Reshoring in a regional perspective: a research agenda

In the last two decades, reshoring and reindustrialisation have pervaded the political debate, suggesting new global trade trends in the world economy. Unfortunately, academic studies still lack systematic and robust conceptual and empirical interpretations regarding the expected effects that such intertwined phenomena generate on competitiveness and inequalities, especially at the regional level. Through a literature review on the existing theories to interpret offshoring and its effects at the subnational level, the paper investigates the limits of existing theories once applied to reshoring processes. In particular, the paper focuses on three intertwined areas of global value chains (GVCs) studies: (i) local value creation and rent capture through GVCs; (ii) GVC and regional development; (iii) GVC and regional income inequalities. For each of them the paper aims to offer a research agenda.