International migration versus foreign investment in the presence of unemployment

"This paper extends the standard (two-factor, one-good) model of international factor movements, to include unemployment due to a minimum-income guarantee within the capital-abundant country. From this country's perspective, we establish important departures from previous (full-employment) results. Most notably, our analysis shows that: (1) free factor mobility is worse than no mobility; (2) the optimal degree of labour migration is zero; and (3) national welfare can always be maximized by an optimal flow of capital. The analysis is then extended to examine: (1) illegal migration; (2) subsidization of employment; and (3) alternative views of unemployment."     

Productivity performance and international competitiveness: an old test reconsidered

A modern adaptation of the Ricardian model is used, which incorporates monopolistic competition and multiple factors to derive a MacDougall-type relation between a country's international competitiveness at the industry level and its productivity performance. This relation is implemented empirically for Canada and the United States, using panel data for twenty-five years and forty industries. A key finding is that the Canadian-U.S. productivity ratio is an important determinant of relative shares of Canadian firms in both Canadian and U.S. markets. Trade liberalization between Canada and the United States also plays a significant role in influencing market shares. JEL Classification: F11, F12
Niveau de productivité et compétitivité internationale : un autre coup d'œil à un vieux test . Ce mémoire utilise une adaptation moderne du modèle ricardien qui postule concurrence monopolistique et plusieurs facteurs pour dériver une relation à la MacDougall entre la compétitivité internationale d'un pays au niveau de l'industrie et son niveau de productivité. On calibre cette relation pour le Canada et les États-Unis en utilisant des données pour quarantes industries sur une période de vingt-cinq ans. Un résultat important est que le ratio de la productivité entre le Canada et les États-Unis est un déterminant important des parts de marché des firmes canadiennes tant au Canada qu'aux États-Unis. La libéralisation du commerce entre les deux pays joue aussi un rôle important dans la définition de ces parts de marché.     

Absolute and Comparative Advantage, Reconsidered: The Pattern of International Trade with Optimal Saving

The paper obtains new results about absolute and comparative advantage, by introducing international technological differences into the three–sector Findlay–Komiya and two–sector Oniki–Uzawa–Stiglitz models of open–economy growth with optimal saving. For example, if a country has the same Hicks–neutral advantage in all industries, it exports the capital–intensive tradable, even though the technological advantage is only absolute rather than comparative. Alternatively, even a small comparative advantage in some good is sufficient for the advanced country to export this product, regardless of relative factor supplies. In either case, the fundamental reason for trade is technological superiority rather than factor abundance.     

Unemployment and Growth in the Long Run: an Efficiency‐Wage Model With Optimal Savings*

An efficiency‐wage model of steady‐state equilibrium with labor‐augmenting technical progress is developed to explore the long‐run relationship between unemployment and growth. The rate of productivity growth is either specified exogenously or determined endogenously. In both cases, we preserve key results of the Shapiro–Stiglitz efficiency‐wage analysis without growth. Our model, however, also yields some striking new results. For instance, an exogenous increase in the growth rate may raise the rate of efficiency‐wage unemployment, and a once‐for‐all rise in the labor force may reduce the unemployment rate in the endogenous‐growth case.     

The transmission of inflation in a small economy: an empirical analysis of the influence of US monetary disturbances on Canadian inflation, 1962–1980

The paper examines the transmission of inflation in Canada during 1962–1980 using an empirical methodology which is very flexible in determining the direction of casuality and the shape of distributed lag effects. The paper finds that US monetary growth exerted an important effect on Canadian inflation during both fixed and flexible exchange-rate periods. The evidence also shows that Canadian monetary growth has remained linked to US monetary growth under the present flexible exchange-rate regime.     

The EU’s Medium-term Financial Perspective and Turkey’s Potential Slice of the Cake

The issue of Turkey’s membership in the EU remains controversial, and the arguments for and against are not only economic. Nevertheless, the potential economic impact of Turkish membership does play an important role. How much financial support is Turkey presently receiving under existing pre-accession programmes and what changes could be expected in the case of full membership?     

The pattern of trade in individual products: A test of simple theories

Zusammenfassung Der Handel mit einzelnen Produkten: ein Test einfacher Theorien. — Der Zweck dieses Aufsatzes ist es, die Leistungsf?higkeit von drei einfachen Theorien zur Prognose des Handels mit einzelnen Produkten zu testen. Wenn wir diese Theorien nacheinander prüfen, so stellen wir fest, da\ die Skalenertrags-Hypothese nichts erbringt, aber sowohl die Faktorproportionen-Hypothese als auch die Neotechnologie-Hypothese signifikante und konsistente Erkl?rungen für die Wahrscheinlichkeit des Exports einzelner Produkte liefern. Die Arbeit zeigt auch, da\ die beiden erfolgreichen Hypothesen sinnvoll zu einer kombinierten Hypothese verbunden werden k?nnen, in der die Exportwahrscheinlichkeit sowohl von neo-technologischen Aspekten als auch von Faktorproportionen abh?ngt. In diesem kombinierten Erkl?rungsansatz beeinflu\t die Kapitalintensit?t — sei sie aggregiert oder in physisches und Humankapital disaggregiert — den Handel nur, wenn es sich um standardisierte Produkte mit einfacher Technologie handelt.

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Résumé La structure de commerce extérieur avec des biens individuels: un test des théories simples. — Le but de cet article est de tester la performance de trois simples théories qui prédisent le commerce extérieur avec des biens individuels. En testant ces théories, pour la même période, nous trouvons que les approches des proportions de facteur aussi bien que les approches néo-technologiques donnent une explication significative et consistante de la probabilité d’exporter les biens individuels pendant que l’approche des économies d’échelle ne la donne pas. Cet étude aussi trouve que les deux explications couronnées de succès peuvent être productivement combinées dans une approche composite, dans laquelle la probabilité d’exportation dépend des considérations néo-technologique et des proportions de facteur. Dans cette approche explicative l’intensité de capitaux, ou bien agrégée ou bien desagrégée dans l’intensité de capitaux humaine et physique, influence le commerce extérieur seulement avec des produits standardisés et de technologie basse.

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Resumen El perrón de commercio en productos individuales: un test de teorías simples. — El propósito de este estudio es investigar el desempe?o de tres teorías simples para predecir el comercio de productos individuales. Probando estas teorias, una tras otra, encontramos que mientras la explicación de las economías de escala no es satisfactoria, las explicaciones de proporciones de factores y neotecnológica, respectivamente, proveen una explicación significativa y consistente de la probabilidad de exportar productos individuales. En este estudio también se encontró que las dos explicaciones satisfactorias pueden combinarse exitosamente en una explicación compuesta, en la que la probabilidad de exportación depende de consideraciones neo-tecnológicas como también de consideraciones de proporciones de factores. En esta explicación compuesta, la intensidad de capital, agregada o desagregada en intensidad de capital física o humana, influencia el comercio solo de productos estandarizados de baja tecnología.

     

Was Expansionary Monetary Policy Feasible during the Great Contraction? An Examination of the Gold Standard Constraint

The recent consensus view that the gold standard was the leading cause of the worldwide Great Depression 1929-1933 stems from the two propositions: (1) Under the gold standard, deflationary shocks were transmitted between countries and, (2) for most countries, continued adherence to gold prevented monetary authorities from offsetting banking panics and blocked their recoveries. In this article we contend that the second proposition applies only to small open economies with limited gold reserves. This was not the case for the United States, the largest country in the world, holding massive gold reserves. The United States was not constrained from using expansionary policy to offset banking panics, deflation, and declining economic activity. Simulations, based on a model of a large open economy, indicate that expansionary open market operations by the Federal Reserve at two critical junctures (October 1930 to February 1931; September 1931 through January 1932) would have been successful in averting the banking panics that occurred, without endangering convertibility. Indeed had expansionary open market purchases been conducted in 1930, the contraction would not have led to the international crises that followed.     

Is Foreign Technological Advance Harmful in the Melitz Model?

Foreign technological advance unambiguously reduces home welfare in a popular variant of the Melitz (Econometrica 71(6):1695–1725, 2003) model that assumes the presence of a costlessly traded homogeneous (outside) good (Demidova in Int Econ Rev 49(4):1437–1462, 2008). The present paper shows that this result is sensitive to the presence of the outside good and is, in fact, reversed in its absence: foreign technological advance always improves home welfare in the Melitz model without the outside good. Improvement in home welfare occurs via changes in the numbers and prices of domestic and imported varieties. For quantitative analysis of welfare effects, we calibrate an international trade model for the United States and its major trading partners. US is found to gain less from foreign technological improvements than its trading partners from US improvements. In either case, the magnitude of gains is modest.     

Heterogeneous Productivity and the Gains from Trade and FDI

Nontraded goods account for a major share of GDP in most economies, but have not been incorporated in the welfare analysis of monopolistic-competition models with heterogeneous productivity. This paper extends Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (American Economic Review 94(1):300–316, 2004) to explore welfare effects in the presence of a nontraded good. We derive new analytical results about how the gains from trade and FDI are determined and affected by key parameters in the case of symmetric countries. The model is calibrated to a country group that includes all major developed countries. The gains from openness (trade and FDI) are found to be substantial (between 3.24 and 6.27 per cent of income) even if nontraded goods represent a major part of the economy. Most of these gains are attributed to trade rather than FDI.