Understanding the recent Sino-U.S. trade conflict

ABSTRACT

To understand Sino-U.S. trade relations, this article interprets the trade imbalance between China and the United States from the Trump administration’s perspective. The Trump administration claims that the Chinese government’s subsidies and high import tariffs cause the Sino-U.S. trade deficit, resulting in job losses in the U.S. The Trump administration therefore argues that imposing high tariffs on Chinese exports can resolve the deficit. The article finds that U.S. statistical accounting overestimates the deficit. Reducing China’s imports cannot increase U.S. employment, and China provides the United States with low-price and high-quality products. Chinese investors tend to invest the surplus by purchasing U.S. Treasury bonds. In addition, the United States limits Chinese investments due to ‘national security’ concerns. China’s upgrading to the high end of the global value chain is a consequence of economic development. Therefore, the two countries should rebalance Sino-U.S. trade by seeking economic and trade cooperation via trade negotiations.     

基于贸易收支数据的美国贸易逆差与美元汇率相互关系研究

通过选择美国与中国、日本、加拿大、英国和欧元区11国等美国主要贸易伙伴的双边贸易数据作为样本,研究美国的双边贸易逆差与美元汇率之间的关系.实证分析表明,美国对主要贸易伙伴国的双边贸易收支与美元汇率没有实质性联系.美国逼迫其它货币升值没有也不能缓解美国的贸易逆差问题,同样,美国逼迫人民币升值也不能缓解美中双边贸易失衡问题.     

The U.S. trade imbalance and real exchange rate: An application of the heterogeneous panel cointegration method

The United States economy suffers from persistent trade deficits, arising from the so-called ‘global external imbalance’. Can the depreciation of the US dollar improve this phenomenon? This study for the first time applies the heterogeneous panel cointegration method to examine the long-run relationship between the real exchange rate and bilateral trade balance of the U.S. and her 97 trading partners for the period 1973–2006. Using new annual data, the empirical results indicate that the devaluation of the US dollar deteriorates her bilateral trade balance with 13 trading partners, but improves it with 37 trading partners, especially for China. In the panel cointegrated framework, a long-run negative relationship between the real exchange rate and the bilateral trade balance exists for the U.S.     

NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BILATERAL TRADE EFFECTS

This study evaluates the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on bilateral trade between the United States and Canada and between the United States and Mexico. Trade flow estimates are from a vector autoregression (VAR) model. The VAR methodology allows modeling bilateral trade in a flexible manner that incorporates both the interaction between different variables and the dynamics of trade, output, prices, and the exchange rate. After testing the outside sample forecasting ability of the models, the study produces dynamic forecasts of bilateral trade. It then compares forecasts incorporating the effects of the NAFTA with baseline forecasts. The results suggest expanded trade for all three countries and an improvement in the U.S. trade position with both Canada and Mexico.     

DOES APPRECIATION OF THE RENMINBI DECREASE IMPORTS TO THE UNITED STATES FROM CHINA?

In 2005, China abated its fixed exchange rate against the U.S. dollar and began to appreciate the Renminbi (RMB). In this paper, I explore the effect of the appreciation of the RMB on imports to the United States from China by augmenting the gravity model with the exchange rate. Using an industrial panel data set during the period 2002–2008 and controlling for the endogeneity of the bilateral exchange rate, this extensive empirical analysis suggests that the appreciation of the RMB against the U.S. dollar significantly reduced imports to the United States from China. This finding is robust to a variety of econometric methods and to coverage in different periods. (JEL F1, F2)     

贸易统计差异与中美贸易平衡问题

本文研究发现(1)中美进出口计价方式不同和运输时滞导致双边贸易统计数据存在差异是自然的。(2)参照剔除香港转口毛利后中美贸易新估计值,1995—2003年美国对华出口低估年均在24%以上,从华进口高估年均在35%以上,而中国对美出口低估年均在20%以上,从美进口相对没变。(3)考虑服务贸易后,美中商品与服务贸易逆差估计值与中国对美贸易顺差新估计值已相当接近。上述结果得到IMF数据的证实。(4)外商在华直接投资增加会造成中国对美出口增加、对美贸易顺差增加。依据中美两国月度数据计量的结论是相一致的。这一结果证实中美贸易平衡问题已超越中美两国贸易范围而成为外商在华直接投资所引致的贸易逆差转移问题。剔除外资企业进出口贡献及贸易统计差异后,中国对美贸易估计值已非常趋近于美国对华贸易估计值。     

Understanding the U.S.-China Trade War

ABSTRACT

Three major concerns drove the U.S. into initiating the trade war, and they are (a) the concern that China’s chronically large trade surplus was depressing job creation in the U.S. (b) the concern that China was using illegal and unfair methods to acquire U.S. technology at an effectively discounted price; and (c) the concern that China seeks to weaken U.S. national security and its international standing. On the dispute over China’s exchange rate and trade imbalance, the first conclusion is that it was marked by analytical confusion over the meaning of the term ‘equilibrium exchange rate’. The second conclusion is that China’s trade imbalance reflects the economic conditions in both China and U.S., and that the efficient and fair solution of the problem requires policy changes in both countries. On the industrial policy dispute, the first conclusion is that the issue of forced technology transfer is largely a dispute about China using its market power to benefit itself at the expense of its trade partners. The second conclusion is that China’s use of market power can last only until the other large countries could unite and retaliate as a group. The inevitability of retaliation means that China should replace the joint-venture (JV) mechanism for technological diffusion with other ways to strengthen its technological capability. On the U.S. concern about whether China trade weakens its national security, the first conclusion is that the notion of national security that is commonly adopted in the U.S. trade policy debate is ignorant about the primary determinants of U.S. capability in innovation. By focusing instead mainly on how to hold down China technologically, the long-run outcome will be a technologically weaker U.S. and hence, a more vulnerable U.S. The second conclusion is that the U.S. must identify a clear, short list of critical technologies and critical infrastructure for the recently reformed Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to cover, and update this list constantly. Otherwise, the broad and changing nature of notions about national security would allow the bureaucratically driven phenomenon of mission-creep to steadily expand the coverage of the CFIUS process, thereby steadily rendering CFIUS to be operationally capricious. Our principal policy suggestion to China is that, because China’s economy in 2018 is very different from that in 1978 (e.g. many parts of China now look like Singapore and China is Africa’s biggest donor), there should be more reciprocity in China’s trade and investment relations with the advanced economies despite China’s status as a developing economy under WTO rules. Our principal policy suggestion to President Trump is to stop equating strategic competition with economic competition. Strategic competition is normally a zero-sum game. While fair economic competition is usually a zero-sum game in the short run, it generally creates a win-win outcome in the long run.     

美国在华直接投资对中美贸易不平衡的影响研究

20世纪90年代以来,美国在华直接投资额呈迅速上升趋势,中美贸易规模也不断扩大,与此同时,两国的贸易差额也逐年增大,双边贸易的不平衡加剧了贸易摩擦。本文首先从美国在华投资对中美贸易差额所产生的各种效应阐述了中美贸易失衡的原因,然后通过实证分析得出美国在华直接投资与中美贸易顺差之间存在长期协整关系的结论,即美国在华直接投资是导致中美贸易顺差的决定性因素。最后提出缓解中美贸易不平衡的相关对策建议。     

Offshoring and skill overlap: An empirical investigation

Conventional international trade theory predicts that bilateral offshoring flows will be highest when two countries have very different relative factor endowments. In contrast, the new trade theory contends that offshoring is more likely to exist when countries’ relative factor endowments are similar. This paper empirically tests the relationship between offshoring and relative factor endowments, measured by the skill overlap index between two countries and finds evidence that there is an inverted U‐shape relationship. Our empirical results predict that the rise in educational attainment in China will motivate U.S. multinationals to send their tasks to China in the short run; over the long run, however, U.S. multinationals will have fewer incentives to send their tasks to China. This finding sheds new light on the current trade tensions between the United States and China and has implications for trade policy.     

Purchasing power parity and country characteristics: Evidence from panel data tests

We examine long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) using panel data methods to test for unit roots in US dollar real exchange rates of 84 countries. We find stronger evidence of PPP in countries more open to trade, closer to the United States, with lower inflation and moderate nominal exchange rate volatility, and with similar economic growth rates as the United States. We also show that PPP holds for panels of European and Latin American countries, but not for African and Asian countries. Our findings demonstrate that country characteristics can help explain both adherence to and deviations from long-run PPP.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Understanding the Current China-U.S. ‘Trade War’

ABSTRACT

One of the most important international economic events in 2018 was the China-U.S. “trade war.” With China’s growing role in the worldwide economy and geopolitical impacts, the United States has labeled China as a strategy competitor. This notes briefly introduce the six articles covered in the volume. We highlight the causes and possible economic consequences from the perspectives of the United States, China, Japan, the Europe, and even East Asian countries like Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.     

International trade and macroeconomic dynamics: The case of U.S. bilateral trade with G-7 countries

The short- and long-run effects of exchange rates, income, interest rates and government spending on U.S. bilateral trade with the other G-7 countries are investigated using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The primary contribution of this study is to consider separating the analysis of exports and imports in an integrated model that empirically encompasses four major schools of thoughts – elasticity, Keynesian income, absorption and monetary approaches – in order to identify macroeconomic linkages to U.S. bilateral trade with the other G-7 countries accurately. Results suggest that, in both the short- and long-run, U.S. imports and exports are highly sensitive to changes in U.S. and foreign income, while U.S. imports and exports are relatively insensitive to changes in bilateral exchange rate. It is also found that both exports and imports are more responsive to changes in government spending than changes in interest rates in both the short- and long-run.     

Exchange rate effects on Korea–U.S. bilateral trade: A new look

This study examines the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on Korea׳s trade with the U.S. by taking the roles of exchange rate volatility and third country effects into account. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration is applied to estimate bilateral exports and imports of disaggregating 10 industries between Korea and the U.S. We find that Korea׳s major export industries are highly responsive to the bilateral exchange rate, volatility and third country effects in both the long- and short-run, whereas Korea׳s imports are mostly insensitive to changes in those three factors. It is also found that income in both countries plays an important role in influencing the bilateral trade flows in both the long- and short-run.     

Why is U.S. direct investment in China so small?

While the United States is the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world, and China is the largest FDI recipient among developing countries, U.S. direct investment (USDI) in China has been surprisingly small. This article investigates the determinants of USDI through a relative-demand model with time-series data. Evidence presented in this article indicates that the small USDI cannot be fully appreciated without understanding differences between USDI and Hong Kong direct investment (HKDI), the latter being the dominant source of FDI in China. Empirical results suggest that the USDI in China was primarily motivated by market access and that the HKDI was export oriented. The small USDI thus is a result of U.S. investors' preference for market access and China's export-promotion FDI regime, along with the troubled Sino-U.S. relations and political instabilities in China.     

Cointegration Approach to Estimating Bilateral Trade Elasticities Between U.S. and Her Trading Partners

Almost all previous authors who estimated the trade elasticities relied upon aggregate trade data. To avoid the aggregation bias, this paper provides estimates of trade elasticities using bilateral data between the United States and her six largest trading partners. Application of cointegration analysis reveals that in many cases, bilateral trade elasticities are large enough to justify real depreciation of the dollar as a mean of improving U.S. trade balance.[F14]     

Partisan Cycles in Offshore Outsourcing: Evidence from U.S. Imports

The wage and employment effects of offshoring roil politics in the United States and around the world. Firms that offshore either outsource their activities to unaffiliated businesses, or internalize production by establishing subsidiaries from which they import intrafirm. We argue that the political environment in trade partner countries influences U.S. offshoring patterns in ways that have been ignored in the extant literature. Drawing on the political business cycle literature, we expect higher production costs and lower profits for firms in capital (labor) intensive sectors when the Left (Right) is in power. These partisan cycles, in turn, shape the sectoral composition of exports from the partner to the United States, and the degree to which trade is conducted intrafirm. Under a Left‐ (Right‐) leaning government in a partner country, U.S. intrafirm imports of capital‐ (labor‐) goods increase relative to total imports in these industries. Examining highly disaggregated U.S. import data, we find strong support for our argument. Our results indicate that the effect of partisan governments on offshore outsourcing depends on factor intensities of production, which vary across industries. The degree of internalization in global sourcing is shaped in part by the distributional objectives of partisan governments, and not by economic factors alone.     

BILATERAL TRADE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: IMPLICATIONS OF THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

This study's primary objective is to evaluate empirically the economic effects of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The paper emphasizes bilateral trade flows of agricultural and industrial products between the United States and Canada, given that the FTA removes tariff and non-tariff barriers. It evaluates the FTA's impact on the two countries' trade with third countries. The paper specifies a traditional log-linear trade model consisting of import demand and export supply equations for both agricultural and industrial products. It uses quarterly time-series U.S. and Canadian trade data for 1972–1985.
The study uses the two-stage least-squares estimator to estimate the models. The models had R coefficients ranging from 0.78 to 0.99, indicating that the models' explanatory variables explain most causes of variations in the dependent variable. This study reveals that U.S. imports of agricultural and industrial products from Canada were more sensitive than were Canadian imports not only to import and domestic prices but also to world prices. This is because Canadian consumers have less domestic substitutes than do their U.S. counterparts. Also, Canada has a smaller internal market than does the United States. The study estimates that U.S. imports from Canada will increase $2.8 billion while Canadian imports from the United States will increase $1.2 billion. The impact on the two countries' trade with third-party countries will be insignificant.     

China–US trade: implications on conflicts

ABSTRACT

In this study, we examine various aspects of China’s trade, the U.S.’ trade, and the bilateral trade between the two countries. The analysis of each aspect has direct and indirect implications on trade conflicts between the two countries. We focus on important factors, such as the growth of trade, import penetration, increased competitiveness of Chinese firms, comparative advantages of Chinese goods, China’s WTO entry and its compliance, and bilateral trade imbalance. While each of the factors can lead to trade frictions, individual factors will not have led to a large-scale trade war. These factors converge within a brief period and thus can be considered the China shock, thereby making other countries’ adjustments to their economic structures difficult. Therefore, trade frictions are inevitable.     

中美贸易顺差与我国加工贸易产业转型升级

笔者运用协整分析的方法,对中美贸易顺差及其影响因素之间的长期关系进行了分析.实证结果表明,中美贸易顺差主要来自于美国及东亚诸国对华产业转移所导致的产业内贸易,其实质是我国国内加工贸易产业结构不合理.由此引发了对加工贸易产业结构优化的思考.     

美国对华5G科技竞争策略与对策研究——基于“大战略”理论视角

5G是引领未来的战略性技术，是实现产业升级的重要基础设施，也是中美科技竞争的关键领域。梳理美国对华5G科技竞争策略对于提升我国5G治理能力、创造竞争优势具有重要意义。运用“大战略”理论，从目标、手段、威胁、效益4个层面对美国5G策略进行分析，指出美国5G策略体现了维护国家安全和国际领导地位的目标，通过成立专职机构、加大科研投入、培养通信人才、提升频谱和基建能力等手段促进本国5G发展，并运用出口管制、外资审查、限制投资、外交结盟等方式对中国进行打压和防范。中美5G竞争日益激烈且存在彼此封闭、割裂的风险，国际关系将成为影响竞争态势的关键因素。中国应坚定战略目标，优化战略手段，应对挑战并把握机遇，积极推动中国5G健康发展。