A Research and Analysis Webinar: "Covid-19 and GVCs"

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the supply issues that many countries have faced with regard to medical devices and testing materials, there has been a discussion among researchers and policy makers about rearrangements of global value chains to limit the risks of supply disruption. Stockpiling, diversification, or re-shoring have all been suggested as potential options to make supply chains more resilient to shocks.

With this background, the focus of this webinar is to exchange views on the reasons for changes in global value chains as a result of Covid-19 both from a positive angle, analysing expected changes in the behaviour of firms, and from a normative angle, assessing the different arguments for policy interventions by governments.

More specifically, the interventions will address the following two questions:

1) What do we know or can observe about how the covid-19 crisis is inducing firms to reorganize value chains?
2) What should governments do to ensure resilience and robustness of value chains and the provision of essential goods in times of crisis?