Vertical trade and free trade agreements

We investigate the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on tariffs and welfare in vertical trade. We consider a three-country model, where an FTA is formed between a country exporting a final good and a country exporting an intermediate good. The FTA unambiguously leads to a reduction in the member country’s tariff, but may cause the non-member country’s tariff level to increase. In the case, where FTA raises the non-member country’s tariff level, the FTA increases that country’s welfare. In contrast, the FTA may render its member countries better off. This result implies that the formation of an FTA may not always be Pareto-improving.     

Impact of trade cost on China-EU agri-food trade

In this research, we investigate trade costs in relation to China-EU trade in agri-food products during 2001–2015. Major components of trade cost include transportation costs, border-related policy barriers such as tariffs, and local distribution costs. Our results indicate that trade costs between China and EU involving agri-food products, although falling, remain abnormally high. Consequently, we find that trade cost reductions contribute to over half of the overall China-EU trade growth. Our decomposition technique demonstrates that economic growth and trade cost reductions are the key drivers of China-EU trade expansion. Implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would reduce high trade costs to increase EU-China bilateral agricultural trade significantly. This is not fully captured in the gravity models where a static distance is usually used as a proxy to trade cost. The BRI will not reduce the distance, but it will cut transportation and other components of trade cost for China-EU trade.     

浅论国际服务贸易中的交易费用

与其它市场交易一样，国际服务贸易的发展要受到交易费用的影响。本文首行分析了这种影响，然后着重论述了影响国际服务贸易交易费用的因素，最后对可能减少国际服务贸易交易费用的因素进行了说明-其中包括GATS对之所作的贡献。     

North American trade liberalization and intra-industry trade

Zusammenfassung Handelsliberalisierung in Nordamerika und der intra-industrielle Handel. - Der Verfasser untersucht die Handelsbeziehungen zwischen Mexiko und den Vereinigten Staaten in den 80er Jahren und vergleicht sie mit den Handelsbeziehungen zwischen Kanada und den USA im gleichen Zeitraum. Er stellt fest, da? der intra-industrielle Handel in den Beziehungen zwischen Mexiko und den USA an Bedeutung gewonnen hat, was vermutlich auf die zunehmende Handelsliberalisierung Mexikos zurückzuführen ist. In der Tat waren in den sp?ten 80er Jahren die relativen Niveaus des intra-industriellen Handels ?hnlich hoch, wenn man die bilateralen Handelsstr?me zwischen Mexiko und den USA mit denen zwischen Kanada und den USA vergleicht.

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Résumé La libération des échanges nord-américains et les échanges intra-industriels.- Dans cette étude l'auteur examine les tendances du commerce bilatéral entre le Mexique et les Etats Unis pendant les années quatre-vingts. Il les compare aux tendances du commerce bilatéral entre le Canada et les Etats Unis pendant la même période. Il trouve que les échanges intra-industriels sont particulièrement augmenté en ce qui concerne le commerce entre le Mexique et les Etats Unis. Cela montre que la libéralisation commerciale prend place principalement de la part du Mexique. En effet dans les années quatre-vingts, les niveaux relatives des échanges intra-industriels ont été assez similaires si l’on compare les échanges bilatéraux entre le Mexique et les Etats Unis d’une part et le Canada et les Etats Unis d'autre part.

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Resumen La liberalizatión del comercio en América del Norte y el comercio intrasectorial. - En este trabajo se examina el perfil del comercio bilateral entre México y los EE UU en los a?os ochenta y se lo compara con el perfil del comercio bilateral entre el Canadá y los EE UU en el mismo período. Se encuentra que la importancia del comercio intrasectorial aumentó en el comercio entre México y los EE UU durante el periodo estudiado, reflejando ante todo avances en la liberalizatión del comercio por parte de México. En efecto, hacia fines de los a?os ochenta, los niveles relativos de comercio intrasectorial eran bastante similares en ambos casos, México-EE UU y Canadá-EE UU.

     

Preferential trade agreements and the structure of international trade

In this paper we examine the impact of membership in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade between PTA members. Rather than considering the impact of PTA membership on the volume of trade we consider the impact of membership on the structure of trade. For a large sample of countries over the period 1962–2000 we find that membership in a PTA is associated with an increase in the extent of intra-industry trade. Our results indicate that this is especially the case for PTAs formed between richer countries, with the effects of PTAs between poorer countries found to be smaller.     

Firm size-specific trade effects of regional trade agreements: Estimating extensive and intensive margins of trade

We estimate the impacts of Korean firms’ participation in regional trade agreements (RTAs) on the extensive and intensive export margins by identifying exporting firms based on their firm size—small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises (LEs) at the 5 399 HS six-digit commodity level—and specifying characteristics of RTAs from 2004 to 2015. We apply the EK Tobit estimation technique to control zero trade and the OLS estimation with importer-product and time fixed effects to alleviate the endogeneity problem. We find that firm size, product type, and depth of RTA significantly matter. Specifically, we find that deeper RTAs with larger, developing, and closer members significantly enhance the export creation effects of SMEs and LEs. Regarding the firm size-specific effects, we find that SMEs are less sensitive to exploiting RTA participation but more sensitive to the import market size, bilateral and relative trade costs, and the RTA characteristics. LEs’ export creation is mainly driven by the intensive margin, while SMEs’ export creation is driven by extensive and intensive margins (slightly more by the extensive margin). For the product-specific effects, we find that Korea's major exportable products such as chemicals, basic metals, motor vehicles, and transport equipment generate significantly strong export creation effects for both LEs and SMEs through their participation in RTAs.     

Measuring trade creation effects of free trade agreements: Evidence from wine trade in East Asia

East Asia has experienced an unprecedented expansion in its wine market over the past two decades. This paper examines the extent to which import tariff reductions through bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have contributed to an increase in wine imports to Japan, China, and South Korea. Our empirical method involves estimating an augmented version of the gravity equation by the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) technique. Analyzing a panel dataset for 1990–2016 covering 27 exporters, we find that overall a 1 percentage point reduction in tariff among FTA member countries is associated with an increase in the wine import volumes by 0.042%, which is seven times higher than a similar reduction in tariff on an MFN basis. The strongest trade creation effects are founded for bottle wine. The results are robust to various specifications.     

Have Asian trade agreements reduced trade costs?

Regionalization of trade in East Asia increased in the 1990s, and has been accompanied by a growing number of trade agreements. The wave of trade agreements is in part a response to the need to facilitate trade in order to make regional value chains more profitable. This paper draws on a rich Australian database for the period 1990–2007, which allows us to control for distance and commodity characteristics and to identify cross-country variation in trade costs. The results, indicating the extent to which East Asian countries’ trade costs have fallen over the regionalization period relative to changes in other regions’ trade costs, provide evidence of the existence of effective policy steps to facilitate trade and also that these steps have multilateral as well as bilateral or regional benefits.     

Intra-African trade

Review of World Economics - The intra-continental trade share in Africa is only 12%, compared to 47% in North America, 53% in Asia, and 69% in Europe. This paper shows that the lack of...     

广交会对我国外贸的影响因素分析

广交会是我国被公认的规模最大、效果最好、层次最高的综合性国际贸易盛会,作为中国会展业的突出代表,也非常充分地应证了会展业对我国经济的积极促进作用。本文首先通过对广交会的相关情况进行大量文献收集,经过科学的分析和思考,总结了广交会对我国国际贸易的三大影响因素。     

Technology advantage,terms of trade,and pattern of trade

We develop a two-country, two-sector model of trade, and assume that the differences between two countries are not only the diversities of human capital distributions but also relative production technologies. We find that, in addition to the diversity effect, both the terms of trade effect and the relative technology effect can also matter for the pattern of trade. We prove that, unlike previous results, if combination of the terms of trade effect and the relative technology effect dominates the diversity effect, then a country with more diverse human capital will export goods produced by supermodular technology.     

我国对外贸易步入摩擦多发期

我国对外贸易已步入贸易摩擦多发期,对此应高度重视、积极应对. 当前我国面临的对外贸易摩擦形势主要有以下几个突出特点:第一,贸易摩擦数量居高不下.以反倾销为例,1995年至2006年,我国连续12年成为全球遭受反倾销调查最多的国家.     

How important is intra-industry trade in trade growth?

Empirical work on intra-industry trade (IIT) is almost 30 years old. Initial research sought to identify if IIT was a significant share of total trade (TT). The Grubel-Lloyd (GL) index was widely used for this purpose. Interest has since shifted to the changing importance of IITover time. Using movements in the GL index to infer the importance of IIT over time is not only vague, but can be misleading. In this article, we measure the contributions of growth in net trade (NT) and IIT to the growth in TT. To understand changes in IIT over time, we also derive the contributions of imports and exports to the growth in TT, NT, and IIT. All our formulas are illustrated with data for 205 Australian manufacturing industries.     

Preferential trade agreements and their role in world trade

This paper investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade using a comprehensive data base of PTAs in force and a detailed matrix of world trade. Total trade between PTA partners is a poor proxy for preferential trade (trade in tariff lines where preferences are likely to matter): while the former was one-third of global trade in 2000–2002, the latter was between one-sixth and one-tenth. Gravity model estimates indicate that using total trade to assess the impacts of PTAs leads to a significant downward bias in the PTA coefficient: the semi-elasticity of trade with respect to PTA membership rises from 87% for total trade to 119% for preferential trade. Product exclusions and long phase-in periods significantly limit preferential trade; the marginal impact of South-South agreements on preferential trade is much higher than North-South PTAs, while the effect of North-North agreements is insignificantly different from zero.     

Intra-industry trade — An in-depth study of Swedish liquid pump trade

Intra-Industry Trade — An In-Depth Study of Swedish Liquid Pump Trade. - The issue of intra-industry trade is here investigated through an in-depth case study of Swedish trade in pumps. A questionnaire was made in order to give detailed information about the trade flows. The survey indicates that the share of “true” IIT in Sweden's centrifugal pump trade in 1990 was about 10 percent. This part of the apparent IIT could not be attributed to “categorical aggregation”. The survey revealed twelve different causes of IIT. A large share of IIT was due to re-exports (= vertical IIT). Behavioural and institutional factors were the main explanations of the non-re-exports IIT (= horizontal IIT).     

技术性贸易壁垒对我国国际技术贸易的影响分析

一、贸易技术壁垒概述1.贸易技术壁垒是以技术法规、标准、合格评定、认证等技术性的措施对外国出口至本国或本地区的产品进行限制的非关税壁垒随着关税壁垒的减弱,技术性贸易壁垒已经成为多边贸易中最隐蔽,最难对付的一种非关税壁垒,构成当今国际国际贸易中最棘手的问题之一。     

中国——东盟自由贸易区服务贸易紧急保障措施刍议

中国—东盟自由贸易区《服务贸易协议》紧急保障措施制度是我国与东盟国家在服务贸易领域立法的一次重要突破,但其行文过于简单,缺乏可操作性,在分析中国—东盟自由贸易区服务贸易紧急保障措施立法的成就与不足的基础上提出完善该制度的一些设想。     

Aid and trade

This paper surveys the recent theoretical and empirical literaturethat explores the relations between aid and trade and asks aboutthe complementarity or substitution effects at work. We distinguishbetween the effects of aid on trade flows and on trade policies,of the donor as well as the recipient countries. Special focusis given on trade facilitation, or ‘aid for trade’.     

我国对外贸易战略的适时转型

长期以来,我国实施"出口导向"的对外贸易战略,这一战略是受重商主义思想影响的"重出口而轻进口"的战略。文章通过对进口的再认识、对我国现阶段贸易平衡状况的判断、以及对出口导向政策带来的问题的分析,提出了在目前我国外汇储备非常充裕,甚至过剩,综合国力大大增强的新形势下,应当适时调整我国的对外贸易战略,由传统的出口导向、重出口轻进口,转为进、出口并重,并着力解决进出口中存在的一些深层次问题,实现外贸的可持续发展