complete list of 256 officially recognized countries/territories in the world that exist or have existed in any year of the analysis period 1988‐2014.<sup>6</sup> Even though the mirror dataset was chosen for the present analysis, the equivalent reported dataset is also available for future work and comparisons. It is worth noting that even though the country‐year coverage of the dataset underlying the present analysis is good, it is not a balanced panel. In case the absence of gaps in data is important for any analysis to be carried out using the MC‐GVC dataset, the largest attainable balanced panel at the time of writing comprises 175 countries with a complete data series in both overall GVC exports and imports spanning 1988‐2014 in mirror data, explaining between 92 percent and 96 percent of world GVC trade in any given year within such 27‐year period.

# 3. Analysis of Trends in GVC Trade Participation

## 3.1 Trends in GVC Participation by Product Categories, World Regions and Income Groups

GVC participation is measured by the share of GVC exports in total exports at different levels of aggregation across the regional and product type dimensions. We analyze the evolution of GVC participation over the years, both in aggregate terms and by individual value chains, first for the world as a whole and afterward for country groups built based on income levels and geographic regions.<sup>7</sup> Global participation in the GVCs under analysis increased slowly but steadily since the late 1980s until the turn of the century, when it started to slowly decrease after peaking at 36% in 1999<sup>8</sup> (Figure 1). Since the beginning of the 2000s decade, participation in the four GVCs experienced a slow but steady decrease, reaching a minimum of 26% in 2008 and 2012. This slowing down trend shows a reversal in the last years of the series, with shares increasing slowly and ending up in 28% in 2014. Also, even though in the initial years of the series (late 1980s) there was a gap of almost 15 percentage points between the share of GVC trade as measured by imports and exports, it rapidly decreases in the early 1990s and both trends have remained very close ever since, as would be expected in aggregate data, even though the shares of GVCs imports and exports of intermediate and final goods may vary across income and region groups. Relative importance of each individual GVC export flow has experienced some variation over the years, with the shares of final and intermediate electronics steadily increasing and those of final and intermediate apparel decreasing along the 27‐year period of the analysis (Figure 2).

Among regions, East Asia‐Pacific is the most intensively specialized in GVC exports, followed by South Asia, whereas Sub‐Saharan Africa is the least specialized in GVC trade (Figure 3). As Figure 4 shows, final and especially Intermediate electronics are the most important GVC exports for the East Asia & Pacific region, accounting for relatively large shares of total exports throughout the whole period,<sup>9</sup> which have furthermore steadily increased over time, both in total exports and in overall GVC exports, whereas intermediate and especially final apparel, as well as final motor vehicles, have decreased their shares in overall GVC exports over time. In the case of South Asia, GVC exports account for a very significant share of total exports, with final apparel accounting for 15 percent or more of total exports for most of the period and reaching a peak above 25 percent in the early 1990s. Intermediate apparel and final textiles

> 6 Whenever a different number of countries is used for a specific piece of analysis, the new number and the reasons underlying the reduction of the original dataset are noted in a footnote or in the notes accompanying the corresponding table or figure.

> 7 This analysis can also be carried out for single countries over the years.

> 8 As measured by the share of overall GVC exports in total exports.

> 9 Since the mid‐1990s they stayed above 12% for final electronics and between 15‐20% for intermediates.

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