Spotlight: Promoting Young Scholars - Giulio Vannelli

Since he decided to go into Economics, Giulio Vannelli always had globalisation in his mind, in particular its core element, global value chains. That’s what he devoted his PhD thesis to, at the University of Trento last year, examining “Economic development in a globalised world: the role of Global Value Chains”. The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, honoured him with a PhD scholarship to this end.

And global value chains are where he is directing his attention while at the Centre d’Économie de la Sorbonne (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), where he is currently working as a post-doc.

One of the areas he is doing research on is the impact of trade and foreign direct investment on the performance of internationally exposed companies, in terms of labour outcomes, productivity, organisation of production and so on. To gain his insights, he is delving into massive French administrative data that make it possible to scrutinise economic phenomena at the deepest micro-level.

He is also investigating the impact of globalisation at the country-sectoral level, using publicly available input-output international tables to capture industry- wide long-term evolution.

Giulio further honed his skills during a visit at the Centre d'Études Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII) in Paris.

His research has found a wider audience through two publication, in which he detailed his findings on the economic impact of covid-19 through global value chains:

”Demand and supply exposure through global value chains: Euro-Mediterranean countries during Covid” (with R. Ayadi, G. Giovannetti, E. Marvasi and C. Zaki). The World Economy, 2022, 45.3: 637-656.

”The Role of Global Value Chains in the Pandemic: Impact on Italian Firms” (with G. Giovannetti, M. Mancini and E. Marvasi), Rivista di Politica Economica, 2/2020. Confindustria Servizi, Roma.

This all fits brilliantly with one of the areas In the Pillars programme, which deals with the relationship between global value chain positions and labour shares.

Giulio’s eye for global perspectives and local detail is one of the unique assets underpinning cutting-edge research at Pillars.