This edition focuses on the relationship between digitization and international trade, looking at the composition of digital trade and the companies that engage in it and its connection to robotics, productivity and employment.
In a digital world where imports and exports are just a click away, the boundaries of traditional trade are blurring. The embrace of digital technologies is transforming not only what we trade, but also how we trade and who is involved. Web shops and e-commerce platforms enable companies to claim a new role in international value chains. Consumers can easily access international markets through those digital platforms. That digitalization does not only impact trade is obvious. It permeates all levels of our daily lives. It affects how we communicate with each other, how we absorb knowledge, how we make purchases and how we have fun. Digitalization makes us more interconnected than ever. That presents many opportunities. But the digital revolution also raises questions.
In this Internationalization Monitor, we analyze digitization and international trade using a number of different perspectives. In Chapter 1 we define digital trade, show what relevant figures are available from CBS, and provide an overview of existing research on digitization and trade from different perspectives. Whereas Chapter 2 looks at the size and business characteristics of digital trade, Chapter 3 examines the relationship between digitization and exports, productivity, employment, using different ICT applications. Finally, Chapter 4 zooms in specifically on the use of robotics in relation to business characteristics, value chains and employment.
The Internationalization Monitor describes trends in internationalization and their consequences for the Dutch economy and society. The publication appears three times a year and is part of the CBS development and publication program Globalization, which is commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The goal of the Globalization Research Program is to arrive at new insights in the field of globalization for the benefit of practice, policy and science. The core of the approach is the integration of diverse sources and already available microdata, combined with the application of advanced statistical methods such as I/O analysis. The results, newly developed statistics and accompanying analyses, are published in the Internationalization Monitor.
