STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
Agenda
Item 10c
OECD Globalisation
Indicators
OECD report
STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
Background
• The OECD has established a solid track record in the field of
globalisation statistics and indicators
•Historically, OECD has put together a set of guidelines to compile
foreign direct investment statistics in the early 80s published in the
OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment
•The OECD Handbook on Economic Globalisation Indicators (HEGI)
in 2005 laid the foundation for the …
•Subsequent – sometimes parallel – development of OECD Economic
Globalisation Indicators (EGI), also published in 2005.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The Handbook on Economic
Globalisation Indicators
•
•
Recognizing the multidimensional nature of globalisation, the former Secretary-General of
the OECD, Donald J. Johnston, recommended that the work be undertaken collaboratively
with other OECD groups with expertise in
– foreign direct investment
– international trade and technology
Groups include
–
the Investment Committee’s Workshop on International Investment Statistics (WSII)
serviced by the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs (DAF);
–
the International Trade Statistics Expert Group and the OECD-Eurostat Experts in
Trade in Services Statistics (underlining by author) served by the Statistics
Directorate (STD);
–
and the Working Party of the Trade Committee serviced by the Trade Directorate.
–
Among groups serviced by the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, the
Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP) and its working parties, the
Working Party of National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) and
the Working Party on Technology and Innovation Policy (TIP), also participated in the
preparation of the Handbook
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The Handbook on Economic Globalisation
Indicators and the Economic Globalisation
Indicators Publication
– The OECD Economic Globalisation Indicators
publication represented a first attempt to develop the
main indicators proposed in the OECD Handbook for
the purpose of measuring the scope and magnitude
of the globalisation process through its main vectors,
which are:
– Capital movements and foreign direct investment.
– The economic activity of multinational firms.
– The internationalization of technology.
– International trade.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The EGI Indicators
•
•
•
•
Part I. International Transactions of OECD Countries
A.
B.
International trade and investment flows
Foreign direct investment.
Part II. The Economic Activity of Multinationals
•
C.
•
•
D.
E.
•
F.
The activity of multinationals in the manufacturing
sector
The activity of multinationals in the services
Comparison between the activity of foreign affiliates in
the manufacturing sector and in the services sector
The contribution of multinationals to value added and
labour productivity in the manufacturing and services
sectors
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The EGI Indicators
• Part III. The Internationalization of Technology
•
G.
The internationalization of industrial
R&D
•
H.
The international diffusion of
technology
• Part IV. Aspects of Trade Globalisation
•
I.
Trends in international trade in goods
and services
•
J.
Intra-firm trade of multinational
enterprises
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The challenge now
• The challenge OECD is facing now is how
to expand the range of indicators in
response to identified needs, but taking
into account the limitations of statistical
systems at national and also international
level.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The challenge now
Indicators corresponding to economic globalisation should ideally
respond to the following policy questions:
• To what extent can the intensity of the globalisation process be
measured?
• How can the impact of globalisation on economic performance be
evaluated?
• How can we measure the impact of structural policy reforms
designed to get national economies to benefit more from
globalisation?
• However, it is fully recognized in the Handbook itself that it covers
measures concerning almost exclusively the first question that
corresponds to the extent and intensity of globalisation.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The need to move forward
• Challenges are manifold and there are certainly
different views what they are and in which
priority order they should be seen;
• But it may be useful to outline some first
directions
• By no means the following is meant to be
directive or a complete list; it is merely a
stocktaking of some aspects which have been
identified from a statistical point of view:
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
The need to move forward:
what next?
• Develop impact measures (see remarks above). Measuring
outcomes instead of outputs gains is gaining in importance since it
relates causes to effects (e.g. comparing export growth to growth in
employment);
• How to translate policy questions into statistically operational
concepts, measurable and – ideally – internationally comparable?;
• How to adapt the statistical reporting systems to the fact that
production activities have no national borders, that a flatter vertical
integration of the production process makes it more difficult to
correctly asses that share of a good which can be attributed to
“domestic” production. There is growing evidence that the increasing
share of re-imports and re-exports biases traditional trade
performance indicators and “inflates” trade growth rates.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is
necessary – e.g. trade
• The real problem today is that statistical systems have been
“overtaken” by the speed of globalisation obliging national reporting
systems and structures to align to this paradigm shift.
• In fact, the interpretation of trade statistics needs to be seen in
connection with global production networks. A high export intensity
may not mean anymore that the country has developed a
comparative advantage in a given sector, but rather that it is
integrated in a global production chain.
• Re-interpreting trade statistics also requires establishing
connections with other statistical information, such as R&D,
innovation, labour skills, etc..
• In other words, “national” concepts need to incorporate the
international dimension to adequately reflect the reality of today’s
production process
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is
necessary –e.g. SNA
•
•
Concerning SNA there seems a need to “repair” the accounts
A special Working Group will prepare a Report with recommendations/best
practices on how to deal with the distortions in the accounts due to
globalisation
The report will:
•
•
•
•
•
Identify the areas of national accounts most affected by the impact of
globalisation
Put forward proposals to improve the surveying, the subsequent processing
and the integration of statistical data
Put forward proposals to arrive at an internationally consistent recording of
transactions in national accounts and related source statistics
Put forward proposals to improve relevant international guidelines for
national accounts
Put forward proposals to create some kind of medium (e.g. website,
electronic discussion groups, etc.) to exchange best practices.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is
necessary – e.g. SBS-Trade
Linking of business statistics and trade.
• Global economies require data on who is trading and what are the
characteristics of trade operators. This question requires establishing a direct
relation between foreign trade and industrial statistics. But these two statistical
domains are based upon different concepts (products versus economic
activities) and use different classifications (SITC, HS, ISIC, and CPC).
•
A central issue of such an analysis is to try to classify trade operators
according to enterprise characteristics. Eurostat and OECD are working
together in this field to develop comparable and consistent data.
•
Another City Group, called 20th International Roundtable on Business Survey
Frames– Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers. Such a group takes the
necessary comprehensive, national and international perspective to elaborate
better statistical tools and frameworks.
•
In response to more integrated world markets, growing competition and
structural changes, the European Union is tackling the necessary
modernisation of community statistics in a program, called MEETS
(Modernisation of European Enterprise and Trade Statistics).
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is necessary
– e.g. integrated BR and statistical IDs
• A corollary of this “integration of statistical subject
matters”, hitherto separated and operating with
specifically own concepts and classifications, is the
imperative need to develop common identifiers of
statistical units at national level.
• The interoperability between the trade register and
business register, but also administrative records gains
in importance.
• A related issue is the role of the distributive trading
sector in exports (so-called distributive services) that
may distort the picture of export activities at the
enterprise level.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is necessary
– e.g. Enterprise Groups and MNEs
• The economic picture of a country crucially depends on the degree
of inclusion or exclusion of statistical unit’s operating internationally.
• As decision making body, the economic actor acts nowadays
according to economic parameters, and not according to territorial
ones.
• France has launched in 2005 a major high-level project of redesigning its enterprise statistics system. This was largely in
response to new information needs due to globalisation => see
agenda item 10 (f)
• The EG (or sub-group of it) seems to be the relevant unit of analysis
and users want to analyse market realities, not hierarchical
structures within EGs.
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is necessary
– e.g. trade in goods and in services
•
•
•
•
•
•
Concerning Trade in Good s and Trade in Services there is a need to review
and amend the roles of the international Task Forces dealing separately with
them
Conceptual differences between international flows of goods and services in a
number of cases are reduced due to the shift from "trade in goods" to "trade in
tasks".
Old concept of competitive (or comparative) advantage need to be reviewed in
response to changes in actual business practices of international firms and the
fact that the different stages of the production process of single merchandise
may be distributed across various countries.
The revision of major statistical frameworks) need reconciled and harmonised
approaches wherever possible and feasible.
Prominent examples are the recent reviews of the statistical treatment of goods
for processing and merchanting in the context of the SNA and BPM revisions
Because the borderline between goods and services in modern business
practices is now somewhat blurred, it is clear that operational definitions and
tools have to be designed in such a way that they satisfy needs of their
respective users and also of those of other statistical frameworks to the
maximum extent possible
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
A new look at globalisation is necessary –
e.g. expanding the scope of analysis to
impacts
• International production and re-imports and re-exports bias the
picture of trade flows and growth rates.
• High trade growth rates may overstate the real picture. The use of
Input-Output tables might help to better allocate factors
• A high import content of exports means that for a country such as
Germany strong export growth can not translate into commensurate
employment growth.
• Hence, the labour market characteristics, employment and
migration flows all belong to a better appreciation of globalisation.
• Wage differentials play a determining role and, in the end,
globalisation strategies of firms are always a function of expected
productivity gains. Hence, productivity indicators may constitute a
very useful addition to existing indicators.
• Much needs to be done and further developed!
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STD/PASS/TAGS – Trade and Globalisation Statistics
Delegates are invited to prepare
comments and suggestions for
discussion under
agenda item 10 (g)
Thank you for your attention!
Andreas.lindner@oecd.org
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