Growing like China: Firm performance and global production line position

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves global production lines this evolves productivity performance over the firm lifecycle. document a sharp rise upstreamness of imports, stable positioning exports, rapid expansion stages conducted China 1992-2014 period, both aggregate within time. Firms span more as they grow productive, bigger experienced. This is accompanied by input purchases, added production, fixed cost levels shares. It also associated higher profits though not changing profit margins. rationalize these patterns stylized model lifecycle complementarity between scale scope performed.