When looking at the way contemporary global value chains/global production networks (GVCs/GPNs) and the articulations of globalised capital have been studied, it is clearly visible that the hegemonic power of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has monopolised the empirical and theoretical analysis. Indeed, their ability to maintain control over the technological, financial and commercial flows through private-led governance has impacted most of the industrial development and underdevelopment of the Global South. Such footloose private operations have often caused undesired consequences such as eroded environmental standards, low wages and scrapped social protection rights. Governments have joined in a race to the bottom on fiscal and labour deregulations in order to attract foreign direct investment in exchange for low and semi-skilled jobs, resulting in very low fiscal revenue, low productivity, balance of payment imbalances and poor social outcomes.听

The underpinning theory was that countries should follow their comparative advantages and let the market determine prices of labour (costs) and goods in order to be competitive in the world market and maximise returns. Yet, such losing game has been criticised since the start by who widely denounced how theories and policies of development forgot the role of the state in history and in the present. In other words, public institutions have always played a key role not only in the quantitative making of capitalist accumulation, but also in its qualitative distributional and developmental outcomes.听

Building upon the heritage of such scholarship, and in view of multiple and overwhelming 鈥榤arket failures鈥� in the global South and beyond, a new wave of Marxist-institutionalist inter-disciplinary literature spanning from Geography to International Economics and Finance has been trying to untangle the potential synergies between the public and the private domains by connecting the GVCs/GPNs and Developmental State approach.听

In this debate, it that the state should be seen as a facilitator (i.e. assisting firms in smoothing market transactions); a regulator (combined with distributor to mitigate inequality and negative market externalities); a buyer (i.e. public procurement); a producer (i.e. state-owned enterprises) and a financer as a result of state-capital reconfigurations through sovereign wealth funds and development banks. Therefore, such functions should be foregrounded in analyses of development, because they are key to understanding developmental sources and processes within GVCs.听

In my contribution to this debate, I have recently argued in a paper titled 鈥溾�� that the state can and should act as a coordinator of strategic developmental objectives beyond and across GVCs. I use the lens of upgrading 鈥� which is generally defined as a shift to higher productive value-added activities鈥�, as a result of improved access to, and use of, technology, knowledge and skills 鈥� to show how state functions can lead to organisational upgrading, namely a state-led coordination strategy able to link economic upgrading in GVCs with developmental objectives. Hence, economic upgrading, if effectively planned and coordinated, can lead to . To support this proposition, I underline three points: an epistemological, an ontological, and a methodological one.听

The first one is epistemological, and relates to the inter-scalar dimension of development: targeted macroeconomic policies on trade, macro-finance and innovation and industrial policies are instrumental in meso- and micro-upgrading processes and vice-versa. In other words, in order to understand the time- and space-specific dimensions of development processes, we need to adopt an epistemological approach which focusses on the dialectical relations between potential macroeconomic strategies and microeconomic operations.听

The second point is ontological and relates to the inter-sectoral possibilities of upgrading.听 The state, through coordinated policies, can create specific spill-overs across different sectors and industry, bridging the specificities and potential of agriculture, manufacturing and services. In the paper, for instance, I show that agricultural industries such as high-value crops are often neither understood within the more complex inter-sectoral labour relations that they can develop, nor for their contribution to potential value-addition and backward and forward linkages.听

Public governance can be an alternative to private buyer-led governance, which often disproportionately benefits lead firms, because it can help domestic agents and firms to capture value and power within the GVC/GPNs, as well as societal benefits in and outside the GVC/GPNs. The state can indeed shape the institutional context of GVC/GPNs through the establishment of (patient) financial and political partnerships with international actors to avoid predatory competition, it can coordinate inter-sectoral spillovers for short and long-term collective learning and capacity building and it can also create linkages which enable long-term developmental objectives. Such objectives cannot be pursued through private actors only. It is therefore necessary to underscore the of the state to spur such听organisational upgrading, namely a state-led coordination strategy able to link economic upgrading in GVCs while mediating inter-temporal economic and developmental objectives.听

The third and final point is methodological, and it relates to the quantifying tendencies of the discipline of economics, and how these have dominated the production of evidence and paradigmatic policy solutions. Far from being perfect, this performative approach has not only obscured the complex reality of social phenomena, both global and local. It has also too often been relying on poorly constructed secondary data, resulting in a priori biases in the analytical variables considered important to explain developmental processes. Race, class, power and gender relations have been simplified to adjust to deductive correlations, which has obscured the complex nuances of historical dynamics and structural barriers. By triangulating primary and secondary data and texts, and relying on inductive questions linked to theories, interdisciplinary research can investigate discrete but insightful patterns behind social phenomena, thus overcoming the dogma of 鈥榚xternal validity鈥�. 听

In conclusion, a new literature emerged that finally acknowledges and engages with the simple fact that coordinated state interventions are instrumental in ensuring the sustainability of the socio-economic transformations beyond and across GVCs. More and more researchers seem committed to develop a political economy of development scholarship able to explain how the real world actually works, and how it can be improved. We all should keep questioning the limitations of its modus operandi to adapt and cope with the unanswered multiple questions posed by the challenges of post-Covid economy, and hopefully, engage with the politics that can eventually lead to the much anticipated .听 In a nutshell, the state-market relationship can take many forms. While political movements strive for more progressive ones, both theories and policies should do their part too.听

Lorena Lombardozzi is a lecturer in Economics at The Open University in the UK. She tweets at . Photo by .

The debate in Higher Education (HE) in the UK is slowly starting to recognise that inequality in education is both the cause and consequence of societal elitism. As a result, there is an increasing debate about widening access to academia, and more and more newspaper

On the 17th of May 2019 the and working group organised a on economic pluralism, teaching and research. I was chairing the panel on 鈥淐hallenges and Opportunities for the Economics Curriculum Around Decolonisation, Gender and Diversity鈥� which included brilliant contributions from Dr Meera Sabaratnam (SOAS), Dr Lucia Pradella (King鈥檚 College), Dr Ingrid Kvangraven (University of York) and Ali Al-Jamri (Rethinking Economics, Diversity Campaign Manager). They addressed various political, historical and cultural听 issues around neocolonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism and gender segregation in HE at large and in the economic discipline in particular. Considering the potential great complementarity of the topics, I thought it was relevant to bring in the class dimension in the discussion. I noticed that while the marginalization of women and people of color is rightly getting increasing attention, the class dimension is sometimes forgotten. Indeed, although class remains a crucial lens to untangle injustice and exclusion in the HE industry, it isn’t dealt with with as much urgency. Maybe also because it’s a bit less visible. Indeed, last week I was discussing this issue with another 鈥榓cademic migrant鈥� from Southern Europe, and he suggested: 鈥淧anels should ask 鈥渨hat do your parents do/did for a living?鈥� during job interviews.

To prepare my presentation, I approached a couple of 鈥榙ata intelligence鈥� offices in UK universities asking for facts about the class dimension of access to higher education in the UK. I was pointed to the , which is a new resource that enables us educators, but also students, to look at various key bits of data on the university sector as a whole, and on individual universities. A very useful resource indeed!听

So here is what I found, and the results are pretty discouraging.听

There is a general concern about students鈥� retention across UK HE institutions. According to data presented below based on and , findings seem to support such concern, across disciplines. Figure 1 below shows the years in the degree on the Y axis and three indicators on the on the X axis:听

1. Course completion: where 1 corresponds to full completion of a non-medical degree, and 0 if students did not complete their courses in the period;听
2. Dropout: where 1 is if they went to university but dropped out of HE completely within two years of initial entry, and 0 is if they went to university but did not drop out;
3. First or 2:1: where 1 corresponds to going to university full-time to study for a non-medical first degree, successfully completing their degree within five years of entry and graduation with a first or a 2:1 as their degree class, and 0 if they went to university full-time to study for a non-medical degree and successfully completed it within five years of entry but did not graduate with a first or a 2:1 as their degree class

Figure 1: Distribution of the likelihood of dropping out within 2 years, completing a degree within 5 years and graduating with a first or 2:1, by university course

Source: .听

When looking at the determinants of such outcomes, the trends seem quite unanimous. From a recently published dataset from ONS it is that 鈥淵oung students from disadvantaged areas are more likely to drop out, less likely to gain a first or 2:1, complete their degree within 5 years or find graduate employment compared to their more advantaged peers鈥�, which confirms what is summarised in figure 2 below.

Figure 2: % of HE participants dropping out within 2 years, completing a degree within 5 years and graduating with a first or 2:1, by socio-economic backgroundPercentile of SES distribution (1=least deprived, 100=most deprived).听Source: 听.听

The most advantaged students tend to dominate the proportion of 18 years old in England with a place of HE. Students with lower socioeconomic status – from disadvantaged classes – are more likely to leave university within 2 years, complete their degree within 5 years and less likely to graduate with a First or 2:1. The report notes that while 鈥渓ess than 10% of the least deprived state school students drop out of university within two years, over 80% complete their degree within five years and nearly 70% graduating with a first or a 2:1, more than 20% of the most deprived state school students drop-out, less than 60% complete their degree and less than 40% graduate with a first or a 2:1鈥� (p. 16). In the below figures 3-4, the same kind of stratification is observed when looking at a mix of indicators that describe the degree of 鈥榩rivilege鈥� or 鈥榓dvantage鈥� of students in universities. These are spatial disaggregation and multiple equality measure (which include sex, ethnic group, where people live, secondary education school sector (state or private), and income background (as measured by whether a person was in receipt of free school meals (FSM), a means-tested benefit while at school).听

Figure 3: Proportion of 18 year olds in England with a place in higher education, by educational disadvantage in their local area听Source: UCAS 2017, End of Cycle Report

Figure 4: Proportion of 18 year olds in England with a place in higher education, by UCAS multiple equality measureSource: UCAS 2017, End of Cycle Report

Based on the above evidence we now have an idea of what the main determinants of retention and success in higher education are. The intersection of gender and race with class and economic privilege is still important for understanding the inequality in achievements of the student body. Yet, university managers and policy makers seem unable to identify and implement counter policies to combat the polarizing outcomes. As a result, we are not going in the right direction: marketization and fees increase, scholarships are scant, the de-finincing of the welfare state and austerity persists, and the 鈥榗lass鈥� gap is not narrowing (figure 5).

Figure 5:听Proportion of full-time, first-degree UK domiciled entrants to HEFCE-funded higher education institutions in England who leave during or after their first year

Source: Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), based on POLAR3 measure of educational disadvantage

This discussion raises a further point, which is about how the elitist turn of higher education perpetuates its internal institutional dynamics. The close association between class and student academic performance should make us reflect on who is and who is not going to become an academic and what the consequences of that are. If disadvantaged students are unlikely to finish their degree or obtain high marks, they will not manage to enrol in a PhD program. Thus, who will ultimately become a professor? In the end, will the academic body be able to reflect and inspire a wide range of voices to find answers to questions and challenges society needs to address?听听

Inequality of opportunities, enabled by unequal power relations in society, is reinforcing the lack of diversity in academia, including in terms of class. That will hamper socio-economic and political participation, and ultimately socio-economic mobility at all levels, inside and outside academia. We are at a crossroads between the opportunity of transforming education into an open, nurturing and inspiring space, and the danger of failing as a society to do so. Academics have a responsibility to advocate towards the right direction.听

Lorena Lombardozzi is a Lecturer in Economics at The Open University in the UK. Photo by .