Spatial distribution of the value added from seafood exports: A domestic value chain analysis for Korea

Production sharing (fragmentation) may occur to a much larger extent at the sub-national level than at the global level due to geographic proximity of firms engaging in trade among sub-national regions within a country. Yet, studies decomposing trade flows among sub-national regions within a country are rare, especially those decomposing the exports of natural resource products. This study decomposes the gross domestic exports of seafood by each of eight regions in the Republic of Korea (ROK), and examines (i) how much value added is created from a region’s seafood exports, (ii) how it is distributed among different regions along the domestic value chains (DVCs), and (iii) how its spatial distribution changes over time. Tracing the value added along the DVCs for the inter-regional exports of raw and processed fish, this study finds, among other things, that some regions earn an enormous amount of value added through their active participation in the DVCs although they produce and export a very small quantity of seafood, and therefore do not earn much value added from their seafood exports.