“Stress-test” of Manufacturing Value Chains in Europe

Abstract

The article dissects the relevant trends characterizing the large EU economies participation in global value chains. The response reactions of large European economies’ participation in manufacturing global value chains to the Global Financial crisis are analyzed. This crisis has been chosen for the analysis owing to several reasons related to the economic nature of the crisis and statistics availability. In the paper three parameters of countries’ participation in value chains – sustainability, adaptivity, and self-sufficiency – have been examined. As a result, it has been revealed that the response reaction to the 2008–2009 crisis uncovered an inadequate sustainability of large European economies’ participation in manufacturing value chains. However, all the countries (namely, Germany, Italy, and France) have demonstrated serious adaptability and self-sufficiency during the crisis. At the same time, the latest crisis challenges the positive role of this adaptation in relation to the current conditions. This way, sustainability and self-sufficiency attributes require further verification with an account of the latest crisis specifics.

Keywords

• global value chains
• global financial crisis
• manufacturing
• value-added
• slowbalization