Do international shocks affect small wholesalers and retailers?

Previous research has suggested that the smallest firms are those most vulnerable to international competition, as measured by exchange rate fluctuations and import shares. However, that work—and the overwhelming bulk of the empirical literature on determinants of exit or firm survival—dealt entirely with the manufacturing sector of the economy. This paper analyzes annual US data for 1989–2005 for about 50 wholesale and retail sectors to explain small firm exit rates in several employment size categories. The main result is that wholesalers respond negatively to a stronger currency in a manner similar to that of manufacturers, while retailers are generally unaffected.     

对发展中国家的贸易与美国制造业的就业变动

本文利用1997～2006年美国制造业的面板数据,从静态和动态的角度实证检验了美国制造业与发展中国家的进、出口贸易对美国制造业就业总量的影响。估计结果表明,考虑进、出口贸易对技术创新的驱动作用以后,进、出口贸易对就业的影响与理论预期存在不一致性,进口贸易不仅没有通过替代国内生产而减少劳动密集制造部门对劳动力的需求,反而促进了该部门的就业增长;出口贸易也没有通过产出扩大效应而增加劳动密集制造部门对劳动力的需求,出口贸易对就业的促进效应仅仅体现在技术密集制造部门。由于美国劳动力市场中存在价格效应、规模效应和劳动力需求的趋势效应,与发展中国家的进、出口贸易对美国制造业就业的影响呈现明显的滞后性和动态调整特征。     

The antebellum U.S. iron industry: Domestic production and foreign competition

This paper presents new annual estimates of U.S. production of pig iron and imports of pig iron products dating back to 1827. These estimates are used to assess the vulnerability of the antebellum iron industry to foreign competition and the role of the tariff in fostering the industry’s early development. Domestic pig iron production is found to be highly sensitive to changes in import prices. Although import price fluctuations had a much greater impact on U.S. production than changes in import duties, our estimates suggest that the tariff permitted domestic output to be about 30-40 percent larger than it would have been without protection.     

对外贸易影响中国制造业市场绩效的实证研究

本文利用中国制造业的面板数据实证分析了对外贸易对行业绩效的影响,通过选择价格成本差距衡量行业的绩效,本文的研究结论表明,进口贸易对我国市场竞争程度较高行业的价格成本差距具有显著的正向影响,而对市场竞争程度较弱的行业具有不显著的负向影响,国内行业市场竞争程度越弱,进口贸易的负面效应越大;而出口贸易的扩大对我国制造行业的价格成本差距具有显著的负向影响。     

Production Costs,Scale Economies,and Technical Change in U.S. Textile and Apparel Industries

The elimination of quotas in textiles and apparel poses new threats from import competition. To survive, the sectors need to find least-cost methods of production. The production–cost structure of the U.S. textile and apparel industries is examined using a dual cost framework. A translog cost function is used to measure substitution elasticities between inputs, scale economies, and the nature of technical change. The scope for factor substitution in textiles remains limited with all substitution elasticities being less than unity. Labor and materials are complements in apparel production, but there is evidence of substitution between capital and labor. The rate of technical change is higher in textiles than in apparel. Given the intense import competition from low wage countries, in both industries, technical progress is labor saving. Overall, economies of scale are larger in apparel; however, scale economies have continued to increase in textiles.This research was supported by a grant from the National Textile Center.     

Fringe Benefits and Chinese Import Competition

While many studies have quantified the impact of Chinese import competition on U.S. wages, to my knowledge this is the first study to also estimate the effect on fringe benefits. This is important because in the United States, fringe benefits are now more than 30% of compensation. I first argue that if trade affects the share of benefits in compensation, focusing on wages and ignoring fringe benefits may give us misleading estimates of the effect of trade on workers' total compensation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I track the subsequent outcomes of workers who were working in manufacturing in 1996. Similar to Autor et al. (2014), I find that exposure to Chinese competition negatively affects wage income. As to fringe benefits, the effect on participation in a defined benefit retirement plan and the availability of vacation days is negative and significant. The effects on other benefits are usually negative but imprecisely estimated. The effect on the overall dollar value of benefits is negative and significant. However, in percentage terms, the effect on benefits is smaller than the effect on wages. This suggests that, in percentage terms, the impact of Chinese import competition on overall compensation is less severe than the one found in Autor et al. (2014) for wages.     

中美贸易对美国就业影响研究——基于美国制造业面板数据的分析

本文通过建立国际贸易对就业影响的理论模型,利用美国制造业面板数据分析中美贸易对美国就业的影响问题。实证结论表明,美国进口中国制成品对美国就业没有显著影响,也不是美国失业的Granger原因;美国制成品出口对增加美国就业虽有显著影响,但作用不大;影响美国国内就业的主要因素是实际工资、企业发展状况等实际因素。这些结论充分说明,美国的失业问题不是由美国进口中国制成品引起的,美国减少中国制成品进口也解决不了美国的失业问题。     

International Monetary Instability All Over Again

One of the signature developments of 2016 was the move from globalization and market integration toward nationalism and protection. A headline in the Financial Times (April 13, 2017) read, “‘Sword of protectionism hangs over trade’, says IMF.” The headline demonstrates “Silo-ism”. The Fund does not recognize that the demand for import barriers in countries with large trade deficits and high unemployment have resulted from massive imbalances in international payments. Monetary instability in the 1920s and the 1930s was reflected in the overvaluation of the British pound, the undervaluation of the French franc and subsequent overvaluation of the U.S. dollar. Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, in part because the high price of the British pound depressed exports and wages in manufacturing. U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) has doubled since 1980, yet manufacturing employment has declined by eight million. The demand for protection in the U.S. has increased because the more rapid growth of imports than exports has led to the decline of three to four million U.S. manufacturing jobs.     

生产者服务贸易与中国制造业效率提升——基于行业面板数据的考察

作为高级的要素投入,生产者服务的进口提高了进口国的专业化分工,从而提升了制造业的整体效率。通过运用中国制造业细分行业1997～2008年的面板数据进行回归后,结果表明:生产者服务进口更能促进资本密集型和技术密集型制造业效率的提升;其他商业服务进口对制造业效率的促进效应最为明显,其次是计算机和信息服务进口、专有权与特许权使用费和金融服务进口;通讯服务、建筑服务进口对中国制造业效率产生负面影响,而其中又以对资本密集型制造业效率的负面冲击最为严重。     

Trade Openness and Vertical Integration: Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Sector

The present article aims to empirically examine a relationship between trade openness and the pattern of vertical integration using the six‐digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) of U.S. manufacturing data from 2002 to 2006. We use the index of vertical integration made out of inter‐plant transfers data by the U.S. Census Bureau, and we consider three proxies of trade openness—import penetration, export shares, and trade penetration. The empirical results substantiate 2000 theoretical proposition that trade openness undermines motives for vertical integration.     

Import competition from and offshoring to low-income countries: Implications for employment and wages at U.S. domestic manufacturers

Using confidential linked firm-level trade transactions and census data between 1997 and 2012, we provide new evidence on how American firms without foreign affiliates adjust employment and wages as they adapt to import competition from low-income countries. We provide stylized facts on the input sourcing strategies of these domestic firms, contrasting them with multinationals operating in the same industry. We then investigate how changes in firm input purchases from low-income countries as well as domestic market import penetration from these sources are correlated with changes in employment and wages at surviving domestic firms. Greater offshoring by domestic firms from low-income countries correlates with larger declines in manufacturing employment and in the average production workers’ wage. Given the negative association, however, the estimated magnitudes are small, even for a narrow measure of offshoring that includes only intermediate goods. Import penetration of U.S. markets from these sources is associated with relatively larger changes in employment for arm’s length importing firms, but has no significant correlation with employment changes at firms that do not trade. Given differences in the degree of both offshoring and import penetration, we find substantial variation across industries in the magnitude of changes associated with low-income country imports.     

进口竞争能否提高企业创新效率?:基于中国企业层面的分析

加入WTO后,中国在开放国内市场方面取得了很大的进步,促进了中国的进口贸易自由化。习近平主席在首届中国国际进口博览会提出要"激发进口潜力、主动扩大进口",这将进一步促进市场竞争,对企业的创新行为产生一系列影响。基于这一背景,文章在整合2005~2007年中国工业企业数据库与CEPII-BACI数据库的基础上,对中国制造业企业的创新效率进行测算,同时构造行业进口渗透率指标,系统分析和检验了进口竞争对企业创新效率的影响。实证结果表明:总体上看,进口竞争对企业创新效率有显著的负向影响。对于加工贸易企业主要通过市场竞争机制抑制了其创新效率的提高;而对于一般贸易企业,进口竞争虽然促进了其创新投入,但并未获得规模效益,表现为创新效率的下降。另外,对于高生产率企业和国际化企业,进口竞争对其创新效率的影响相对较弱;对于国有企业和高技术行业企业,进口竞争对其创新效率的抑制作用相对更大。文章结果还显示,要素市场扭曲会强化进口竞争对创新效率的负向作用。文章的结论对于进一步扩大市场开放、提高企业创新效率提供了经验证据。     

贸易摩擦背景下关税与货币政策反制策略研究

通过将贸易品美元定价约束、外汇噪声交易和关税反制等特征融入两国DSGE模型，文章对贸易摩擦背景下美国进口关税冲击的传导渠道以及中国的关税反制策略与货币应对政策有效性等问题进行了数值分析。研究发现，关税反制措施能够有效地对冲美国加征进口关税对中国实际产出、消费和净出口的消极影响，并有助于抑制人民币实际汇率贬值。若进一步搭配将出口品关税纳入利率调控框架的积极货币政策，对于经济扩张与保持汇率稳定都更加有效。但从长期社会福利角度看，积极货币政策对美国经济也具有明显的正向溢出作用，关税反制则会产生显著的福利转移效应，不采取任何关税与货币应对政策将使中国遭受最大的福利损失。因此，基于"打击最大化、自损最小化"原则，中国应对美国采取坚决有力的关税反击，同时保持货币政策相对中性、克制，以期实现"以战促和"的战略目标。     

Determinants of Cross-Border Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement: The Role of Trade Sanctions

With growing trade in a global economy, the desire for trade protection becomes increasingly important. One aspect of trade protection that has risen to the forefront is the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) across national borders. This article analyzes the determinants of U.S.-filed investigations for alleged IPR cross-border violations using the complete set of Section 337 investigations conducted by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). By analyzing political, institutional, and economic variables in an industry-level model, we find evidence that investigations are more frequent in industries that face intense import competition among IPR-protected goods. In addition, greater technology access to U.S. patents by respondent firms is found to increase filings, especially in countries where corruption levels are higher.     

美元汇率对美国进出口商品价格传递率的实证分析

本文实证分析了美元汇率按美国总进出口价格、分段进出口价格、分类商品进出口价格的传递率。实证结果表明,无论美元升值还是贬值,美国的进出口价格指数都会下降,而且美国出口价格的传递率比同期进口价格的传递率要小得多,升值期的传递率也比贬值期的传递率要小;美元升值比贬值对美国经常账户赤字的纠正更有利。因此,建议美国实行美元适度升值的政策,而且要结合其他政策才能改善其巨额经常账户赤字。     

The effect of import competition on labor income inequality through firm and worker heterogeneity in the Japanese manufacturing sector

This study estimates the effects of import competition from Asia on the labor income inequality of Japanese manufacturing workers, considering firm and worker heterogeneity. Parameters are obtained from regression results of annual salary by using constructed worker–establishment panel data. The estimated salary change is positively and negatively larger for higher- and lower-paid workers, respectively, implying that labor income inequality among industry–size–skill–gender groups has increased due to imports from Asia. However, the actual evolution of income inequality during 1998–2014 is not successfully explained by Asian imports: other shocks overshadow import competition to determine actual income inequality.     

Effects of U.S. Trade Remedy Law Enforcement under Uncertainty: The Case of Steel

This paper investigates the impact of U.S. trade remedy law enforcement on import penetration of foreign-manufactured steel into the U.S. steel market. Given the quasi-judicial process for implementation of the two provisions relevant to U.S. steel imports, section 701 (countervailing duty) and section 731 (antidumping duty), I derive the probability-augmented model to be used as the theoretical basis for the research. The results obtained in this paper indicate that the trade remedy policy was effective. However, the elasticity-measured degree of effectiveness was small.     

Core Import Price Inflation in the United States

The cross-section distribution of U.S. import prices exhibits some of the fat-tailed characteristics that are well documented for the cross-section distribution of U.S. consumer prices. This suggests that limited-influence estimators of core import price inflation might outperform headline or traditional measures of core import price inflation. We examine whether limited influence estimators of core import price inflation help forecast overall import price inflation. They do not. However, limited influence estimators of core import price inflation do seem to have some predictive power for headline consumer price inflation in the medium term.     

出口机会与进口竞争对工业机器人企业的叠加影响：基于出口持续时间的视角

工业机器人企业是中国推动制造业数字化革命、抢占国际分工制高点战略的主力军,然而其出口持续时间平均不足1年,需引起高度关注。本文基于2000-2015年中国海关数据库和工业企业数据库的匹配数据,运用Cox风险模型分析了出口机会增大和进口竞争加剧对工业机器人企业出口持续时间的影响和作用机制。结果表明,出口机会增大更有利于延长企业出口持续时间,进口竞争加剧则提高了企业的退出率,这一结论在产品多样化程度低、产品核心度低、行业竞争小和市场集中度低的企业中尤为明显;出口机会与进口竞争,主要是通过企业生产率和技术创新的中介作用影响企业的出口持续时间;面对双重叠加影响,工业机器人企业应充分利用产品间的技术关联效应提高出口持续性。     

Labor market effects of import competition: Theory and evidence from the textile and apparel industries

Since the early 1980s, much attention has been given to the possibility of trade-related job losses and wage effects in the textile and apparel industries. This paper uses aggregate time series data from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers [Bartlesman and Gray, 1996] with import price data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [Alterman, 1991] for 1977–91 to test the effect of imports on employment and wages in textiles and apparel. Theoretical models suggest that import competition should be a factor in the determination of employment, and possibly wages, regardless of whether the U.S. is represented as a price-setter or price-taker. The empirical analysis provides some support. The author appreciates the helpful comments of Barry T. Hirsch, participants at the Georgia Southern University economics seminar in November 1997, and the editorial assistance of a reviewer for theAtlantic Economic Journal.