added assembly functions with industrialization occurring in enclaves with little connection to the broader economy or society; or it can leverage the current wave of growth, enabled and accelerated by its successful participation in GVCs, to diversify and move up the chain into higher value-added functions. Success will require Vietnam’s policymakers to view the processes of development differently, and to take new realities of the global economy more fully into account. The purpose of this volume is to support Vietnam’s path to economic prosperity by identifying policies and targeted interventions that will drive development through leveraging GVC participation that take major shifts in trade policy and rapid technological advances in ICT into account. The volume is based on a compilation of studies completed by World Bank staff and external consultants in 2015 supporting the “Enabling Economic Modernization and Private Sector Development” chapter of the Vietnam 2035 report. The objective of these studies was to diagnose Vietnam’s current participation in GVCs, visualize where Vietnam could be by 2035 in the context of a changing global environment, and identify the policy actions needed to get there. The studies also supported topics related more broadly to export competitiveness, including firm-level productivity, services, and connectivity. It then identifies targeted strategies and policy interventions that will help overcome challenges, minimize risks, and maximize opportunities. Readers will gain a strong understanding of Vietnam’s current and potential engagement with GVCs—and will learn about strategic GVC policy tools that can help developing countries achieve economic prosperity in the context of compressed development.