This introduction grounds the middle-income (MI) trap by looking at the empirical realities of firms, sectors, national, and subnational institutions embedded in global value chains (GVCs). While MI-trap scholarship has shed light on macro-structural constraints, it often overlooks international production structures and micro-level agency. GVC research, in turn, captures firm strategies and governance structures but tends to underplay the role of domestic institutions and political coalitions. This Special Issue brings these two traditions into dialogue in order to examine how upgrading is (partially) attained—or how it fails—in MI countries.

The articles in the Issue focus on six countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Malaysia, and Mexico—to analyze how public and private actors pursue upgrading strategies under MI-trap conditions. We develop a typology of Actors’ Upgrading Strategies along two dimensions: loci of agency (state vs. firm/chain) and modes of action (transformative vs. adaptive). This yields four conceptual categories: Transformative Policy Entrepreneurs, Adaptive Policy Implementers, Transformative Firm Upgraders, and Incremental Firm Repositioners. Collectively, the contributions offer a more textured and politically attuned understanding of upgrading under the MI trap in a world of GVCs, and bring us closer to understanding what it means to be caught in—or to find pathways out of—the trap.

Whether China can avoid the middle-income trap has been the subject of extensive research. Currently classified as an upper middle-income country, China increasingly exhibits similar characteristics as countries currently experiencing the middle-income trap. However, using evidence from China’s coastal manufacturing city of Dongguan, this article shows how China’s approach to global value chain (GVC) participation created conditions for avoiding the middle-income trap: 1) agglomeration and manufacturing scale at multiple stages of production, 2) a mix of foreign and domestic enterprises, 3) participation in GVCs for multiple industries, 4) development of domestic demand, and 5) continuously reconfiguring government industrial policies. With these characteristics, China’s economy is likely to continue to grow, suggesting that GVC participation can facilitate a path around the middle-income trap.

In proposing industrial policies to promote development-enhancing upgrading, both the Middle-Income Trap (MIT) and Global Value Chain (GVC) literatures imply a “technocratic” approach that matches a given technical challenge to the right policy instrument. This paper suggests that, apart from the technical demands of the problem at-hand, it is also necessary to observe how governments at the subnational level practice path-dependent “sticky” styles of industrial policy that consistently favor some policy tools and approaches over others. Drawing upon four industry cases in the Mexican states of Jalisco (electronics, and information and communication technologies) and Querétaro (automotive and aerospace), we identify two distinct local industrial policy styles, as the former state deployed a Business-guided style while the latter relied upon a State-guided alternative. These styles, in turn, were each biased towards some forms of upgrading over others, leading to two main conclusions: first, that local policy styles must be taken into account to understand how deviations from technocratic policy selection appear. And second, that these styles can generate long-term impacts on the kinds of industrial upgrading observed.

Bridging together the Middle-Income Trap (MIT) literature with the Global Value Chains (GVCs) approach may provide a more fine-grained understanding of the middle-income (MI) countries’ developmental dilemmas. While the former identifies the structural challenges these countries face, the latter provides analytical tools to explore how MI firms may overcome the hurdles posed by the global organization of production and trade as they strive to enter more technology- and knowledge-intensive segments of the GVCs. This paper undertakes this approach through four case studies of relevant Argentine firms pursuing upgrading in a natural resources-intensive and a classical manufacturing sector: agrobiotechnology and auto parts. Through a structured comparison, we inductively characterize three distinctive trajectories of upgrading, which we call subordinate, defiant, and path-breaking. They differ in the type of upgrading they entail, the technological and productive capacities required and the level of autonomy they grant to MI firms within the GVC. Furthermore, we identify two varying sets of factors—the organization of the GVC and the level of external support by domestic institutions—that make each trajectory more or less likely. The paper concludes by discussing the aggregate implications of each trajectory for countries seeking to break out of the MIT.

In an era of fragmented global production and domestic decentralization, middle-income countries confront the complex challenge of industrial upgrading. While national governments remain central to industrial policy design and funding, upgrading unfolds through multi-level interactions between state and business actors across international, national, and subnational spheres. This raises a critical question: How do local political-economic coalitions between firms and governments shape the implementation of national industrial policies and leverage them for upgrading?

This paper moves beyond the predominantly national-level analysis of industrial policy, which often treats implementation as straightforward. Instead, it presents a novel theoretical framework that emphasizes how the interplay of executive leadership, business cohesion, and bureaucratic quality fundamentally shapes industrial upgrading outcomes in today’s globalized, decentralized economy. The framework is tested and refined through a longitudinal comparative study of a key technology sector industrial policy (Prosoft) in two Mexican states - Nuevo León and Puebla - from 2000 to 2015. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and secondary sources, the analysis demonstrates how distinct regional state-business configurations critically influence both policy implementation and upgrading trajectories.

Local content policies (LCPs) are key instruments of industrial policy used by middle-income countries (MICs) to capture segments of global value chains (GVCs). While, in principle, LCPs are very similar, in practice, they are highly diverse. What to prioritize, how to measure it, while promoting firms’ upgrade are decisions that create room for national varieties. Considering this background, we compare LCPs for the oil and gas sector in Brazil and Malaysia. Both countries have adopted different forms of LCP over time. While Brazil has adopted an inward-looking version of LCP focusing on import-substitution, job creation, and domestic production, Malaysia implemented a more outward-looking version, focusing on coownership by nationals and strategic supplier development with less emphasis on domestic production. We argue that two very diverse developmental policy paradigms embedded in each country explain these different trajectories. In Brazil, a productivist version of developmentalism focused on domestic output underplayed the importance of integrating in GVCs. In contrast, an ethnic-based version of developmentalism in Malaysia was more flexible and allowed a better integration of domestic companies in GVCs. Our analysis sheds light on the importance of the interaction between ideas, interests, and institutions, focusing on how LCPs can build internationally competitive companies.

Since the 1980s, state capacity has been a major explanation for countries leaving the middle-income trap. However, this literature is unable to explain the failed experiences of countries with relatively high state capacity. This was the case of Chile after the unsuccessful enaction of a series of policies in the mid-2010s to upgrade the country’s position in the lithium value chain. To understand this failure, we combine the literature on developmental states and the literature on business power. We use the concept of institutional business power to understand how business actions erode state capacities leading to countries’ persistent inability to leave the middle-income trap. In the case of Chile, despite the relatively high levels of state capacity, previous processes of deregulation and privatization in the country configured a situation favorable to business’ monopolization of information and technical knowledge about lithium production and innovation processes that directly affected the capacity of the state to regulate the sector, let alone implement policies designed to upgrade the industry. The article highlights the need to investigate further the role of not just the state, but of the private sector in either facilitating or blocking value chain upgrading in countries caught in the middle-income trap.