Global Value Chains and Vaccine Equity: An Empirical Quest From the Perspective of Sustainability

Abstract

Although multiple effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic have been discovered, produced and deployed worldwide at exceptional rates, multiple countries have been left out due to numerous reasons, and the vaccination rates among these countries have been dismally low, while at the other end, some nations were able to inoculate almost all of their people. There have been studies concerning this issue, trying to understand the factors causing such inequity, and most of them look at socio-economic conditions like income and the behavioural factor of vaccine acceptance. This chapter, however, emphasises the role of trade and the global value chains (GVCs) in providing countries access to vaccines, which are being manufactured in a distributed system of production stages. The main concerned variables are vaccination rates and the GVC participation measure. Such analysis could help us understand whether being part of the production chain gives the countries an advantage in accessing the vaccine stocks, and the results suggest that the GVC participation rate does have an effect on the vaccination rate of a country.

Citation

Sengupta, S. and Pinniboina, M. (2024), "Global Value Chains and Vaccine Equity: An Empirical Quest From the Perspective of Sustainability", Chatterjee, T. (Ed.) International Trade, Economic Crisis and the Sustainable Development Goals, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 327-336. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-586-620241022