Global Value Chains, Natural Resources and Technology: a Focus on Lithium

According to the development of the electric power market, in which the use of cell phones, laptops and electric cars, among others, is based on lithium batteries. The objective of this doctoral thesis is to examine the evolution of technological generation and some international trade topics in the global value chain of lithium batteries, to provide new contributions to existing literature, using a quantitative approach of patent applications and various statistical methods. The results establish that the value chain of lithium batteries is not really global with respect to its technological generation, that the regimes and the position of technological innovation of the leading countries are related to the geostrategy, and that the international commercial and technological indicators must be more precise than existing ones, in the era of global value chains