Some Stylized Facts about International Trade Flows

Since the mid‐1990s there has been a proliferation of empirical models in the trade literature. Focus has ranged from the effect of particular explanatory variables to improved econometric techniques. However, there appears to be a lack of analyses on large international trade datasets aiming at describing the “stylized facts” of observed bilateral trade flows. Uncovering them is crucial as any empirical econometric model should reflect the basic properties of the data generating process. On the basis of a large panel dataset this paper finds that bilateral trade, despite being often unbalanced, tends to be reciprocal and persistent, and that the extensive margin of trade must not be disregarded. Moreover, bilateral trade flows are probably best modeled as a mixed panel of stationary and non‐stationary processes. The stationary vs non‐stationary separation of these flows, although not random, does not appear to be related to any common characteristics of the trading partners.     

On the Evolution of Pareto‐Optimal Behavior in Repeated Coordination Problems

I characterize the asymptotic behavior of a society facing a repeated‐common‐interest game. In this society, new individuals enter to replace their “parents” at random times. Each entrant has possibly different beliefs about others' behavior than his or her predecessor. A self‐confirming equilibrium (SCE) belief process describes an evolution of beliefs in this society consistent with a self‐confirming equilibrium of the repeated game. The main result shows that for any common‐interest game, the Pareto‐dominant equilibrium is a globally absorbing state of the behavioral dynamics when the SCE beliefs of new entrants satisfy certain independence and full‐support properties. This result does not involve either of the usual assumptions of myopia or large inertia common in evolutionary models, nor is this result possible if only Nash rather than self‐confirming equilibria are considered.     

Attitudes about EU expansion and zero‐sum thinking

EU expansion can be seen as a positive‐sum process benefiting all countries by creating larger markets that stimulate more productive economies through increased specialization and economies of scale, implying that the general public in all countries should favour expansion. Contrarily, expansion can be perceived as zero‐sum. Capital and production relocate from higher to lower wage regions while labour does the opposite, possibly raising unemployment and reducing wages in the higher wage regions. The general public in these countries may come to oppose EU expansion attributing any deterioration in their work situation to the gains of new citizens of the European Union. Analysis of changes in Irish attitudes towards EU expansion in 2002, 2007 and 2009 finds no evidence of a link from lowered economic conditions to increased opposition to EU expansion. The only evidence for zero‐sum thinking is that diminished economic circumstances are associated with increased opposition to immigration, but this is not associated with increased opposition to further EU expansion.     

从领导到追随:领导力的一个整合研究框架

没有追随就没有领导已成为一种共识,追随者和追随行为与领导者和领导行为对于理解领导力同等重要。回顾了从领导者为中心到追随者为中心,再到过程为中心的领导力研究文献,基于领导过程模型整合了领导者为中心和追随者为中心两个流派,从近端和远端两个视角概括了领导者特征和追随者特征对领导行为、追随行为及领导力结果的影响,并对领导力构建过程以及"预测变量—近端影响—远端影响"路径中存在的调节机制进行了梳理,在此基础上构建了一个领导力研究整合框架,以明确领导力的未来研究方向。     

A theory of return‐seeking firms

We introduce a theory of return‐seeking firms to study the differences between this and profit‐maximising models. A return‐seeking objective takes into account the opportunity cost of each additional resource input to a firm's production as being a potential capital input choice in an alternative project. We find that firm supply curves cease to exist in perfectly competitive markets, that supply curves may slope up as well as down, that economies of scale are necessary for any production to occur and that firms always produce on a decreasing portion of their cost curve.     

Using paradata to collect better survey data: Evidence from a household survey in Tanzania

Data are a key component in the design, implementation, and evaluation of economic and social policies. Monitoring data quality is an essential part of any serious, large‐scale data collection process. The purpose of this article is to show how paradata should be used before, during, and after data collection to monitor and improve data quality. To do this we use timestamps, global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, and other paradata collected from an 800‐household survey conducted in Tanzania in 2016. We demonstrate how key paradata can be used during each phase of a research project to identify and prevent issues in the data and the methods used to collect it. Our results corroborate the importance of collecting and analyzing paradata to monitor fieldwork and ensuring data quality for micro data collection in developing countries. Based on these findings we also make recommendations as to how researchers can make better use of paradata in the future to manage and improve data quality. We argue for an expansion in the understanding and use of varied paradata among researchers, and a greater focus on its use for improving data quality.     

Contests, NGOs, and Decentralizing Aid

International donors usually have particular goals they want to achieve with their foreign aid, e.g., poverty alleviation. In the international aid story lobbying by potential recipient groups attempting to capture the donor's support plays a potentially important role for non‐governmental organizations. We model this situation as a hierarchical contest and compare the implications of a centralized allocation process with a decentralized allocation process with non‐governmental organizations as intermediaries.     

Centrelink Payments Data

At any point in time, Centrelink is administering the welfare payments of over 5 million Australians. A large amount of data is created in the process. Since early 2013, researchers have been able to request access. These longitudinal data, covering all income support payment recipients back to at least mid‐1998, are a rich resource for policy‐relevant research. This article overviews the data, noting some of their advantages and limitations. It also highlights ways in which the research potential of the data could be enhanced.     

R&D intensity of investment across Europe before and after the crisis

In this paper we investigate the comovements between the R&D intensity of private investment and GDP growth in different European Union (EU) areas over the period 1999–2014. Our empirical analysis shows that only core countries display a common countercyclical mechanism leading to an increased intensity of R&D over prolonged downturns. The lack of an effective countercyclical pattern of R&D intensity over the evolution of GDP growth in periphery countries makes this area highly vulnerable to persistent recessions, with potentially harmful consequences for long‐term growth. For recent EU members the evidence of acyclicality should be evaluated in the light of the catching‐up process still at work in this area. Our analysis suggests that any successful EU innovation policy should not disregard the potential divergence in R&D performance due to the dispersion of the countercyclical properties of the investment intensity in productivity enhancing activities in the different EU areas.     

Estimating the effects of non‐discriminatory trade policies within structural gravity models

We propose a simple method to identify the effects of unilateral and non‐discriminatory trade policies on bilateral trade within a theoretically consistent empirical gravity model. Specifically, we argue that structural gravity estimations should be performed with data that include not only international trade flows but also intra‐national trade flows. The use of intra‐national sales allows identification of the effects of non‐discriminatory trade policies such as most favoured nation tariffs, even in the presence of exporter and importer fixed effects. A byproduct of our approach is that it can be used to recover estimates of the trade elasticity, a key parameter for quantitative trade models. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our techniques in the case of most favoured nation tariffs and “time to export” as representative non‐discriminatory determinants of trade on the importer and on the exporter side, respectively. Our methods can be extended to quantify the impact on trade of any country‐specific characteristics as well as any non‐trade policies.     

Policy for Poverty Alleviation and Income Redistribution with Quasi-Public Goods

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for a poverty‐alleviation program with quasi‐public goods and presents four main effects. First, this policy succeeds in self‐selection, which identifies low‐productive persons under imperfect information and allows them to receive at least the minimum income. Second, we can observe income redistribution by this scheme without any taxes. Third, the program contributes cost‐effectiveness in many cases. Finally, it makes clear that this policy is suitable, especially in areas where low‐income people are concentrated.     

中美国家科技决策体系:国家、部委和项目层面的比较研究

中美两国拥有迥然不同的国家科技决策体系,其差异具体体现在国家、部委和项目3个决策层面。基于宏观视角比较研究了中美国家科技计划决策体系,从两国科技计划决策体系总体特征、决策层面、决策过程、决策环境入手,剖析中美国家科技计划决策过程背后的逻辑。结果发现,美国科技决策体系为典型的"自下而上"式决策结构,上层决策主体多元而分散,存在政治分肥;下层执行主体清晰,决策独立集中。中国则为"自上而下"式决策结构,上层主体明确,战略决策集中有效;下层执行主体分散,缺乏专业化管理。研究结论为决策者和研究者提供了一个比较清晰的框架,加深了对中美科技决策的理解,有助于促进中美科技对话与交流。     

The Rise and Fall of Centralized Wage Bargaining

During the three decades spanning the early 1950s to the early 1980s, the wage‐setting process in most Northern European countries was dominated by centralized bargaining (i.e., peak‐level labor and employer associations set wages nationwide). In the early 1980s, centralized wage bargaining began to collapse. In this paper, we assess a novel explanation for both the initial establishment of a centralized wage‐setting process, and its subsequent collapse. According to our theory, centralized wage bargaining was set up as a response to the spillovers created by the unemployment benefit program. Its collapse was the result of the increase in the productivity gap across workers, brought about by equipment‐specific technological progress and equipment–skill complementarity.     

The ‘Market’ for contingent protection

Anti‐dumping and countervailing duty law and policy has, for several decades, been one of the most contentious issues affecting trading relations between members of the World Trade Organization. A major concern among researchers and policy‐makers is that the decision‐making process of regulatory authorities responsible for the administration of anti‐dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) laws is biased in favour of providing protectionist outcomes for national applicant firms and industries. In this paper a new, broader approach for testing empirically AD/CVD outcome decisions is advocated that analyses the provision of contingent protection as the outcome of a quasi‐market process involving supply and demand behaviour played out in a quasi‐market context susceptible to market failure. This approach provides, arguably, a fairer test of AD/CVD outcomes. Using data from Australia, historically a heavy user of AD/CVD laws and policy, the paper finds support for the hypothesis that regulatory process bias including administrative and statutory biases, are important explanators of AD/CVD outcomes. Moreover the findings of this paper suggest that failure to include variables capturing these effects in other studies that have modelled empirically AD/CVD outcomes may have led to missing variable bias and false conclusions.     

Shaken or Stirred? Financial Deregulation and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Norway

Is there a credit channel for monetary policy? Has the deregulation of financial markets had any temporary or permanent effects on the monetary transmission mechanism? We present empirical evidence on these issues for Norway by estimating a dynamic system of money, credit, real income and inflation. We find that the deregulation process has not caused any permanent shifts in the long‐run demand functions. Within a small simultaneous dynamic model, there is some evidence for the credit view of the monetary transmission mechanism, as both credit and money exhibit strong and stable effects on aggregate demand. JEL classification: E50; E44; C51     

核心资源、协同创新与科技型小微企业成长

核心资源是企业成长的基础要素,创新是科技型小微企业的基本特征,对突破资源约束,实现成长起着关键作用,但是鲜有研究者从企业成长过程的视角对核心资源、创新与企业成长的作用机制进行探索。构建了核心资源、协同创新与企业成长关系模型,以浙江300家科技型小微企业为样本,采用结构方程进行实证分析。研究结果表明：核心资源对企业成长具有显著正向影响;核心资源与协同创新显著正相关;协同创新对成长具有显著正向影响;协同创新在这个关系中发挥着完全中介作用,核心资源通过技术、市场、管理协同创新这一“中央处理器”的动态作用推动企业成长。该研究实证支持与拓展了企业成长过程机理,可为科技型小微企业成长提供理论指导与实践借鉴。     

Switching between Expectation Processes in the Foreign Exchange Market: a Probabilistic Approach using Survey Data*

This paper relaxes a fundamental hypothesis commonly accepted in the expectation formation literature: expectations are, unchangingly, either rational or generated by one of the three simple extrapolative, regressive, or adaptive processes. Using expectations survey data provided by Consensus Forecasts on six European exchange rates against the US dollar, we find that the rational expectations hypothesis is rejected at the aggregate level. By implementing a switching‐regression methodology with stochastic choice of regime, we show that the expectation generating process is given at any time by some combination of the three simple processes. An interpretation of this framework in terms of economically rational expectations is suggested.     

General budget support as an aid instrument—impact on economic growth

Since the change of the new millennium, general budget support (GBS) has become a prominent, yet controversial and heavily debated, modality for delivering aid. We study GBS as an aid instrument from a cross‐country perspective. We examine if any growth impacts can be identified as a result of the use of GBS. We use data covering nine 4‐year intervals from 1976 to 2011. We modify two supply‐side IV strategies from previous aid–growth literature. In our main approach, we employ an interaction of an exogenous supply‐side variable (donor government fractionalization) and an endogenous variable (probability of receiving GBS) as an instrument for GBS, and in the alternative approach we construct an instrument following a supply‐side approach. Our results suggest that GBS receiving countries have grown faster than countries receiving other types of aid. Selection bias does not explain this result. The growth effect is not only attributed to lagged GBS but also to contemporaneous GBS flows.     

Intra‐industry Trade Liberalization and the Environment

This paper examines how trade liberalization affects national and global pollution in a multi‐country model incorporating monopolistic competition and intra‐industry trade as well as inter‐industry trade. Each country produces skill‐intensive differentiated goods and labor‐intensive goods. Pollution is a by‐product of production but pollution abatement can be undertaken. Regardless of country characteristics, if the differentiated‐good sector is sufficiently cleaner (dirtier) then, without any change in environmental taxes, a multilateral reduction in import protection accorded to the differentiated good or to both goods typically leads to a decline (rise) in pollution in all countries. Pollution havens tend not to arise.     

The returns to exporting: evidence from UK firms

Abstract The question of learning versus self‐selection has dominated the micro‐econometric literature on firm export decisions without leading to any firm conclusions. In part this reflects the limited information content of the data typically used. In this paper we use survey data on UK firms to offer some new insights into this debate. We find that the majority of firms report benefits to exporting across a wide range of performance measures, including size, profitability, and the introduction of new products. These effects do not decline as the number of years of exporting rises if the export intensity of the firm rises.