Global value chains and inflation: how imported inputs shape UK prices

Aydan Dogan, Melih Firat and Aditya Soenarjo

How does the use of imported inputs in production affect inflation dynamics in the UK? Over the past few decades, with the rise of global value chains (GVCs), production processes have become increasingly interlinked across countries and sectors. This interconnection means that firms’ pricing decisions are now more influenced by foreign factors. The importance of globalisation in shaping inflation dynamics was highlighted during the supply-chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 crisis. In a recent paper, we explore the impact of the rising share of imported intermediate goods on the UK Phillips curve. We show that UK industries with higher shares of intermediate imports from emerging market economies (EMEs) have flatter Phillips curves.

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Covid-19 Briefing: International Trade and Supply Chains

Rebecca Freeman and Rana Sajedi

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to both a decline in economic activity that has been propagated across borders through global supply networks, and a rise in barriers to trade between countries. This has led to a rapidly emerging literature seeking to understand the effects of the pandemic on trade. This post surveys some of the key contributions of that literature. Key messages from early papers are that: i) The shock is a hit to both demand and supply, and is thus deeper than what was experienced during the 2008/09 Great Trade Collapse; ii) Global value chains have amplified cross-country spillovers; iii) When supply chains are highly integrated, protectionist measures can disrupt production of medical equipment and supplies; and, hence, iv) Keeping international trade open during the crisis can help to limit the economic cost of the pandemic and foster global growth during the recovery.

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No island is an ‘island’ in the age of GVCs

Tommaso Aquilante, Marco Garofalo and Enrico Longoni

Over the past few decades production processes have become increasingly complex and integrated across national boundaries through so-called Global Value Chains (GVCs). With increasing trade tensions and uncertainty regarding future economic integration, the 400-year old words of the English poet John Donne captured in ‘No man is an island’ seem more topical than ever. In this BU we explore the UK’s position in GVCs showing that also no island is really an island! Using a sophisticated yet intuitive decomposition of UK’s trade flows we will show how GVCs matter for the UK economy, and in particular how they seem to matter more for what we export than imports.

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