ARAB-ISRAELI POTENTIAL TRADE: THE ROLE OF INPUT SHARING

In this article we sought to develop a methodology for estimating the level and composition of potential trade between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The need for such a methodology derives from the fact that the existing trade of these countries with the rest of the world constitutes an insufficient basis for predicting bilateral trade patterns between them. Trade based on input sharing can be an important source of ''new trade'' that is, trade that is not necessarily related to goods and services currently traded by the countries in question. New trade based on input sharing pertains to the imports by Arab countries of inputs in which Israel has a proven comparative advantage, and to imports by Israel of inputs produced in Arab countries in which the latter have a proven comparative advantage. It stands to reason that branches characterized by comparative advantage in the exporting country can improve the competitive position of the import ing country, when incorporated in the latter's final products. The analysis confirms that in agricultural produce, food products, and certain sub-branches of the textiles and clothing industry, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt all appear to be potential suppliers to Israel. Inter alia, the results show that the Israeli import potential of inputs from Jordan appears to be both larger and more evenly distributed among the different branches than the import potential from Syria and even from Egypt. This finding does not accord with expectations in view of the fact that Jordan has a smaller population and a lower gross domestic product than either Egypt or Syria. Jordan stands out in that its construction industry, including ceramic products, nonmetallic minerals, and structural metals, are also potential suppliers. The methodology developed in this article specifically concerns potential trade between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It can be usefully employed in other situations where trade between pairs of countries is either nonexistent or severely distorted by political or other factors. Examples which come to mind include trade between countries which in the past belonged to the Soviet bloc, or trade between these countries and the rest of the world. In such cases it is improper to base one's trade predictions on the countries' existing trading patterns. New trade, which can be very substantial, and which may have a very different composition from current trade of the parties concerned, must be added to the equation. The methodology demonstrated in this article can be easily adapted for this purpose.     

Welfare effects on the United States of a significant multilateral tariff reduction

This paper summarizes an estimate of the impact of a 50 percent multilateral tariff reduction on U.S. trade, employment, capital utilization, and economic welfare. In addition to calculating conventional measures of consumer surplus and revenue effects, the paper quantifies the economic adjustment costs faced by labor and capital-owners who are displaced by trade liberalization. Account is taken of both direct and indirect effects through utilization of the 367- sector U.S. input-output table. Some of the more interesting and important welfare dislocation estimates are highlighted on an industry-by-industry basis. In the aggregate, the calculated gains from trade liberalization dwarf the measured adjustment costs by a ratio of almost 20 to 1.     

Trade facilitation and the extensive margin

The literature on trade facilitation has mostly focused on implications for trade volumes. However, recent theoretical contributions have emphasized that trade costs – such as transaction costs related to cross-border trade procedures – affect both the traded volumes of ‘old’ goods (the intensive margin) and the range of traded goods (the extensive margin). This article therefore tests whether trade facilitation affects the extensive margin by counting the number of 8-digit products that are exported from developing to EU countries, and using this as the dependent variable in an estimation. Moreover, it also tests whether the extensive margins in differentiated and homogeneous goods are affected in the same way by transaction costs. Estimation results suggest that if export transaction costs – proxied by the number of days needed to export a good – declined by 1%, the number of exported differentiated and homogeneous products would rise by 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively. Policy simulations further illustrate that if all countries were as efficient at the border as the most efficient country at the same level of development, the number of exported differentiated and homogeneous products would increase by 62% and 26%, respectively.     

Interacting factor endowments and trade costs: A multi-country,multi-good approach to trade theory

We provide a synthetic analysis of the different ways in which countries participate in the world economy. Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multiple goods or multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. Each country's production specialization, trade and welfare is determined by the interaction between its relative endowment and its trade costs. We consider the effects of allowing one good to ‘fragment’ into component and assembly production. The volume of trade and welfare levels are higher with fragmentation for most countries, although for many countries these variables fall with fragmentation.     

Do Economic Integration Agreements Actually Work? Issues in Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Growth of Regionalism

This paper argues that the ‘competitive liberalisation’ of national governments of the past several decades has created a ‘market’ for regional economic integration agreements (EIAs). Evidence shows that countries that have selected into EIAs – such as free trade agreements – have ‘chosen well’ in the sense that the same economic characteristics that explain and predict bilateral EIAs also explain and predict bilateral trade flows. We show that previous ex post empirical evaluations of the effects of EIAs on trade have tended to underestimate the effects due to ignoring the (endogenous) self‐selection bias of country pairs into EIAs. Accounting for this bias, we find that European economic integration had a much larger impact on trade over the period 1960–2000 than previously found, and other more recent EIAs have had economically and statistically significant effects on members’ trade. The results shed further light on understanding the causes and consequences of the growth of regionalism.     

Intra-industry trade and heterogeneity in pollution emission

This paper develops a model of intermediate goods firms heterogeneity with respect to a pollution parameter to analyze the effects of intra-industry trade on final good output, pollution and welfare. By focusing on intra-industry trade we consider trade between similar countries. We analyze both trade between developed countries, and trade between developing countries. In our model, final good producers pay an environmental tax on the total pollution emitted in their country. Therefore, final good producers determine the overall level of pollution by demanding ‘cleaner’ or ‘dirtier’ intermediate goods. To focus on intra-industry trade we consider only intermediate goods firms trade. We analyze three scenarios: closed economy; open economy with no impediments to trade; and open economy with transportation cost. Our main findings are: i. a developing country closed to trade faces lower final good output and higher total pollution and is thus worse off than a developed country; ii. countries are better off under trade than under autarky, regardless of their development level; and iii. an open economy with low transportation costs are better off than an open economy with no impediments to trade.     

Interacting factor endowments and trade costs: A multi-country, multi-good approach to trade theory

We provide a synthetic analysis of the different ways in which countries participate in the world economy. Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multiple goods or multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. Each country's production specialization, trade and welfare is determined by the interaction between its relative endowment and its trade costs. We consider the effects of allowing one good to ‘fragment’ into component and assembly production. The volume of trade and welfare levels are higher with fragmentation for most countries, although for many countries these variables fall with fragmentation.     

China and the Trans‐Pacific Partnership: A Numerical Simulation Assessment of the Effects Involved

The Trans‐Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a new negotiation on cross‐border liberalisation of goods and service flows going beyond WTO disciplines and focused on issues such as regulation and border controls. This paper uses numerical simulation methods to assess the potential effects of a TPP agreement on China and also China's inclusion or exclusion on other countries. We use a numerical 11‐country global general equilibrium model with trade costs and inside money. Trade costs are calculated using a method based on gravity equations. TPP barriers potentially removable are trade costs less tariffs. Simulation results reveal that China will be slightly hurt by TPP initiatives in welfare when China is out, but the total production and export will be increased. Other non‐TPP countries will be mostly hurt in welfare, but member countries will mostly gain. If China takes part in TPP, she will significantly gain and increase other TPP countries' gain as well. The comparison of TPP effects and global free trade effects show that the positive effects of global free trade are stronger than TPP effects. Japan's joining TPP would be beneficial to both herself and most of other TPP countries, but which negative effects on China's welfare when out of TPP will increase further.     

Technology,Trade Costs and Export Sophistication

This paper uses a disaggregated version of the Eaton and Kortum (Econometrica, 70, 2002, 1741) model to analyse the relative importance of technology and trade costs for export sophistication and welfare in a general equilibrium framework. It uses a structural estimation method to identify key parameters of the model that fit the observed trade pattern. The calibrated parameters vary across commodities consistent with their expected level of sophistication. The results are robust to alternative specifications of the calibration. Using fitted data, it also show that export sophistication is highly correlated with GDPper capita. Overall, the parameters are comparable with estimates from other studies. Finally, counterfactual experiments are conducted to quantify the effects of changes in technology and trade costs for the countries in the bottom quintile. The findings imply that these countries have a huge technological disadvantage, particularly in more sophisticated commodities.     

Productivity, terms of trade and the ‘home market effect’

This paper analyzes the international transmission and welfare implications of productivity gains and changes in market size when macroeconomic adjustment occurs both along the intensive margin of trade (changes in the relative price of existing varieties of tradable goods) and the extensive margin (creation and destruction of varieties). We draw a distinction between productivity gains that enhance manufacturing efficiency and gains that lower the cost of firms' entry and of product differentiation. Countries with lower manufacturing costs have higher GDP but supply their products at lower international prices. Instead, countries with lower entry costs supply a larger array of goods at improved terms of trade. Output growth driven by demographic expansions, as well as government spending, is associated with an improvement in international relative prices and firms' entry. While trade liberalization may result in a smaller array of goods available to consumers, efficiency gains from deeper economic integration benefit consumers via lower goods prices. The international transmission mechanism and the welfare spillovers vary under different asset market structures, depending on trade costs, the elasticity of labor supply, and consumers' taste for varieties.     

Bilateral trade wars

The paper constructs a three-country, two-good general equilibrium model to analyze the welfare effects of bilateral trade wars. The presence of a third country (or a number of countries) pursuing free trade policies alters several results based on a two-country framework: Regardless of whether tariffs or quotas are used, bilateral trade wars need not eliminate trade between the two retaliating countries; even a “small” retaliating country can win a bilateral trade war; and quotas can be welfare-superior to tariffs under bilateral retaliation.     

Competition for firms in an oligopolistic industry: The impact of economic integration

We set up a model of generalised oligopoly where two countries of different size compete for an exogenous, but variable, number of identical firms. The model combines a desire by national governments to attract internationally mobile firms with the existence of location rents that arise even in a symmetric equilibrium where firms are dispersed. As economic integration proceeds, equilibrium taxes initially decline, but then rise again as trade costs fall even further. A range of trade costs is identified where economic integration raises the welfare of the small country, but lowers welfare in the large country.     

Putting Canada in the penalty box: Trade and welfare effects of eliminating North American Free Trade Agreement

Three years ago, very few economists would have imagined that one of the newest and fastest growing research areas in international trade is the use of quantitative trade models to estimate the economic welfare losses from dissolutions of major countries' economic integration agreements (EIAs). In 2016, "Brexit" was passed in a UK referendum. Moreover, in 2019, the existence of the entire North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is at risk if the US withdraws—a threat President Trump has made if the proposed US–Mexico–Canada Agreement is not passed by the US Congress. We use state‐of‐the‐art econometric methodology to estimate the partial (average treatment) effects on international trade flows of the six major types of EIAs. Armed with precise estimates of the average treatment effect for a free trade agreement, we examine the general equilibrium trade and welfare effects of the elimination of NAFTA (and for robustness US withdrawal only). Although all the member countries' standards of living fall, surprisingly the smallest economy, Mexico, is not the biggest loser; Canada is the biggest loser. Canada's welfare (per capita income) loss of 2.11% is nearly two times that of Mexico's loss of 1.15% and is nearly eight times the US' loss of 0.27%. The simulations will illustrate the important influence of trade costs—international and intranational—in contributing to the gains (or losses) from an EIA's formation (or elimination).     

The effects of refugee and non-refugee immigrants on US trade with their home countries

Employing data on US immigrants and trade with 59 home countries for the years 1996–2001, we compare the extent to which refugee and non-refugee immigrants affect US trade with their home countries and provide the first evidence of variation in the US immigrant–trade relationship across immigrant types. We also consider the abilities of refugee and non-refugee immigrants to offset the trade-inhibiting influence of cultural distance. Our results show that while immigrants, in general, exert positive influences on US imports from – and exports to – their home countries, the influence of refugee immigrants is quite minimal when compared with that of non-refugee immigrants. For both immigrant types, however, evidence supporting the notion that immigrants act to offset cultural distance is observed. To conceptualize the economic meaning of our results, we provide estimates of the extent to which each type of immigrants offset transport costs.     

International Enterprises and Trade Unions

A “shipping war” has broken out between two friendly neighbouring countries: Estonia (a rather poor land; liberated of Soviet occupation in 1991), and Finland (a wealthy one; independent since 1918). Led by their trade union the Finnish dockers boycott Estonian ships demanding for Estonian sailors the salary in the same range as that is in wealthy West-European countries. Estonian Sailors' Union finds that such a war is not for their better work-conditions but against their working possibilities: the cheap labour force is the only possibility for a poor country to entice foreign investments in it. No matter how the “shipping war” will be solved – the problem will remain. This is the problem of two opposites – cheap labour force of poor countries and expensive one of wealthy countries –, and international enterprises standing between them. Could such an enterprise survive without using the cheap labour force? And if it could, how could the poor countries survive then? Could there be found a clear unambiguous ethical solution? What ought to be the role of trade unions in such international business conflicts?     

国际贸易与FDI:基于提高国民福利水平的比较

国际贸易与对外直接投资是参与国际经济交流与合作的方式,二者都会影响参与国社会福利水平的改变。通过构建两个相同市场容量的完全垄断市场下的古诺模型,对国际贸易与FD I提高国民的社会福利水平的效率问题进行比较,认为国际贸易较FD I对提高国民社会福利水平更有效。     

General equilibrium trade modelling with Canada–US transportation costs

Transportation costs are an important topic in international trade, but seldom have researchers paid attention to general equilibrium trade modelling with transportation costs and explored their relevant effects. This paper uses numerical general equilibrium trade model structures to simulate the impacts of transportation costs on welfare and trade for a Canada–US country pair case. We compare two groups of model structures: Armington assumption models and homogeneous goods models. Within these two groups of models, we also compare balanced trade structures to trade imbalance structures and production function transportation costs to iceberg transportation costs. Armington goods models generate more absolute welfare gains from transportation cost elimination than homogeneous goods models. Welfare gains under balanced trade structures are larger in production function transportation cost scenarios than in iceberg transportation cost scenarios, but under trade imbalance structures, welfare gains are greater under iceberg transportation cost scenarios. Canada's welfare gains in the iceberg transportation cost scenario are significantly larger than gains in the production function transportation cost scenario. On trade effects, homogeneous goods models generate more export and import gains, balanced trade structures have more trade variations, and iceberg transportation costs generate more trade effects.     

Regional economic integration and multinational firm strategies

This paper analyzes the effects of regional economic integrations on investment patterns among multinational firms. We develop a model in which heterogeneous firms decide on the optimal foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies for serving trade-integrated regions consisting of asymmetric countries: developed and developing nations. Following reduced trade costs within the trade-integrated region, our model shows that integrating into a regional economic zone affects firms with relatively low productivity levels to enter developing nation within the region via complex FDI – a firm activity of engaging in multiple types of FDI. Specifically, we show that depending on the size of the region respective to the home country, complex FDI involves different investment patterns. Using Korean firm- and plant-level data, we specify a binary choice model to link firms’ choice of FDI strategies with their productivity levels and trade-integrated regions. Our empirical results are consistent with the theoretical implications.     

INDUSTRY COMPETITIVENESS—THE ROLE OF REGIONAL DISTANCE-SENSITIVE INPUT SHARING (THE ISRAELI-ARAB CASE)

This study offers a method to estimate how the availability of distance-sensitive inputs affects industrial performance of neighboring countries. It shows that replacing either distant foreign input suppliers or inefficient local ones with neighboring suppliers could enhance the competitiveness of specific industries within a country. Whereas the suggested method could be generalized for any type of regional trade liberalization, we focus on the case of removing trade barriers between former non-trading neighboring countries. More specifically, the case of regional distance-sensitive input sharing between Israel and three of its Arab neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, and Syria) is demonstrated.     

Implementing the Uruguay Round Agreements: Problems for Developing Countries

Unilateral removal of trade restrictions is good economics, but it is often bad domestic politics. GATT negotiations for 50 years provided a mechanism to overcome this political incorrectness. The Uruguay Round carried multilateral negotiations into many ‘new areas’ with more complex economics – areas of regulation that establish the basic business environment in the domestic economy, e.g., technical, sanitary and phytosanitary standards; intellectual property law. Doing these things is costly and you can get it wrong – the economic correctness is not so simple as the economic correctness of removing trade restrictions. Making economic sense in these areas requires cost‐benefit analysis, experimentation, projects tailored to specific problems. Some developing countries would benefit from reforms in the new areas, but the Uruguay Round requirements do not identify the problems that exist in developing countries and they consequently demand establishment of institutions and regulations that will impose higher costs than benefits on the countries that implement them. Implementation issues are development issues, not trade issues. The procedures of the World Bank are suited to taking on such matters, those of the WTO are not.