Endogenous tradability and some macroeconomic implications

While nontraded goods play an important role in many open economy macroeconomic models, these models have difficulty explaining the low volatility in the relative price of nontraded goods. In contrast to macroeconomic convention, this paper argues that the share of nontraded goods is endogenous, a time-varying product of macroeconomic shocks and trade costs that are heterogeneous across goods. A simple open economy model demonstrates that trade cost heterogeneity and a time-varying margin of tradedness dramatically reduces the volatility of nontraded prices. This also reduces the ability of real exchange rate adjustments to dampen current account imbalances.     

贸易成本与中国制造

制造业是立国之本、强国之基,是大国经济的压舱石,更高水平、更有竞争力的制造业是高质量发展的基础。改革开放后中国制造业发展既受益于推动对外开放和融入全球贸易体系,也深刻影响了世界分工格局和外国福利水平。本文结合长期收入效应、投资结构变迁、国际贸易失衡等中国经济特征建立了一个两国多部门结构转型模型,从理论和定量上研究了贸易成本对中国制造业发展和外国福利提升的影响。本文发现:1995-2010年中国出口贸易成本持续下降,既增强了中国制造产品的比较优势,使制造业产出增长了29%,分别提高了制造业就业比重和产出比重4.7个和5.1个百分点;也由此降低了全球消费品价格,对同期外国总体福利水平提升的贡献率接近15%。对中国制造产品加征关税提高中国出口贸易成本,会显著降低外国福利水平。本文结论表明,中国是经济全球化的受益者,更是贡献者。本文为全面提高对外开放水平构建新发展格局提供了现实依据,并为加快建设制造强国、推动高质量发展提供参考。     

Income shifting and U.S. international trade in goods statistics

Intrafirm trade represents greater than one-third of total U.S. international trade in goods. Since these are not arm’s-length transactions, trade policymakers have voiced concerns that income shifting may distort international trade in goods statistics through the manipulation of transfer prices. Using country-level data on intrafirm exports and imports, we estimate a path analysis that simultaneously tests how and to what extent tax-motivated transfer pricing and real investment decisions affect intrafirm trade in goods statistics. Contrary to speculation, we do not find an economically significant relation between transfer pricing and intrafirm trade in goods statistics. In contrast, we find that tax-motivated location decisions create a 21 (20) percent or $819.7 ($927.1) million difference in mean intrafirm exports (imports) between the U.S. and a low- and high-tax country. This study provides trade policymakers with relevant information about the extent to which real investment decisions and accounting manipulations affect intrafirm trade in goods statistics and contributes to the international trade and income shifting literatures.     

Pricing to market with trade liberalization: The role of market heterogeneity and product differentiation in India’s exports

This paper studies the links between pricing to market (PTM) and trade liberalization using data for India’s exports (at the 4-digit level of classification) during the economic reforms period (1992–2005). We estimate a PTM model for exports to the G3 and three other emerging markets (Brazil, China and South Africa), distinguishing homogeneous from differentiated goods and correcting for changes in the level of protection faced by India’s exporters (import tariffs in destination markets), inflation and openness in the export destination market, a macroeconomic policy index partly reflecting changes in exporter’s costs, the share of the exporter in the destination market and the share of the product in the exporter’s total exports. We find that market heterogeneity changes the level of PTM, but PTM does not significantly differ between homogeneous and differentiated products. Indian exporters practice PTM by absorbing exchange rate changes into their mark-up in G3 markets, where they face tougher competition, but fully pass-through exchange rate changes in emerging markets. On the contrary, Indian exporters seem to be taking advantage of trade liberalisation in destination markets by marginally increasing exporter currency prices into emerging markets but not into the G3. However, in the case of differentiated goods, we find this effect of trade liberalisation for both G3 and emerging markets.     

U.S. real exchange rate fluctuations and relative price fluctuations

Traditional theory attributes fluctuations in real exchange rates to changes in the relative price of nontraded goods. This paper studies the relation between the United States’ bilateral real exchange rate and the associated bilateral relative price of nontraded goods for five of its most important trade relationships. We find that this relation depends crucially on the choice of price series used to measure relative prices and on the choice of trade partner. The relation is stronger when we measure relative prices using producer prices rather than consumer prices. The relation is stronger the more important is the trade relationship between the United States and a trade partner. Even in cases where there is a strong relation between the real exchange rate and the relative price of nontraded goods, however, a large fraction of real exchange rate fluctuations is due to deviations from the law of one price for traded goods.     

欧盟东扩对我国制造业影响的实证分析

欧盟东扩后产生了贸易创造和贸易转移效应,其中贸易转移效应将影响我国对欧盟出口。东扩的国家人均GDP显著低于西欧,但也显著高于我国,所以与中国相比对欧盟出口可能拥有不同比较优势,对我国不同技术含量的制造业商品出口欧盟会产生不同程度的影响,本文首先分析了中东欧主要国家和我国制造业的双边贸易以及中国和中东欧国家出口欧盟的制造业商品结构,然后基于制造业相对显示性指数实证分析得出：欧盟东扩后,制造业商品出口结构恶化,特别是中低技能技术的制造业产品在东盟东扩后受到的贸易转移效应影响尤为明显,而对我国劳动和资源密集型产品影响不大,还有最近几年的贸易摩擦使得高技能技术产品的出口欧盟受阻,进一步恶化了我国对欧盟制造业商品出口结构。     

Structural Changes in China’s Import Market: A Comparison with Korea’s Exports to China

The article examines the structural changes of China’s import market for domestic demand and the corresponding structural changes of Korea’s exports to China for Chinese domestic demand. Using 8-digit HS code data covering the period 2006–2014 and analyzing the processing steps as well as by industry, this study reveals that while the share of ordinary trade in total China’s imports has increased rapidly, the share of processing trade has decreased continuously since the mid-2000s. The article also shows that Korea’s exports to China is still processing trade-oriented. The slowdown of Korea’s exports to China is because of the concentration on processing trade, intermediate goods, electronics and chemistry.     

Did the National Minimum Wage Affect UK Prices?*

One potential channel through which the effects of the minimum wage could be directed is that firms that employ minimum‐wage workers could have passed on any higher labour costs resulting from the minimum wage in the form of higher prices. This study looks at the effects of the minimum wage on the prices of UK goods and services by comparing prices of goods and services produced by industries in which UK minimum‐wage workers make up a substantial share of total costs with prices of goods and services that make less use of minimum‐wage labour. Using sectoral‐level price data matched to Labour Force Survey data on the share of minimum‐wage workers in each sector, it is hard to find much evidence of significant price changes in the months that correspond immediately to the uprating of the national minimum wage. However, over the longer term, prices in several minimum‐wage sectors – notably, take‐away food, canteen meals, hotel services and domestic services – do appear to have risen significantly faster than prices in non‐minimum‐wage sectors. These effects were particularly significant in the four years immediately after the introduction of the minimum wage.     

Efficient Tax Competition with Factor Mobility and Trade: A Note

This note shows that residence- and source-based taxes on capital income are not sufficient to sustain an efficient Nash equilibrium when several goods are internationally traded, apart from two special cases. With several traded commodities, domestic fiscal policies affect foreign welfare not only through changes in the world interest rate but also through changes in the equilibrium relative prices of traded commodities. In order to guarantee the existence of an efficient Nash equilibrium in the general case, additional tax instruments are required. In particular, destination-based taxes on traded commodities are needed to enable the government to control the relative commodity prices faced by domestic consumers. In addition, in order to shield domestic producers from changes in world prices, the government must levy either origin-based commodity taxes or taxes on the immobile factors.     

贸易摩擦、宏观经济波动与经济开放程度的选择

本文构建一个包含关税冲击以及外汇风险溢价的两国开放经济DSGE模型,创新地揭示了关税冲击造成实际汇率波动的“直接效应”与“间接效应”,刻画了关税变动、贸易条件与实际汇率之间的动态关系与作用机制。我们深入分析了不同经济开放程度下贸易摩擦造成的宏观经济波动以及经济福利损失。模拟结果表明,在一定贸易开放程度下,外国加收关税一方面会导致本国贸易条件恶化,引发出口及产出下降;另一方面会导致本国汇率贬值,引发出口及产出增长。关税冲击发生后短期中汇率贬值效应占优,本国产出会出现小幅上升,随后贸易条件恶化效应逐步显现,产出持续下降。福利分析结果表明,本国适度提升贸易开放度,虽然经济福利损失会小幅上升,但福利损失增加幅度小于外国,会在贸易摩擦竞争中形成相对优势;如果本国过度提高贸易开放度,则会导致本国福利损失大幅增加,并且大于外国福利损失增幅,会在贸易摩擦竞争中形成相对劣势。因此,应适度逐步有序地提升贸易开放度。此外,本国适度推进资本账户开放的政策能够改善贸易条件,促进本国经济增长。     

How demand scale affect services exports? Evidence from financial development perspective

China's service trade is increasingly capable of "going out," but there are still problems of uneven and insufficient economic development. This study uses bilateral services trade data from 2000 to 2018 to conduct empirical testing using the extended mutual gravity model and the threshold effect model. The results show that (i) an expansion in the size of the domestic market can significantly boost a country's service exports, and the magnitude of the impact is rising year by year. (ii) The development of the financial sector can strengthen the local market effect by increasing demand, thus promoting foreign exports. Financial development has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between demand size and the exports of service trade. (iii) Under the influence of the level of financial development, there is a "threshold effect" of domestic market demand size on service exports. This threshold effect varies among different types of services and different country categories. This study provides macro evidence that the scale of demand affects service exports and has important theoretical implications for the formulation of national service trade policies.     

An investigation of the effect of monetary factors on agriculture

This paper uses an econometric model to assess some of the effects of macro monetary factors on U.S. agricultural markets. Attention is focused on impacts of decreasing (increasing) the level of domestic credit on agricultural trade, prices, inventory accumulation, and domestic disappearance. Results show that tight monetary policy lowers prices and increase demand for domestic agriculture; however, the upward pressure on the exchange rate seriously deteriorates the position of U.S. exports in international markets.     

What Drives Consumption Booms?

Consumption booms have been common in both industrial and developingcountries, and several explanations have been offered for theiroccurrence. These include economywide wealth effects associatedwith favorable movements in the terms of trade or euphoric expectationstriggered by macroeconomic reforms, Ricardian effects associatedwith fiscal stabilization, lending booms following financialliberalization, and a variety of distortions in intertemporalrelative prices. Using a large cross-country sample of booms,this article assesses how widely applicable these explanationsare. The key finding is that wealth effects linked to favorablemovements in the terms of trade and anticipated improvementsin macroeconomic performance seem to have been more importantempirically than explanations relying primarily on fiscal phenomenaor distortions in intertemporal relative prices.     

贸易摩擦、宏观经济波动与经济开放程度的选择

本文构建一个包含关税冲击以及外汇风险溢价的两国开放经济DSGE模型,创新地揭示了关税冲击造成实际汇率波动的“直接效应”与“间接效应”,刻画了关税变动、贸易条件与实际汇率之间的动态关系与作用机制。我们深入分析了不同经济开放程度下贸易摩擦造成的宏观经济波动以及经济福利损失。模拟结果表明,在一定贸易开放程度下,外国加收关税一方面会导致本国贸易条件恶化,引发出口及产出下降;另一方面会导致本国汇率贬值,引发出口及产出增长。关税冲击发生后短期中汇率贬值效应占优,本国产出会出现小幅上升,随后贸易条件恶化效应逐步显现,产出持续下降。福利分析结果表明,本国适度提升贸易开放度,虽然经济福利损失会小幅上升,但福利损失增加幅度小于外国,会在贸易摩擦竞争中形成相对优势;如果本国过度提高贸易开放度,则会导致本国福利损失大幅增加,并且大于外国福利损失增幅,会在贸易摩擦竞争中形成相对劣势。因此,应适度逐步有序地提升贸易开放度。此外,本国适度推进资本账户开放的政策能够改善贸易条件,促进本国经济增长。     

Agriculture in the Uruguay Round: Interests of Developing Countries

Agriculture has been favored and protected in developed countrieswhile trade policies in developing countries frequently supportindustry at the expense of exportables and unprotected importablesin agriculture. This protection constrains expansion of temperateand subtropical agricultural exports from developing countries.Several studies have estimated the effects of liberalizationof trade restrictions on world prices, export earnings, andimport costs. While developing countries generally would benefitfrom having the agricultural policies of the most powerful countriesbound by international rules on trade, there are differencesamong the developing countries as to which products should beliberalized. Even if such conflicts did not exist, politicallyfeasible means to obtain such compliance are elusive. The potentiallymost feasible approaches for developing countries to obtainsome measure of liberalization in the Uruguay Round of tradenegotiations are discussed.     

双边出口全球价值链实际有效汇率弹性理论测度及解析

近年来,汇率与出口弱相关现象引起理论界和实务界的广泛关注。本文通过考虑全球价值链带来的供给侧联系和第三国汇率效应,使用双边出口全球价值链实际有效汇率弹性指标对双边层面的相对价格竞争力与出口关系作出新的测度和结构贡献度分解。研究发现,对相对价格竞争力与出口关系修正后测度的双边出口全球价值链实际有效汇率弹性值显著为负。出口对修正的汇率变动依旧富有弹性。“汇率对出口影响弱化”并没有传统实际有效汇率和双边汇率表现的那么严重,更没有出现“贬值抑制出口”等不符合理论预期的反常情况。双边出口全球价值链实际有效汇率弹性结构分解贡献度结果显示,伴随我国在全球价值链中参与度和地位的提升,中国对主要贸易伙伴出口中由相对价格变动引起中间产品结构变动对总弹性的贡献度不断提升。     

World food prices and monetary policy

How should monetary policy respond to large fluctuations in world food prices? We study this question in an open economy model in which imported food has a larger weight in domestic consumption than abroad and international risk sharing can be imperfect. A key novelty is that the real exchange rate and the terms of trade can move in opposite directions in response to world food price shocks. This exacerbates the policy trade-off between stabilizing output prices vis a vis the real exchange rate, to an extent that depends on risk sharing and the price elasticity of exports. We characterize implications for dynamics, optimal monetary policy, and the relative performance of practical monetary rules. While CPI targeting and expected CPI targeting can dominate PPI targeting if international risk sharing is perfect, even seemingly mild departures from the latter make PPI targeting a winner.     

中美贸易冲突的贸易后果 ——基于中美贸易细分产品数据的研究

基于双重差分模型,依据2014-2019年的中美贸易细分产品月度数据,考量中美贸易冲突对中美两国贸易的影响.结果显示:贸易冲突对中国从美国进口负向影响显著,且在样本期内具有平稳性与持续性;对中国对美出口负向效应显著,且在样本期内呈"倒U型"趋势.事件前期和中期,在"抢出口"效应作用下,贸易冲突对中国对美出口具有短期促进作用;事件后期,对中国对美出口的破坏影响显现.细分产品层面,贸易冲突对中国从美国资本品和消费品的进口负向影响显著,表明国家和个体层面都对贸易有所限制.出口方面,中国消费品出口所受的负向影响较强.同时,中美贸易冲突对于第三国贸易转移效应显著.     

Openness,relative prices,and macro-policies

This paper analyzes the role of relative prices in the conduct of wage indexation, monetary policy, and exchange rate policy in a small economy producing traded and nontraded goods under a managed float exchange rate regime. It is shown that the beneficial effect of using relative prices in addition to aggregate prices as indicators for the conduct of the above policies increases with openness. The response of policies to relative prices rises with openness, and has dampening effects on the volatility of deviations from purchasing power parity.     

How important is the financial sector to price indices in an inflation targeting regime? An empirical analysis of the UK and the US

This paper investigates whether there are benefits in terms of higher economic stability from incorporating stock prices into the price index targeted by the central banks. It also looks into the question of whether central banks should use stock prices as a component of the output stability index and how the index can be constructed. An optimization technique is employed to estimate weights for the various sectoral prices. The obtained weights, which depend on sectoral parameters, differ from those used in the construction of the consumer price index, CPI. Using data from the UK and the US, our analysis demonstrates that in comparison to the CPI, our measure of inflation leads to a higher output stability. Thus, in an inflation-targeting monetary policy environment, it is important to adopt a broader inflation benchmark than the CPI for the general macroeconomic stability.