Measures of Upstreamness and Downstreamness based on exports

In this paper I discuss and develop measures of upstreamness and downstreamness to describe the position of countries and sectors in global value chains. Both measures are defined as the distance between exports and either final demand (upstreamness) or primary factors (downstreamness). When added together, they create a single measure of chain length, and reveal the position of the chain in international trade. I show the usefulness of these measures for highlighting aspects of international participation in value chains that cannot be deduced from measures developed previously. In particular, the measures proposed here better describe the specialization of countries along value chains.