This has happened with integration through global value chains: the share of export value added generated outside the exporting country has ceased to grow worldwide since the onset of the crisis in 2008 (Figure 3).
19 The same applies to e-commerce, which in recent years appears to have had less of an effect on prices than before: in the United States the Amazon effect is estimated to have reduced personal consumption expenditure inflation by 0.1 per cent, which is less than the Walmart effect did at the beginning of the millennium.20 The profit margins of traditional retailers cannot keep falling forever: once equilibrium is reached, any cost increases are bound to be transmitted to the prices of final goods.