Picking cherries or lemons: A unified theory of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions

This article provides a theoretical framework that enhances understanding of empirical evidence suggesting that international mergers and acquisitions, a key source of foreign direct investment, seemingly target in‐country firms that are at the extremes of the productivity spectrum—either high‐productivity firms, so‐called cherries, or low‐productivity firms, the “lemons.” The framework demonstrates that foreign firms with intermediate inputs seek high‐productivity domestic firms, while foreign firms with managerial expertise seek low‐productivity domestic firms. We also show that because of the difference in available outside options, high‐productivity domestic firms can demand a significantly higher portion of profits in the partnership than low‐productivity domestic firms.     

Do U.S. citizens support government intervention in agriculture? Implications for the political economy of agricultural protection

The persistence of agricultural protectionism throughout the world is intriguing given the widely recognized benefits of free trade. The political economy literature over the last decades has considered groups’ interest, politicians’ preferences, and their interactions within domestic politics as the primary forces driving agricultural protection. Yet, a growing body of studies suggests that it would be judicious to weigh in consumers’ or taxpayers’ perspectives in deciphering the nature of agricultural protection. This study examines U.S. citizens’ preferences about government intervention in agriculture and trade. Results show that they are in strong support of agricultural protection and their perceptions of national food security, family farms, environmental sustainability, and multifunctionality of agriculture play a significant role in shaping their support/opposition toward government intervention. The conventional political economy literature theorizes that consumers or taxpayers would oppose public policies that increase their tax burden; however, in the case of the farm sector, they have little incentive to voice their objections given the costs of farm programs are spread across a large number of consumers and taxpayers. U.S. citizens’ support for government involvement in agriculture as reported in this and other prior studies does not lend support for such political economy explanation.     

Microdata analysis of the consequences of free trade port policy: the case of Iran free zones

ABSTRACT

Creating free trade zones as a policy to motivate new investment and improve the local economic indicators might be of some benefits. Following of this policy in Iranian major port, however, resulted vice versa by aggravating the current account balance that is higher imports and the same horizon diminished export sums. We derive the micro data of trade for the Iranian major Imam port according to code arrangements of harmonic system (HS), which permits the clustering of different goods categories. Then we extracted the sums of survey data for the years before and after Imam port became free trade zone and applied fixed effect difference in difference (DID) method to capture the heterogeneity of unobserved variables. Our control port of analysis was Rajaee port the policy did not implemented. Results show that just as Imam free port’s Current Account Balance deteriorated by increasing import and dampening of export sums.     

The exceptional performance of exporters and labour market outcomes: evidence from Egyptian firms

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the manufacturing export market in Egypt after the Arab Spring using a novel firm-level census dataset from 2013. Export is very rare in Egypt. The conventional export premia are very high, except for total factor productivity. Exporters have stark effects on labour market outcomes, including wages, employment, demand for skilled and female workers, wage inequality, and job security. These findings have two important implications: (1) Manufacturing exports might be monopolized by large firms, and (2) promoting exports could improve labour market outcomes, especially for skilled and female workers.     

Gender,Decent Work,and Global Production Sharing in Indonesian Manufacturing

Abstract:

Global commodity chains reflect and affect gendered labor markets. This article uses the Decent Work framework from the International Labour Organization to analyze employment outcomes for Indonesian workers in manufacturing. This research investigates trends in feminized manufacturing sectors in variously sized firms. Regression analyses is used to evaluate how firm characteristics related to global production sharing effect decent work outcomes for women and men, as well as female share of employment itself. The results suggest that exports and FDI affect men and women differently and that feminization and decent work outcomes depend on how the sector is positioned along the global value chain.     

自贸区背景下海南现代物流与对外贸易耦合量化研究

从“海南自贸区(港)建设”战略、链接国家“一带一路”倡议视角出发,建立海南现代物流与对外贸易指标评估体系,根据协调发展度模型对海南2009-2018年现代物流和对外贸易发展的协调性进行测评。结果显示:海南现代物流综合发展指数高于对外贸易综合发展指数,海南对外贸易发展滞后于现代物流发展;海南现代物流与对外贸易发展逐渐呈协调发展趋势,二者协调发展水平不断提高。在此基础上提出强化国际物流协同建设、拓展对外贸易新业态与新模式等促进海南现代物流与对外贸易协调发展的建议。     

Bertrand versus Cournot competition in a downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

Focusing on foreign ownership in the private firm, we examine the Cournot-Bertrand comparison in a mixed oligopolistic market with vertical market structure. We have found that if public and private firms were charged with uniform price for their inputs, then Cournot-Bertrand ranking in market outcomes confirms those obtained by Ghosh and Mitra (2010). This implies that under uniform pricing in the upstream sector, the vertical market structure does not have substantial influences on Cournot-Bertrand ranking. However, if discriminatory pricing is adopted, firm's profits, output, and social welfare are often reversed to those obtained from uniform pricing in the upstream sector. Given the closeness of products, if the share of foreign ownership is sufficiently low, social welfare in Cournot competition can exceed that of Bertrand competition, contrasting with the standard welfare ranking that Bertrand welfare is strictly higher than Cournot. This implies that Cournot competition can be more socially desirable than Bertrand in mixed oligopoly with vertical market structure if discriminatory pricing scheme is adopted by foreign upstream monopolists.     

Trade uncertainties and the hedging abilities of Bitcoin

In this paper, we first estimate the monthly realised correlation, based on daily data, between stock returns of the United States (US) and Bitcoin returns. Then, we relate the realised correlation over the period October 2011 to May 2019 with a news-based measure of the growth of trade uncertainty of the US. Our results show that the realised correlation is negatively impacted by increases in trade uncertainty, which continues to hold under alternative robustness checks, suggesting that Bitcoin can act as a hedge relative to the conventional stock market in the wake of heightened trade policy-related uncertainties, and provide diversification benefits for investors.     

Inequality,public good provision and the composition of trade

This paper investigates the effect of trade liberalization on the provision of public goods and shows that inequality also plays a vital role here. Public goods help enhance the productivity of firms, lower prices and raise profitability. The provision of public goods has different effects in closed and open economies. In an open economy, the impact of productive spending on increasing profit is stronger. Consequently, the opening up of the economy shifts the benefits of productive public goods from consumers to firms. As the median voters’, share of the firm’s profit rises, public goods become more appealing and flourish. Consequently, the manufacturing export is boosted by a rise in productivity.     

Institutional distance and Turkey’s outward foreign direct investment

This study empirically examines the relation between institutional distance (ID) and Turkey’s outward foreign direct investment (TODI). The empirical results use panel data from 2002 to 2016 to show that TODI is attracted to countries with better institutional quality. We also find that host country political stability, government effectiveness, control of corruption, and rule of law attract TODI. We also document that TODI is positively related to cultural distance (CD) and ID is not moderated by CD.