Free trade agreements and market integration: Evidence from South Korea

We consider the effects of free trade agreements on market integration between South Korea and its solo and trade-bloc FTA partners. Free trade agreements should reduce tariffs and trade costs and lead to faster home-to-foreign price convergence. We investigate these ideas with a non-linear self-exciting threshold autoregressive (TAR) model, by introducing a threshold break at the effective FTA date. This strategy allows us to consider: (1) whether trade costs have declined after the free trade agreement; and (2) whether the speed of mean reversion in the home-foreign price differential is faster after the FTA. Our study includes nine of South Korea’s free trade agreements and covers twenty-eight partner countries. We find evidence that after free trade agreements, trade costs have been reduced for nine countries, providing evidence that greater market integration has been achieved on this score. However, evidence on whether the speed of home-to-foreign price convergence increases after free trade agreements is lacking.     

Dynamics and Politics in Regional Integration Arrangements: An Introduction

Overwhelming evidence links openness and economic growth. Inrecent years many developing countries have attempted to liberalizetheir trade and investment regimes, mostly through autonomousunilateral liberalization. At the same time, a growing numberof governments have begun to explore and participate in regionaltrading agreements. The agreements grant reciprocal trade preferencesto participating countries, resulting in discrimination againstnonmembers. The causes and consequences of regional integration have givenrise to an extensive and vigorous debate among both scholarsand policymakers. However, the quality of this debate has beenseriously hampered by the absence of clear analytical modelsand empirical evidence on many of the factors under discussion.Few of the recent arguments in favor of regional integrationarrangements have been satisfactorily formalized or tested.To address some of these issues, a World Bank research programfocuses on new and developing country aspects of regionalism.The program explores lacunae in the traditional static analysisof regional integration arrangements; addresses the dynamiceffects of integration, the economics of deep integration, andthe politics and political economy of regional integration arrangements;and compares regionalism with multilateralism. The articlesin this symposium address the topics of dynamics, politics,and political economy in regional integration agreements.     

Capital Account Openness,International Trade,and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Investigation

New empirical estimates of the effects of capital restrictions on growth support capital account liberalization, especially for developed countries. Capital restrictions reduce the benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI) on growth in developing countries. Estimation results for long-term capital flows demonstrate that countries with higher flows grow faster, challenging the belief that countries must attain a threshold level of development or human capital to benefit from capital inflows. Moreover, findings show that trade with developed countries and FDI inflows are substitutes in developing countries. Overall, the results support capital account liberalization in developed and developing countries.     

国际资本异常流动对经济增长的异质性影响——基于新兴经济体与发达经济体的比较

本文利用64个经济体1999-2017年季度数据,基于IV-GMM方法研究国际资本异常流动对经济增长的影响。总样本的回归结果表明,资本流动激增显著推动经济增长;资本流动中断和撤回抑制经济发展;资本流动外逃对经济增长没有显著影响。此外,国际资本异常流动对新兴经济体和发达经济体经济增长的影响呈现明显异质性。新兴经济体资本流动激增和中断对经济增长的影响程度明显高于发达经济体,资本流动撤回仅对发达经济体经济增长具有显著的负效应。新兴经济体经济增长仅对激增和中断较为敏感,体现其对国际资本具有较高的依存度。     

Firm dynamics and financial development

Using comprehensive firm-level datasets, this paper studies the impact of cross-country variation in financial market development on firms' financing choices and growth. In less financially developed economies, small firms grow faster and have lower leverage than large firms. As financial development improves, the growth difference between small and large firms shrinks, while the leverage difference rises. The paper then develops a quantitative model where financial frictions drive firm growth and debt financing through the availability of credit and default risk. The model explains the observed cross-country variations in firm size, leverage and growth in response to changes in financial frictions.     

Southeastern European Trade Analysis: A Role for Endogenous CEFTA-2006?

The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact the Central European Free Trade Agreement of 2006 (CEFTA-2006) has had on trade and provide quantitative comparison with the original CEFTA and with trade liberalization under the EU integration process. The paper belongs to the strand of literature analyzing a free trade agreement in a gravity framework but treating the agreement as being potentially endogenous. The empirical evidence suggests that CEFTA-2006 exerted a positive, significant, and large effect on trade in Southeast Europe. This finding can be largely attributed to the distracted trade flows in the region over the 1990s. The effect of CEFTA-2006 has been estimated to be larger than the effect of the stabilization and association agreements. This counteracts the concern that the EU and the Southeastern European countries formed a "hub-and-spoke" structure in terms of trade.     

经济增长论的发展与动向——关于均衡的安定性与非决定性

为什么相同的经济基础,相同的地理自然环境的条件下,有的国家经济能够突飞猛进地发展,有的国家却停滞不前甚至越来越差?到底是什么因素促进了经济发展,到底有哪些因素造成了发展的不均衡?很多经济学者正在用数理经济的方法试图说明这一问题。关于这方面的研究可以应用到关于我国的经济分析中,去说明经济发展不均衡的问题,并促进我们去探讨怎样才能促进发展缓慢地区的经济发展。本文介绍了关于经济增长论的非决定性分析的最新成果和尚待解决的问题。     

贸易开放度会影响极端国际资本流动吗?——基于54个经济体跨国面板数据的分析

随着世界各国频繁出现国际资本大规模流入或流出的现象,极端国际资本流动已成为国际金融领域广泛关注的重要问题。本文参考Forbes&Warnock (2012)的方法,基于54个经济体1991年第一季度至2016年第四季度的国际资本流动数据,构建极端国际资本流动时期数据库,可识别四种极端国际资本流动事件类型:"激增(Surges)""骤停(Sudden Stops)""外逃(Flight)"以及"撤回(Retrenchment)"。基于该数据库,分析贸易开放度对极端国际资本流动的影响。实证结果表明,第一,一国贸易开放度越高,其发生极端国际资本流动事件的可能性越低。第二,在考虑了国家经济发展水平的差异后,贸易开放度对本国资本和外国资本流入和流出的影响存在显著差异。对于发达经济体,贸易开放度对外国资本流动和本国资本流动均有显著影响;对于发展中经济体,贸易开放度仅影响本国的资本流动,对外国资本流动的影响并不显著。第三,贸易开放度对长期资本极端流动与短期资本极端流动的影响并没有显著差异。基于本文的研究结果,建议我国应继续坚持贸易开放政策,且此后分析极端国际资本流动应将其细分为激增、骤停、外逃和撤回四类,对极端国际资本流动的监测应区分本国资本和外国资本异常流动情况。     

Estimating the impact of exchange rate changes on the asset growth of multinational banks

The article develops an empirical model to explain how changes in exchange rates have affected the growth of total assets of a sample of the world's largest banks over the 17-year period of 1972–1989. The model was estimated over a period in which U.S. banks' assets grew less rapidly than the assets of large banks headquartered in other industrial countries. The model provides an estimate of the banks' allocation between home currency and foreign currency assets, which allows a calculation of the estimated impact of exchange rate changes on bank asset growth. The results of the model suggest that no single economic variable explains the faster growth of non-U.S. banks. Changes in real exchange rates were estimated to have had a significant but not overwhelming impact on bank asset growth through their impact on the dollar value of banks' home-currency assets. Other factors, such as faster home-country economic growth, an expanding trade and foreign investment sector, and the ability of large banks to retain their share of domestic intermediation, were also important factors in determining relative rates of bank asset growth.The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the views of the Department of State, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or its staff.     

Recent growth trends in developing countries

The unprecedented economic conditions of the mid-1970s have created problems with economic development for all countries of the world. Recent economic growth trends in the following main groups of developing countries are reviewed: 1) low-income countries; 2) lower middle-income countries; 3) intermediate middle-income countries; 4) upper middle-come countries; and 5) balance of payments deficit oil exporting countries. Economic indicators for each group of countries are tabulated. The tables show that the developing countries have continued domestic economic growth at only moderately slower rates during the years since 1973. They have been helped by foreign aid or private-source borrowing. As a group, they have, in fact, helped to keep the world economy from plunging deeper into recession and to prevent world trade from contracting more than it actually did already in 1974 and 1975. The performance of these developing economies during these difficult years contributes to continued optimism regarding their future prospects.     

东盟自由贸易协定的基本特征、推动因素与前景展望

近年来,东盟积极参与自由贸易协定签署,已经成为亚洲地区重要的自由贸易协定中心之一。推动东盟积极参与自由贸易协定的因素,既有内部的经济一体化要求、大国均衡战略以及国际地位提升需要,也有主要发达国家东南亚战略变化的原因。东盟自由贸易协定格局的形成,一方面会削弱中国-东盟自由贸易区的经济效应,另一方面会对中国形成战略制约,积极调整我国的自由贸易协定战略势在必行。     

中国东盟经济周期同步性及传导机制研究

随着区域经济一体化的深入,中国东盟的经济波动出现了一致性的特点。运用HP滤波以及皮尔逊相关系数对中国与东盟经济周期的同步性进行分析,发现中国与东盟经济周期存在同步性,并且这种同步性真正形成于20世纪90年代。进一步对1992—2011年中国与东盟五国面板数据进行实证分析,结果显示贸易强度、产业结构差异性显著增加了中国东盟经济周期的同步性,而双边FDI减弱了经济周期同步性,产业内贸易的影响则不显著。     

Technology and Financial Development

The growth benefits from financial development are known to vary across industries. However, no systematic effort has been made to determine the technological characteristics shared by industries that grow relatively faster in more financially developed economies. Using the standard growth‐theoretic definition of technology in terms of the production function, we explore a range of technological characteristics that theory suggests might underpin differences across industries in the need or the ability to raise external finance. We find that industries that grow faster in more financially developed countries display greater R&D intensity and investment lumpiness, indicating that well‐functioning financial markets direct resources toward industries where growth is driven by R&D.     

How big (small?) are fiscal multipliers?

Contributing to the debate on the macroeconomic effects of fiscal stimuli, we show that the impact of government expenditure shocks depends crucially on key country characteristics, such as the level of development, exchange rate regime, openness to trade, and public indebtedness. Based on a novel quarterly dataset of government expenditure in 44 countries, we find that (i) the output effect of an increase in government consumption is larger in industrial than in developing countries; (ii) the fiscal multiplier is relatively large in economies operating under predetermined exchange rates but is zero in economies operating under flexible exchange rates; (iii) fiscal multipliers in open economies are smaller than in closed economies; (iv) fiscal multipliers in high-debt countries are negative.     

The Impact of Economic Shocks in the Rest of the World on South Africa: Evidence from a Global VAR

The substantial change in South Africa’s trade patterns over the past two decades has affected the impact of economic shocks in major world economies on South Africa. To investigate the effect, we use a global vector autoregression (GVAR) model with time-varying trade weights to account for changing international trade linkages. We show that the long-term impact of a shock to Chinese GDP on South African GDP is much stronger in 2009 than in 1995, due to the substantial increase in South Africa’s trade with China since the mid-1990s. At the same time, the importance of the U.S. economy to South Africa diminished considerably. The results indicate one of the possible reasons why the recent global crisis did not affect South Africa as much as it affected developed economies. It also stresses the increased risk, to the South African and other economies, should China experience slower GDP growth.     

The global financial crisis: Explaining cross-country differences in the output impact

What explains differences in the crisis impact across developing countries and emerging markets? Using cross-country regressions to assess the factors driving the growth performance in 2009 (compared to pre-crisis forecasts for that year), we find that a small set of variables explain a large share of the variation in the growth impact. Countries with more leveraged domestic financial systems, stronger credit growth, and more short-term debt tended to suffer a larger effect on economic activity, although the relative importance of these factors differs across country groups. For emerging markets, this financial channel trumps the trade channel. For a broader set of developing countries, however, the trade channel seems to have mattered, with more open countries affected more strongly and those exporting food commodities being less hard hit. Exchange-rate flexibility helped in buffering the impact of the shock, particularly for emerging markets. There is also some evidence that countries with a stronger fiscal position prior to the crisis were impacted less severely. We find little evidence for the importance of other policy variables.     

Adjustment patterns to commodity terms of trade shocks: The role of exchange rate and international reserves policies

We analyze the way in which Latin American countries have adjusted to commodity terms of trade (CTOT) shocks in the 1970–2007 period. Specifically, we investigate the degree to which the active management of international reserves and exchange rates impacted the transmission of international price shocks to real exchange rates. We find that active reserve management not only lowers the short run impact of CTOT shocks significantly, but also affects the long run adjustment of REER, effectively lowering its volatility. We also show that relatively small increases in the average holdings of reserves by Latin American economies (to levels still well below other emerging regions current averages) would provide a policy tool as effective as a fixed exchange rate regime in insulating the economy from CTOT shocks. Reserve management could be an effective alternative to fiscal or currency policies for relatively trade closed countries and economies with relatively poor institutions or high government debt. Finally, we analyze the effects of active use of reserve accumulation aimed at smoothing REERs. The result support the view that “leaning against the wind” is potent, but more effective when intervening to support weak currencies rather than intervening to slow down the pace of real appreciation. The active reserve management reduces substantially REER volatility.     

中国面临的国际经济环境与应对策略

随着中国经济与世界经济融合度的不断提升,深入把握国际经济运行格局和特征对于维护改革开放进程下中国经济的稳健发展具有重要意义。文章分析指出,当前发达经济体经济减速常态化,新兴经济体成为拉动全球经济增长的重要力量。未来中国等新兴市场国家将面临国际贸易保护主义抬头、发达国家宏观政策负面溢出效应、传统国际经济秩序束缚等挑战。在此基础上,文章就深化国际经济合作、不断增强经济发展后劲提出中国经济的相关应对策略。     

全球价值链中贸易增加值的测度与比较——以中国、俄罗斯、印度三国贸易为例

近年来,以“金砖国家”为代表的新兴经济体已成为全球经济增长的重要引擎和贸易重地,中国、俄罗斯和印度三国作为其核心国家在国际分工中的地位举足轻重。以传统贸易总值法测算中国出口贸易夸大了中国真实的贸易利得,导致中国频频面临贸易摩擦。本文利用世界投入产出表1995—2011年的数据,从增加值贸易角度对三国间的出口额进行国内外增加值分解和测算,对比分析总值贸易和增加值贸易,解释三国贸易趋势和结构特征,进一步了解三国在全球价值链中的地位和作用。实证结果表明,贸易增加值核算方法能更全面和准确反映各国参与国际分工和在国际贸易中的真实获益情况,对中国认清主要贸易合作伙伴、有针对性地制定贸易政策有指导作用。     

Stock markets,credit markets,and technology-led growth

The high-tech sector accounts for the majority of corporate innovation in modern economies. In a sample of 38 countries, we document a strong positive relation between the initial size of the country's high-tech sector and subsequent rates of GDP and total factor productivity growth. We also find a strong positive connection between a country's equity (but not credit) market development and the size of its high-tech sector. Our main difference-in-differences estimates show that better developed stock markets support faster growth of innovative-intensive, high-tech industries. The main channels for this effect are higher rates of productivity and faster growth in the number of new high-tech firms. Credit market development fosters growth in industries that rely on external finance for physical capital accumulation but is unimportant for growth in innovation-intensive industries. These findings show that stock markets and credit markets play important but distinct roles in supporting economic growth. Stock markets are uniquely suited for financing technology-led growth, a particularly important concern for advanced economies.