The role of price and nonprice factors in predicting Australia's trade performance

This article investigates the role of price and nonprice factors in predicting Australia's trade performance. Results broadly suggest that Australia's trade performance is largely explained by the nonprice factors namely, R&D, reliability of domestic supply, aggregate world demand and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows in long run. Price factors such as, relative price of Australian exports and domestic prices are also important predictors of trade competitiveness. The policy implications of these findings are that there are dividends in terms of improved trade performance by encouraging R&D expenditure, attracting FDI, improving domestic supply and implementing appropriate policies to improve price competitiveness.     

Exchange rate volatility and export growth in Nigeria

This article examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on Nigeria's exports to its most important trading-partner–the United States over the quarterly period January 1980 to April 2001. Using cointegration and vector error correction (VECM) framework, empirical tests indicate the presence of a unique cointegrating vector linking real exports, real foreign income, relative export prices and real exchange rate volatility in the long run. Furthermore, the results show that increases in the volatility of the real exchange rate raise uncertainty about profits to be made which exert significant negative effects on exports both in the short- and long-run. Our results also show that improvements in the terms of trade (represented by declines in the real exchange rate) and real foreign income exert positive effects on export activity. Most importantly, we found that the trade liberalization and economic reform policies implemented in the post-1986 structural adjustment period contributed to Nigeria's export performance. Overall, our findings suggest that Nigeria's exporting activities can be further boosted by policies aimed at achieving and maintaining a stable competitive real exchange rate.     

Long–run price and income elasticities of demand for Hong Kong exports: a structural cointegrating VAR approach

This article revisits a system of export volume and price equations to estimate the long–run price and income effects in the demand for Hong Kong's exports. Using a recently developed restricted cointegrating VAR approach it tests theorybased restrictions and obtains estimates of the long–run structural coefficients. The estimation results provide supporting evidence for the theory–based restrictions and suggest that the demand for Hong Kong's exports is both price and income elastic. This article is therefore able to present a long–run model of Hong Kong's exports that is both theory and data consistent, and long–run elasticities that are economically interpretable. The short–run properties of the model are illustrated by means of persistence profiles, which confirm the cointegrating vectors tendency of convergence.     

Revisiting Exports and Foreign Direct Investment in Vietnam

Since 1986, Vietnam has undertaken various reform measures in the trade and foreign investment area. This paper finds significant contributions of world trade, and competitiveness and liberalization effects to Vietnam's export growth over the period 1997–2008. Vietnam's exports became more competitive and better complemented the import demand of Vietnam's trade partners. In addition, dynamic comparative advantage became evident in many products, but significant room remains for improving export competitiveness. Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows also increased and helped stimulate Vietnam's exports. FDI inflows have increased in both the short‐ and long‐term, yet are only of a limited magnitude. This necessitates more effective measures to enhance the linkages between FDI and domestic enterprises.     

The quality and variety of exports from the new EU member states

The goal of this article is to evaluate the variety and quality of exports from the new EU member states (NMSs) in the period 1999–2009. The practical relevance of such an analysis is threefold: recent studies underline the importance of export variety for economic growth; empirical results show that export variety was influenced by the EU membership; and looking separately at export quality permits a better understanding of price competitiveness. Our results show that all NMSs significantly increased the average number of brands exported to the EU market, the largest increases being observed in 2004 and after. This indicates that integration into the EU market occurs in the extensive as well as the intensive dimension. We also find that all NMSs increased the average quality of their exports during the decade studied although there are differences between countries. Thus, a large part of the increase in the prices of exports from NMSs resulted from improving quality and did not result in a loss of competitiveness. Finally, estimates of relative quality are much more stable than relative prices, suggesting that our measure of relative quality is better than the traditional proxy.     

Growth and dynamics of Australia's education exports

Australia is the third largest global exporter of education services and generated $18.6 billion in 2009–2010. The education sector ranks as the top services exports and number three of all export earners in recent years after coal and iron ore. This study analyses the major determinants of Australia's education exports. Using the Johansen cointegration technique, a stable long run relationship is found between education export earnings, real exchange rate, world income and terms of trade. It is also found that policy reforms relating to opening up the education sector from the mid 1980s had a positive growth effect on the sector.     

An Empirical Analysis of Short-run and Long-run Irish Export Functions: Does exchange rate volatility matter?

We analyse the long-run and short-run relationship between merchandise export volume and its determinants, foreign income, relative prices and exchange rate volatility, using the techniques of cointegration and error correction. The model was estimated for Irish exports and sectoral exports SITC 0-4 and SITC 5-8 to the EU using quarterly data for the period 1978-1998. The sectoral classification corresponds to the exports of mainly indigenous Irish firms and multinationals, respectively. We find that the exchange rate volatility has no effect on the volume of trade in the short-run but a significant positive effect in the long run. This is true in the aggregate and for our sectoral classifications. We can tentatively conclude that the decline in intra-EU exchange rate volatility associated with the single currency will lead to a long-run fall in Irish exports to the EU.     

ESTIMATING IMPORT AND EXPORT DEMAND ELASTICITIES FOR MAURITIUS AND SOUTH AFRICA

In this paper, we re‐estimate the import and the export demand functions for Mauritius and South Africa using time series data. We use the bounds tests for cointegration and find evidence of a long‐run relationship between import demand, income and prices for both countries. Our long run elasticities reveal that domestic income and relative prices have significant effects on the import demand for both countries, with income being the most important determinant. Furthermore, we find that while South Africa's export demand is not responsive to relative prices or income; for Mauritius income is statistically significant.     

Impact of oil price changes on Turkey’s exports

Substantial decline in oil prices observed since the second half of 2014 has brought forward discussions on the impact of oil prices on the external balance. This decline is expected to shift real income from oil exporter countries to oil importer countries. In this context, we study the effect of change in oil prices on Turkey’s exports taking into account the fact that Turkey’s export to oil exporting countries has approximately one-third share in total exports, while export to oil importing countries has a share of two-thirds. At the first step, we analyse the effect of oil prices on economic growth of trade partners of Turkey, where countries are grouped according to their net oil export position. We find that the effect of oil prices on different country groups’ growth is asymmetric. In the second stage, for two groups of countries, we estimate growth-export elasticity through Turkey’s export demand function. Finally, we calculate the net effect of oil prices on exports considering different income effects caused by oil price change on each country groups. Results indicate that the net effect of oil prices on the exports is limited given the current export shares.     

The Impact of Chinese Exports on Global Import Prices*

This paper evaluates the evidence bearing on the question of whether China's buoyant export growth has led to significant changes in the import prices, and thus inflation performance, of its trading partners. This evidence suggests that the impact of Chinese exports on global import prices has been, while non‐ negligible, fairly modest. We identify a statistically significant effect of US imports from China on US import prices, but given the size of this effect and the relatively low share of imports in US GDP, the ultimate impact on US consumer prices has likely been quite small. Moreover, imports from China had little apparent effect on US producer prices. Finally, using a multi‐country database of trade transactions, we estimate that, since 1993, Chinese exports lowered annual import inflation in a large set of economies by 0.25 percentage point or less on average.     

The response of the US export prices to changes in the dollar's effective exchange rate: further evidence from industry level data

The relationship between the dollar's effective exchange rate and the export price indexes for 13 two-digit US manufacturing industries is analysed to determine (i) which industry adjusts its dollar export price to dampen or amplify the effect of the exchange rate fluctuations on the foreign-currency price of its exports and (ii) whether the response of the export price index to appreciation and depreciation of the exchange rate is asymmetric. For several industries, evidence consistent with dampening the foreign-currency price of exports in an asymmetric fashion is found. The implications of the results for the price competitiveness of the industries studied is discussed.     

人民币汇率问题:升值及其成本—收益分析

在回顾改革开放以来人民币汇率变动的基础上,本文首先讨论了汇率升值的短期压力和长期压力,前者源自内外经济失衡和双顺差的持续,后者由于劳动生产率的提高和经济竞争力的增强,认为目前宏观经济失衡主要表现为实体经济和货币经济的两个双向循环和双向依赖;测度了中国的外商直接投资函数和进出口函数及其汇率弹性,估算了不同幅度汇率升值的成本,主要包括引进外资和出口贸易减少的数量,以及由此带来的GDP和就业人数减少的规模,发现三个季度后,升值的影响下降一半以上,七个季度以后,升值的影响近于消失。并据以对可选择的升值幅度和操作方式提出了政策建议     

AUSTRALIAN COMMODITY EXPORT PASS-THROUGH AND FEEDBACK CAUSALITY FROM COMMODITY PRICES TO THE EXCHANGE RATE

Commodity export pass-through is examined for Australia in an attempt to determine whether Australia is a price-taker in its commodity export trade. This is undertaken for seven categories of Australia's main commodity good exports. We also determine if there is feedback causality from particular world commodity prices back to the exchange rate as is often hypothesised for commodity good intensive exporting countries. It is found that Australian commodity good export pass-through is complete for the goods which are relatively less important in its export trade but is incomplete (although high) for the goods which are most important in its export trade. There is significant feedback causality to the exchange rate from the world price of coal and wheat, two of Australia's most important commodity good exports over the 1980s and early 1990s.     

ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL RESERVE HOARDING IN KOREA

Since the Asian financial crisis, Korea's accumulation of international reserves has substantially exceeded benchmark levels. The present paper examines the interaction between international reserve hoarding and mercantilist motives, in the context of Korea's policy of maintaining export competitiveness through exchange rate management. An estimation of cointegration and error correction has found that in both the long term and the short term, Korea has stockpiled reserves as a result of heightened concerns regarding export competitiveness. The short‐run dynamics entail precautionary motives that have contributed to reserve accumulation. A variance decomposition test suggests that the mercantilist motive has been the main driver of reserve accumulation.     

Hidden costs of supply management in a small market

Canada regulates its dairy and poultry industries through supply management. The supply‐management programs use target prices, production quotas and import tariff‐rate quotas to raise domestic prices. Canadian supply‐managed producers cannot export their output to world markets as exports would be considered subsidized under World Trade Organization rules. In this paper, we show that once foregone export opportunities are accounted for, supply management may no longer be beneficial to domestic producers of the supply‐managed commodities. The extent to which foregone profits from exports dominate domestic rents depends on Canada's comparative advantage, domestic market elasticities and the extent of supply management distortion in the domestic market.     

Exchange Rate Passthrough to Export Prices: Assessing Cross‐Country Evidence*

A growing empirical literature reports evidence of a decline in exchange rate passthrough to import prices in a number of industrial countries. Our paper complements this literature by examining passthrough from the other side of the transaction; that is, we assess the exchange rate sensitivity of export prices (denominated in the exporter's currency). We find that the prices charged on exports to the United States are more responsive to the exchange rate than are export prices to other destinations, which is consistent with results in the literature that import price passthrough in the US market is relatively low. In addition, the exchange rate sensitivity of export prices over time has been significantly affected by country‐ and region‐specific factors, including the Asian financial crisis (for emerging Asia), deepening integration with the United States (for Canada), and the effects of the 1992 ERM crisis (for the United Kingdom).     

Export Performance of China: A Constant Market Share Analysis

In the light of the fact that there has been substantial growth in China's exports in last three decades, particularly after China joined the WTO in 2001, this article investigates the major sources of China's export performance during 2002-2014 by using the constant market share (CMS) model. In this study, exports are further decomposed in three categories based on their technological intensity using Lail (2000) classification on 3 digit SITC Revision-3 data provided by UN Comtrade via WITS database. The categories are high technology, medium technology and low technology. It is found that growth of China's exports has, moreover, remained above world exports growth in all three categories during the period of study. The analysis reveals that export performance is mainly attributed to 让s competitive strength in the global market, though decreasing trend has been observed in the competitiveness of all three categories. Increasing cost of labor and appreciating RMB could be the causes behind decreasing competitiveness of Chinese exports. Product structure effect, on an average, has turned out to be negative in all the categories which is the most disturbing aspect of China's export performance. On the other hand, geographical structure effect has positive impact on export performance of high-technology based exports whereas it has negative impact on export performance of low-technology and medium-technology based exports. China being the world's largest exporter, decreasing competitiveness and wrong product structure effect could adversely influence its export performance in particular and its growth in general.     

浅论人民币升值与贸易失衡

近年来,随着WTO进程的不断深化,我国的经济飞速的发展。但在发展中也存在着问题与压力,如在全球化经济失衡的大背景下,一些以美国为首的发达国家一再要求对人民币进行升值,2010年6月底,人民币汇率首次突破了6.8大关,这将使我国的出口商品价格上涨,大大的影响我国出口商品的竞争力,也将降低我国的出口贸易额。因此,本文对人民币升值与贸易失衡加以探讨,以期对我国的经济管理起到一点帮助作用。     

论环境成本内部化约束下出口商品竞争力的提高

环境成本内部化在短期内对企业出口竞争力具有负面影响,但是环境成本内部化可以成为企业转变竞争战略、改善管理和公众形象的契机,在长期内有利于其国际竞争力的提高。本文从企业角度提出了一些在环境成本内部化约束下如何提高出口竞争力的措施。     

Pricing in International Markets: a "Small-country" Benchmark

The paper studies export pricing to market (PTM) in a “small‐country” context using a panel of disaggregated exports from Hong Kong since 1992. Conventional wisdom is that PTM is commonplace—except for US exports. This study provides a benchmark by which to interpret the puzzling behavior of US export prices. Empirically, Hong Kong's export price behavior is comparable to that of the US. This similarity reinforces the idea that PTM behavior is also a function of home market conditions and the ability to price discriminate across markets. There is little evidence of differences in PTM across Hong Kong's export destinations.