Currency Options and Export-Flexible Firms

This paper examines the production and hedging decisions of a globally competitive firm under exchange rate uncertainty. The firm is risk averse and possesses export flexibility in that it can distribute its output to either the domestic market or a foreign market after observing the realized spot exchange rate. To hedge against its exchange rate risk exposure, the firm can trade fairly priced currency call options of an arbitrary strike price. We show that both the separation and the full‐hedging results hold if the strike price of the currency call options is set equal to the ratio of the domestic and foreign selling prices. Otherwise, neither result holds. Specifically, we show that the optimal level of output is always less than that of an otherwise identical firm that is risk neutral. Furthermore, an under‐hedge (over‐hedge) is optimal whenever the strike price of the currency call options is below (above) the ratio of the domestic and foreign selling prices.     

Export Variety,Revenue, and Productivity in China

In this paper I argue through empirical testing that it is the underlying export variety that helps to explain the strong correlation between China's provincial export revenue and productivity. The empirical model maps export varieties into provincial GDP functions with multiple sectors by price index theory. By employing panel data that covers all 31 executive districts of mainland China from 1998 to 2005, I find that export varieties, via export revenue, significantly affect productivity: it accounts for 44.1% of interprovincial TFP differences and 36.6% of within‐province TFP growth; a 10% increase in export variety leads to a 1.4% productivity growth in China.     

企业生产率、国外市场知识与企业出口额

本文运用企业异质性贸易理论,利用分行业上市企业的面板数据,将企业规模作为控制变量,研究了企业生产率、国外市场知识与中国企业出口额的关系。结果显示:企业生产率和国外市场知识对企业出口额的影响显著为正,影响效果存在行业差异;作为控制变量的企业规模,对企业出口额的影响存在不确定性,或正向相关或负向相关或呈U形关系。     

THE POTENTIAL FOR SHORT‐RUN SHIFTING OF A CORPORATE PROFITS TAX

Can the owners of a firm shift a corporate profits tax to consumers? Not in the short run if the tax is stated as a proportion of profits and the firm is a profit maximizer. But what if the firm wishes to pursue a strategy other than profit maximization, say revenue maximization subject to a profit constraint? Under such a condition the firm's reaction to a tax or tax increase might be a price rise that captures part of the foregone profits. We show that firms which operate at a point on their demand curve that differs from profit maximization have an incentive to raise price in response to the tax – and that high cost firms have a greater incentive to raise price than do low cost firms. Our empirical analysis of the US beer industry confirms this finding, and sheds light on the Krzyzaniak–Musgrave analysis of the 1960s which suggested that the corporation income tax produced significant short‐run shifting.     

多种要素扭曲是否推动了中国企业出口

本文使用1999-2007年工业企业数据样本分析了包括资本、劳动及中间品在内的要素市场相对扭曲程度,并考察其是否能解释中国企业出口的独特成本优势。结论认为：中国制造业企业存在严重要素价格扭曲,不同要素的价格扭曲程度差异化较大。劳动力价格扭曲现象普遍存在,经济发展以牺牲劳动力价格市场化为代价。国有企业比重较大的行业资本价格相对较低,而私营企业比重较大的行业则资金成本较高。能源、原材料相关行业以及外资企业比重较大的行业中间品价格偏低;经过实证检验,要素市场扭曲的确对企业出口倾向起到推动作用,企业将获得的成本优势转化为出口优势,这表明低廉的要素价格是中国产品在国际市场中具有竞争力的重要原因。     

THE REVENUE‐SHARING RULE FOR INTERCONNECTION CHARGES*

In this paper we explore the economic principle behind the revenue‐sharing rule for interconnection charges. Our main finding is that symmetric firms can collude by splitting the revenues equally. We further characterize the optimal revenue‐sharing ratio and discuss the relationship between optimal ratio and the optimal access price. We also show that the revenue‐sharing rule can have the perverse effect of inducing a firm to raise its own costs in order to gain a higher share of revenues.     

On the relationship between intermediate input imports and export quality in China

This paper studies the connection between intermediate input imports and firms’ export quality using firm‐level data from 2000 to 2007. Our regression results show that intermediate input imports promote manufacturing firms’ export quality through ‘variety effects’ and ‘innovation effects’, though the effects are significantly different among firms with different characteristics, and the magnitude of these effects differs across import sources and the quality of imported intermediate inputs themselves. Moreover, we find that a good institutional environment is conducive to the strengthening of the positive influence of intermediate input imports on export quality. Furthermore, the dynamic decomposition demonstrates that the reallocation effect is the key force through which imported inputs boost industrial aggregate quality growth. Taken together, these results suggest that product upgrading facilitated by quality embedded in imported intermediate inputs, a good institutional environment and market share reallocation help Chinese firms to improve the quality of their export products.     

创新与出口间因果关系分析——基于中国高技术产业企业数据的实证研究

使用1999—2009年我国18万家规模以上高技术产业微观企业数据,采用倾向得分匹配方法控制内生性问题,分析了企业创新与出口之间的因果关系。以产品创新衡量企业创新的估计结果表明,企业创新与出口间存在明显的因果关系:企业创新使其出口概率平均增加14%以上,企业出口使企业创新概率平均提升超过8%,从创新到出口、从出口到创新的因果关系方向均显著。区分出口强度和企业类型的估计结果显示:这种因果关系随着出口强度的增大而减弱;内资企业的创新对其出口的影响要大于外资企业;外资企业的出口对其创新的影响要大于内资企业。以研发衡量企业创新后也得到了类似结果。     

The effects of oil shocks on government expenditures and government revenues nexus (with an application to Iran's sanctions)

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationship between government revenues and government expenditures in Iran as a developing oil export based economy. Moreover, I want to know how oil price (revenue) shocks can affect this relationship. The results of the impulse response functions and variance decomposition analysis indicate that the contribution of oil revenue shocks in explaining the government expenditures is stronger than the contribution of oil price shocks. Moreover the results of the vector autoregression (VAR) and vector error correction (VEC) models show that the strong causality is running from government revenues to government expenditures (both current and capital) in Iranian economy while the evidence for the reverse causality is very weak. Overall the results support the revenue–spending hypothesis for Iran. My results imply that those sanctions aiming to restrict the Iranian government's oil export revenues, potentially can affect the government total expenditures as an important engine for developing the Iranian economy.     

基于VAR模型的我国农产品出口与农民收入的关系研究

基于VAR模型,采用1981-2007年我国年度数据,利用协整分析方法、脉冲响应函数和方差分解方法,对我国农产品出口与农民收入之间的关系进行了实证分析。结果表明:在长期内,我国农产品出口每增长1%将使农民收入增长0.6950%;在短期内,我国农产品出口对农民收入的影响不显著。脉冲响应和方差分解的结果表明:我国农产品出口对农民收入的冲击存在正向作用和递增趋势。因此,相对稳定的农产品出口政策有利于农民收入增长。     

EXPORT AND HEDGING DECISIONS UNDER CORRELATED REVENUE AND EXCHANGE RATE RISK

This paper examines the behaviour of a competitive exporting firm under joint revenue and exchange rate risk. The firm can trade unbiased currency futures contracts for hedging purposes. We show that neither the separation theorem nor the full‐hedging theorem holds when the revenue shock prevails. If the correlation between the revenue shock and the random spot exchange rate is non‐positive, the firm optimally produces less than the benchmark level when the revenue shock is absent. If, in addition, the firm is prudent, the optimal futures position is an under‐hedge. Finally, we derive sufficient conditions under which the firm's optimal output level is higher in the presence than in the absence of the revenue shock. Operational hedging and financial hedging as such interact in a complicated way to better cope with the multiple sources of uncertainty faced by the firm.     

Markups of Exporters and Importers: Evidence from Hungary

In this paper, we study the relationship between different proxies of firm‐level markups and trade status, using balance sheet information linked to detailed trade data from Hungary between 1995 and 2003. We find that importing is strongly positively correlated with markup measures, both across and within firms. We argue that this correlation can reflect three channels: self‐selection, higher physical productivity resulting from access to a larger variety of inputs, and quality upgrading based on high‐quality imported intermediate inputs. We present evidence for the relevance of the third channel by showing that importers’ markup premium is higher when inputs arrive from developed countries, and that importing is correlated with higher‐quality (price‐adjusted revenue) exports. We find no robust evidence for exporter premium when controlling for importing. We argue that the non‐existent exporter premium might result from the stronger competition in export markets relative to domestic markets.     

Exporting and labour demand: Micro‐level evidence from Germany

It is widely believed that globalization increases the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. In this paper, we investigate the effect of firms’ exporting activities on the wage elasticity of labour demand. Using rich, administrative linked employer–employee panel data from Germany and destination‐specific industry‐level information on trade flows, we explicitly control for self‐selection into exporting and endogeneity concerns. Overall, we find that exporting has a significant positive effect on the (absolute value of the) unconditional wage elasticity of labour demand. In line with our hypothesis, we further show that the effect is particularly strong for those plants that export a significant share of their output to low‐ and medium‐income countries, hence face relatively more price‐elastic product demand.     

A NOTE ON FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND EXPORTS IN VERTICALLY DIFFERENTIATED INDUSTRIES

We examine the FDI versus exports decision of a multiproduct multinational firm which supplies vertically differentiated products, and show that the proximity‐concentration trade‐off can generate FDI‐export coexistence, i.e., the firm supplies the low‐quality products through FDI and the high‐quality products through exports. We also show that the opposite can never happen. Moreover, when the multiproduct multinational firm faces price competition in the target markets, it has an incentive to use trade costs to soften price competition, which can reduce its FDI incentive.     

Export Competition between Landlocked and Coastal Countries: An Analysis of Strategic Export Policies

This paper analyzes economic rivalry between two firms using an international Cournot duopoly model, where a firm from a landlocked country (LC) and a firm from a coastal country (CC) compete in a third‐country market. It is assumed that the landlocked country firm adopts a transport‐cost reducing R&D subsidized by its government, while the CC government imposes a toll fee on the LC firm. The findings show since a change in the LC's transport‐cost reducing R&D subsidy has a positive effect on its export and a negative effect on the CC's export, both measures have effective strategic export policies.     

Effect of the global financial meltdown on India’s aggregate export volumes

ABSTRACT

This paper sets up a demand-supply model to analyse India’s export performance (in terms of volumes rather than values) between 2000Q1–2014Q4. The main objective is to determine the impact of the financial meltdown of 2008 on India’s export performance. During the meltdown period, decline in price by India’s competitors in the international market resulted in (1) loss of competitiveness of India’s export goods and (2) a complete breakdown of the price mechanism affecting India’s export demand. Though export supply was not significantly affected by the meltdown episode we find evidence that exporting firms turned towards the domestic market to cope with the loss in export. The meltdown episode began to significantly affect India’s export demand and supply equations from 2009Q3. The demand and supply equations after that period became so unstable that ‘nothing worked’ for India’s exporters as they tried to counter the decline in export. Hence there was ample reason for them to panic and seek the government’s help. Government policies aimed at boosting export demand did have a positive impact on India’s export performance. Government policies to boost export supply had no impact except being palliative for the exporters at their moment of crisis     

Agglomeration and Firm Export

Using Chinese manufacturing data between 1998 and 2007, this paper investigates the impact of agglomeration on firm’s export behavior. It is found that the agglomeration of manufacturing industries in China over this period increases firm’s export probability as well as its export volume, and the impact is larger for more efficient firms. However, the impact on firm’s export volume depends on the degree of agglomeration. When the degree of agglomeration is low, an increase in agglomeration would expand firm’s export volume but the impact will be diminishing and even turns negative if the degree of agglomeration is already very high.     

对外贸易、进出口商品结构与我国城乡收入差距

笔者利用1978年～2008年期间的数据,对我国对外贸易和进出口商品结构对城乡收入差距的影响进行了实证研究。研究结果表明:对外贸易是影响我国城乡收入差距的重要因素;对外贸易总额、进口和出口对我国城乡收入差距的影响都表现为倒U型,符合库兹涅兹假说。目前,对外贸易总额、进口、出口与我国城乡收入差距的关系都表现为正相关,处于拐点之前;综合考虑直接影响和间接影响,出口商品结构优化缩小城乡收入差距的作用小于进口商品结构优化拉大城乡收入差距的作用,进出口商品结构优化的总效应表现为拉大城乡收入差距。因此,我国应该继续大力发展对外贸易,扩大进出口贸易规模,优化出口商品结构,以期实现对外贸易缩小城乡收入差距的新局面。     

中国进出口价格弹性研究

本文通过建立中国进出口弹性模型和行业计量经济模型,测算和研究了中国进出口弹性问题.主要研究结论是:第一,中国中长期出口价格弹性和进口价格弹性分别为-0.8579和-1.0774;第二,中国大部分行业的出口价格弹性小于1,特别是农业、石油及天然气开采业、纺织业、化学工业、仪器仪表及文化办公用机械制造业以及社会服务业价格弹性绝对值都在0.5左右.适当提高价格对增加这些部门的收入是有利的;第三,中国大部分行业进口需求价格弹性小于或接近于1;石油及天然气开采业的进口价格需求弹性为异常值,为 1.3148,说明:对于原油这样的战略性物资应该反市场操作,中东出现安全时价低时吃进以为战略储备,而出现危机时抛出以平抑国内原油市场价格的加速上扬.     

基于ADL与ECM模型的出口供给弹性分析

以中国2005年7月到2010年6月间的数据为依托,基于动态模型实证对中国出口供给是否具有无限价格弹性进行研究后发现:中国出口供给的长期价格弹性为1.85;出口价格、产出能力、国内价格水平以及生产成本对出口供给的影响均存在滞后效应,其中产出能力对出口供给的影响最大。