Giorgia Giovannetti

University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

The Great Recession, Brexit, the trade war between China and the USA, the pandemic crisis, and the regional wars (Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East) have opened the way to a reorganization of the global value chains and international trade. The EU in particular is facing crucial challenges regarding the internal equilibria between member countries...

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers investment opportunities for several Eurasian countries but not all of them attract investments in the same way. This paper investigates the geographical distribution of BRI projects completed between 2013 and 2020. The analysis shows that pre‐existing trade patterns are related to the likelihood of a count...

This paper provides new evidence on the reorganization of global production exploiting a novel dataset of Italian multinational firms surveyed throughout 2020 and 2021 as well as consolidated data sources. We find that Covid-19 did not spur large waves of reshoring nor plant closures. Even though the pandemic caused severe losses to firms, includin...

Recent economic literature highlighting the influence of gender discrimination on firm performance suggests that promoting gender diversity is key for boosting a company’s efficiency. This paper analyses the channels through which gender discrimination affects a specific performance indicator: the probability of a firm’s survival. The available evi...

This paper analyses the impact of trade liberalization on local labour markets in Ethiopia, with a focus on the gender dimension of employment and on the process of structural transformation. By exploiting rich micro-level data on Ethiopian workers, we evaluate the effect of the Ethiopian trade reforms on the changes and composition of employment....

We analyze the relationship between trade patterns and the allocation of investment projects carried out under the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Rooted on a novel database, we construct the intermediate trade network and assess its role in the allocation of the projects. Investments tend to concentrate in countries located in central no...

This paper tries to examine how the COVID-19 shock affects different countries through their regional integration and their exposure to Global Value Chains (GVCs). Using input-output tables (EORA 2016), our contribution is threefold. First, building on Pahl et al. (2021), we conceptually revise the approaches to analyse input-output relationships....

This paper studies bilateral cultural preferences as an asymmetric dimension of cultural proximity and estimates their effect on greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI). We derive a gravity equation of FDI and test simultaneously the impact of both (i) the preferences of investing countries for recipients’ culture; and (ii) recipients’ preferenc...

After more than two decades of trade liberalization, faced with deep structural problems which were exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis and culminated in the 2011 Spring Revolution and government change, in 2016 Egypt started to protect some sectors from foreign competition. This paper assesses how tariff reforms during the 1998–2018 period af...

This paper examines whether and to what extent markups can influence structural transformation in a developing country by creating entry barriers. We exploit information from the Ethiopian annual census of manufacturing establishments to estimate markups and their dispersion at industry and woreda‐industry‐wide levels. We then analyse the relations...

This paper investigates the heterogeneity within the group of foreign direct investors by analyzing the relation between parents’ productivity, the degree of domestic competition and the characteristics of their affiliates. Our results show that there is no unique recipe. Foreign direct investors may benefit differently depending on the economic en...

Following the recent increase of foreign direct investments in land, this paper studies their possible effects on the development of a local economy. To this aim, we use a two-sector model (external and local) with heterogeneous agents: external investors and local land owners. We assume that both sectors are negatively affected by pollution, but o...

This paper provides an impact evaluation of the Juntos programme on households’ decisions to invest in livestock and agricultural and non-agricultural assets used for income generating activities. Using Propensity Score Matching and Difference in Difference techniques, we show: i) that beneficiaries are significantly more likely to invest in produc...

Germany and Italy are the largest manufacturing producers in Europe and export over 70% of their products to OECD countries. While they share many characteristics, they are also diverse in term of specialization and destination markets. Italy has a productive structure largely based on labour intensive sectors, while Germany is mainly specialized i...

The recent trade literature has shown how incomplete contracts can shape firms' boundary and the decision of whether to outsource or integrate vertically. Related evidence and conceptualizations from the business literature show that buyer-supplier relations in global value chains can take several governance structures, depending on the degree of v...

Incorporating family decisions in a two-period model of the world economy, we predict that trade liberalization raises the skill premium and reduces child labour in developing countries where the adult labour force is sufficiently well educated to attract production activities from abroad that will increase the demand for skilled relative to unskil...

The emergence of global value chains (GVCs) has provided some firms the opportunity to internationalize by specializing in the production of specific inputs or tasks along the chain, with a direct impact on a country’s competitiveness. China, for instance, managed to enter low value added phases in GVCs to rapidly become a major player in world tra...

This paper analyzes the participation and the position of North African countries in global value chains (GVCs). Exploiting the recently released Eora multiregional Input-Output tables, we describe regional and country GVC involvement. North African countries have not so far been able to fully integrate into international production networks. Howev...

Firms’ survival and internationalization modes are key elements to assess a country's competitiveness. We draw on this to study how firms’ characteristics affect business demographic dynamics. We focus on affiliates survival probability, modelling it conditional on both parent company’ and affiliates’ set of characteristics. We generalize the base...

This paper analyzes the participation of North African countries and firms into Global Value Chains (GVCs) and its implications for competitiveness. First it shows that North African countries are not (yet) fully integrated into international production networks, although large part of their (low) trade is due to value added related upstream activi...

This paper investigates the links between product quality and the pro-trade effect of ethnic networks using a large panel on bilateral stocks of immigrants with information for 19 OECD destination countries and 177 origin countries. In line with the approach of Rauch and Trindade, we classify traded goods according to their quality level and separa...

This paper offers a firm level perspective of global value chain participation in the food industry. We single out some stylized facts on food global value chains and the Italian food industry. Exploiting a very rich and original dataset, based on a 2011 survey of 25,090 Italian firms operating in manufacturing and related services, we characterize...

Trade is one of the key channels through which Chinese economic growth affects the world economy and especially developing countries. African manufacturing sector is confined to few traditional sectors. Even if at times, and in some sectors, African exports have been favored by preferential treatments, Africa has proven to be particularly vulnerabl...

We investigate the heterogeneity within the group of foreign direct investors and the relation between affiliates characteristics and parent productivity. Using data on Italian firms, we show that foreign direct investors differ in their productivity level according to their characteristics and their investment decisions. Larger parents by employme...

This paper analyzes North African countries' participation into international production networks and estimates if/to what extent being part of a global value chain a¤ects the perfromance of …rms. Using new Input-Output data from UNCTAD-Eora, we describe regional and country GVC involvement. Results show that North African countries have not been a...

This paper explores the relation between supply-chain participation and the internationalization of firms. We show that even small and less productive firms, if involved in production chains, can take advantage of reduced costs of entry and economies of scale that enhance their probability of exporting. The empirical analysis is carried out on an o...

This chapter studies the effect of FDI in business services on total factor productivity (TFP) of Italian manufacturing firms, over the period 2003-2008.More precisely, the chapter tests the presence of vertical linkages between foreign business professionals and domestic manufacturing firms. Our results, robust to different specifications, show th...

This paper analyzes the impact of Chinese competition on developed countries’ export prices. The empirical application is on Italy, one of the main European manufacturing exporters with exports at high risk of competition from China. Our results show that, following China’s entry into the WTO, the price strategies of Italian firms has been affected...

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This paper explores the impact of being part of a supply chain on the internationalization of firms. We show that even small and less productive firms, if involved in production chains, can take advantage of reduced costs of entry and economies of scale that enhance their probability to become exporters. The empirical analysis is carried out on an...

The Special Issue focuses on the recent wave of foreign acquisitions of land in developing countries and provides. This essay article reviews the debate, providing an overview of the extent, patterns and origin of investments, and contextualizing the various contributions included in the issue. The main sections are devoted to the determinants of F...

Emerging African financial markets have been recently put forward as an interesting and profitable alternative to diversify risk for international investors. At the same time, they became more integrated with developed financial markets, so that, despite claims that Africa would be sheltered by outside shocks because at the margin of the globalizat...

Competition is increasingly global. However, location still matters: often firms cluster in the same geographic areas in order to exploit locational externalities and improve their competitiveness. This article analyses how Italian firms' performance, proxied by their propensity to export, depends both on geographical and institutional context and...

In this paper we reconstruct and discuss the network of Italian firms investing abroad, exploiting information from complex network analysis. This method, detecting the key nodes of the system (both in terms of firms and countries of destination), allows us to single out the linkages among firms without ex-ante priors. Moreover, through the examina...

China, still considered itself a developing country, is becoming an increasingly important ‘new’ donor for many African countries. Its own model of foreign assistance, providing aid in the form of economic cooperation based on the achievement of mutual economic benefits and on the principle of non-interference in internal political questions of the...

The recent empirical literature on firm performance has highlighted the multidimensional concept of managerial strategies. The paper analyzes the nexus between these strategies and performance based on specific entrepreneurs' characteristics, corporate strategies, organizational capabilities and firms' approaches to internationalization. Using a da...

The theoretical literature has discussed different channels through which foreign direct investments (FDI) promote host country’s economic growth, but empirical analyses have so far been inconclusive. In this paper we provide evidence that FDI have a positive and statistically significant growth effect in recipient countries, using a panel of 14 ma...

The recent food, fuel and financial crises have triggered innovation in social protection programmes around the world. Existing evidence suggests that such programmes both protect people from shocks and enable them to participate in economic growth. This paper explores lessons learned in social protection initiatives across countries and contexts,...

The theoretical literature has discussed different channels through which foreign direct investments (FDI) promote host country’s economic growth, but empirical analyses have so far been inconclusive. In this paper we provide evidence that FDI have a positive and statistically significant growth effect in recipient countries, using a panel of 14 ma...

The theoretical literature has discussed different channels through which foreign direct investments (FDI) promote host country’s economic growth, but empirical analyses have so far been inconclusive. In this paper we provide evidence that FDI have a positive and statistically significant growth effect in recipient countries, using a panel of 14 ma...

This paper analyses the channels through which the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009 was transmitted to Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on countries in situation of fragility. Trade stands out as the main direct channel, even though intra-Africa remittances play a relevant role, given that most migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford...

In the last few years, international institutions stressed the role of African financial markets to diversify investors’ risk. Focusing on the volatility of financial markets, this paper analyses the relationships between developed markets (US, UK and China) and some Sub-Saharian African (SSA) emerging markets (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) in t...

This paper studies the effect of FDI in business services on Total Factor Productivity of Italian manufacturing firms, over the period 2003-2008. More precisely, the paper tests the impact of forward inter industry linkages at local level. Our results, robust to different specifications, show that foreign capital infl ows improve the performance of...

This paper analyzes the indirect impact of China on the export performance of major European countries (Italy, France, Germany and Spain) in their main destination markets (OECD countries). Given a strong specialization in manufacturing sector, these EU countries are likely to be at risk from China’s competition, especially in consumer goods. The h...

Higher productivity of multinational firms and exporters has been widely documented in the literature, but the sources of this heterogeneity are still a black box. Using an original dataset on Italian firms, we show that higher total factor productivity of international firms can be to some extent explained by higher R&D intensity and managerial ca...

The recent empirical literature on firms’ performance has focused on the multidimensional concept of firms’ managerial strategies. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between firms’ managerial strategies and firms’ performance, accounting for entrepreneur’s specific characteristics, firm’s strategies, organizational capabilities. We also emp...

Despite the EU emphasis on the 1995 Barcelona process, trade integration with the Mediterranean (MED) countries is still underdeveloped. To contrast the success of EU integration with MED countries and that with the new EU members, we compute the trade potential of these EU partners from 1995 to 2002 using an “out-of-sample” methodology. The coeffi...

Despite the EU emphasis on the 1995 Barcelona process, trade integration with the Mediterranean (MED) countries is still underdeveloped. To contrast the success of EU integration with MED countries and that with the new EU members, we compute the trade potential of these EU partners from 1995 to 2002 using an "out-of-sample" methodology. The coeffi...

Trade is one of the key channels through which Chinese economic growth affects the world economy and especially developing countries. African manufacturing sector is confined to few traditional sectors. Even if at times, and in some sectors, African exports have been favored by preferential treatments, Africa has proven to be particularly vulnerabl...

Over the last 10 years, Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), the “New Europe”, have gradually increased their integration in world trade and in the international production networks, which distribute sequential stages of production across production sites in different countries. In the “new” scenario, with highly integrated global market...

The J curve is the description of an empirical phenomenon: the trade balance worsens immediately after a depreciation of the exchange rate, to improve in the longer term. This pattern can be ascribed to different speed of adjustment of trade prices and volumes to changes in exchange rates. Several models have been put forward, suggesting explanatio...

We characterize the optimal sequential choice of monetary policy in economies with either nominal or indexed debt. In a model where nominal debt is the only source of time inconsistency, the Markov-perfect equilibrium policy implies the progressive depletion of the outstanding stock of debt, until the time inconsistency disappears. There is a resul...

The birth of new firms and their survival in the market are often seen as crucial for economic growth and competitiveness in a modern economy. This paper focuses on business demography of Italian firms, using an original dataset obtained by merging Capitalia-Reprint and AIDA, to identify the relationships among firms’ characteristics their demograp...

North-South capital flows are likely to allow countries in the South to grow independently from their (low) domestic saving rate, thereby reducing possible financial constraints to growth. They allow the financing of balance-of-payments deficits in the early stages of development, so that a country can import intermediate and capital-intensive good...

Despite the EU emphasis on the 1995 Barcelona process, trade integration with the Mediterranean (MED) countries seems to be still underdeveloped. To contrast the success of EU integration with MED countries and that with the new EU members, we compute the trade potential of these EU partners from 1995 to 2002 using an "out-of-sample" methodology. T...

This is a companion paper to Ferragina, Giovannetti and Pastore (2005) and focuses on Romania-EU actual and potential trade. The Romanian trade potential with five EU members (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) is computed using an “out-of-sample” methodology for the period 1995-‘01. The coefficients are taken from panel estimators of the gravit...

This paper attempts to forecast the EU-Romania trade using the gravity approach developed in Ferragina, Giovannetti and Pastore (2005). The trade potential of Romania with five EU members (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) is computed using an “out-of-sample” methodology for the period 1995-2001. The coefficients are taken from panel estimators...

This paper presents some "statistical facts" about the Italian business cycle. Our results suggest that in the last decade the Italian economy has been increasingly synchronizing with the Euro Area and still lags behind the US cycle. In line with other industrial countries, the Italian cycle has dampened in the 90s. Especially, the average duration...

We study the effects of nominal debt on the optimal sequential choice of monetary and debt policy. When the stock of debt is nominal, the incentive to generate unanticipated inflation increases the cost of the outstanding debt even if no unanticipated inflation episodes occur in equilibrium. Without full commitment, the optimal sequential policy is...

We study a dynamic equilibrium model where the same optimal monetary policy is implemented with and without full commitment if government debt is indexed. In contrast, with nominal debt, the full commitment policy is time inconsistent, since the government is tempted to inflate away its nominal liabilities. We characterize the optimal sequential po...

This paper calculates indices of central bank autonomy (CBA) for 163 central banks as of end-2003, and comparable indices for a subgroup of 68 central banks as of the end of the 1980s. The results confirm strong improvements in both economic and political CBA over the past couple of decades, although more progress is needed to boost political auton...

This paper presents an empirical examination of the importance of hysteresis in international trade. An econometric model of export determination is developed where the presence of sunk costs causes discontinuous behavior and hysteresis so that individual exporters` decision to stay in or out of the market depends on the current value of the exchan...

The work reviews the empirical literature on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in the period of floating exchange rates, 1973-1990, with special attention to the studies addressing the issue of the long run validity of the hypothesis. The different versions of PPP are described and several theoretical reasons put forward to explain deviations from it a...

We analyze the relation between entrepreneurship and firm performance, emphasizing the role of firms mode of internationalization. We stress the multidimensionality of the concept of entrepreneurship, accounting not only for entrepreneur's specific characteristics (age, family firm), but also for her decisions on firm's strategies and her organizat...

This paper briefly describes location decisions of Italian Business Services firms against the background of the recent phenomenon of international fragmentation of production. It assesses the advantages of business service offshoring, highlighting the role of different typologies of services, and dividing those that need a "face to face" relations...

In a rapidly evolving environment, industrial countries market shares tend to shrink and firms (and governments) have to adjust to higher competitiveness. In Italy, a country specialized in the production and export of traditional goods, and therefore more exposed than others to the price competitiveness of emerging countries, export shares in volu...

Better performances of multinational firms and exporters with respect to domestic firms have been widely documented in the literature, but the sources of these premia have largely remained a black box. Using an original dataset on Italian firms, we find that the higher use of knowledge workers (such as R&D workers, as well as workers in managerial...

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the channels through which the economic and fi nancial crisis of 2008-2009 is transmitted to fragile countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Trade stands out as the main direct channel, even though intra-Africa remittances play a relevant role, given that most migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa fragile countries cannot afford the...