Knowledge based capital and value creation in global supply chains

This paper investigates the role of knowledge-based capital for participation and value appropriation in global value chains (GVC) for a sample of European countries over 1995–2011. We distinguish between different forms of participation in GVC entailing a different degree of capability to create value added domestically and examine how different intangible assets contribute to countries' engagement and value appropriation in GVC. We find that knowledge-based capital is positively correlated with participation and value appropriation along the value chain. This finding is robust to introducing separately R&D and non-R&D intangibles. In particular, training and organizational capital have the largest positive effect on value appropriation [JEL Classification: F23, O30].