Trade in Tasks: A New Perspective to International Trade, Structural Change and Economic Development

This Element synthesizes a decade of research on who is doing what and where in global value chains. Moving beyond the traditional product- or industry-based approach, the authors introduce a task-based framework for analyzing trade and structural transformation. This novel perspective captures the increasingly fragmented and specialized nature of global production. They present new data and methods to measure the income and employment associated with task exports, and analyze evolving patterns of task specialization along countries’ development paths. By demonstrating the versatility and policy relevance of this approach, they aim to inspire further research and inform debates on trade, growth, and development. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.