of electronics has increased in relative importance in East Asia‐Pacific, Middle East‐North Africa, and Latin America‐Caribbean, with intermediate electronics increasing even more rapidly in East Asia‐Pacific. North America, Europe‐Central Asia, and Latin America have become increasingly specialized in final assembly of Motor Vehicles, as has Sub‐Saharan Africa (though this is accounted for largely by South Africa).

Intermediate goods are more likely to be traded within regions, while final goods are more likely to be traded across regions. For example, trade in electronics intermediates is regionalized within East Asia‐ Pacific, and footwear components are heavily traded around the Mediterranean (Europe and Middle East‐ North Africa).

The expansion of GVC exports has tended increasingly to focus on goods that are less sophisticated, and on export sources that are lower‐income. That is to say, many GVC goods have “downstreamed” (been transferred to lower‐income countries) over time, possibly by unbundling of the final assembly stage.

Goods in the auto value chains are more likely to be exported by high‐income countries, particularly final assembly, and those in the textiles/apparel/footwear value chains are more likely to be exported by low‐ income countries, particularly final apparel. Electronics show an intermediate degree of sophistication. The relative sophistication of value chain segments has remained roughly stable over time.

North America produces the most sophisticated bundle of GVC exports, followed by Europe and Central Asia. South Asia produces the least sophisticated bundle. The rising degree of GVC export sophistication in Sub‐Saharan Africa is accounted for by South Africa.

The degree of export sophistication varies greatly within sectors. For example, artificial textured yarn is significantly more sophisticated than combed and uncombed cabled cotton yarn.

At the country level, assembly of footwear and electronics is most geographically concentrated, while exports of auto parts are more geographically dispersed (this is a different measure of concentration than intra‐regional trade).

# 2. Construction of the MC‐GVC database

The MC‐GVC database covers five global value chains that are considered to be at the forefront of global economic integration: Apparel, Electronics, Motor Vehicles, Footwear and Textiles. In identifying the products that belong to each of these GVCs, this study uses a modified version of the definition of the three classic GVCs in Sturgeon and Memedovic (2011). In their approach, products are classified as belonging to one of the three GVC sectors, namely Apparel & Footwear, Electronics, and Motor Vehicles, based on a combination of expert opinion and their position in the U.N. Statistical Division’s Broad Economic Categories (BEC), which help to distinguish between intermediate and final goods. This leads to a list of over 400 traded goods, identified in the SITC Rev. 3 classification at the four‐digit or five‐digit level. Each of the GVCs is then divided into two subsectors to reflect intermediate and final goods (e.g. intermediate electronics and final electronics), making six GVC sectors all told.

Taking the classification proposed by Sturgeon and Memedovic (2010) as our departing point, we modify it in four ways. First, we separate Footwear from Apparel, taking into consideration differences in trade dynamics we noticed during our initial work on this topic. Secondly, we add a fifth value chain, Textiles, although in this case we only consider final products due to the overlap of intermediates with the Apparel value chain. Third, the definition of the motor vehicles sector, which originally included only passenger motor vehicles and motorcycles, is broadened so as to encompass other road vehicles (e.g. trucks, buses and trailers). Fourth and finally, we migrate from SITC Rev.2 nomenclature at the five‐digit level of aggregation to HS nomenclature at the six‐digit level of aggregation, constructing equivalent GVC product lists in different versions of the Harmonized System (HS) nomenclature: 1988/92 (H0), HS 1996 (H1), HS 5