Morocco and the US Free Trade Agreement: A specific factors model with unemployment and energy imports

This paper examines the impact in Morocco of its pending free trade agreement with the US in a specific factors model with unemployment and energy imports. Projected price scenarios across eight industries lead to adjustments in outputs, energy imports, rural wages, urban wages, and the unemployment rate. The model predicts substantial adjustments for reasonable price scenarios. Rural wages fall unless agriculture is subsidized. Unemployment, assumed inversely related to output, is sensitive to price changes. Factor substitution only affects the degree of output adjustments. Adjustments in capital returns lead to industrial investment and subsequent long run output adjustments.     

人民币汇率变动对产业结构 影响的实证研究*

汇率作为重要的价格信号,能影响我国参与国际分工的成本,改变我国生产要素的相对价格,引导国内资源的重新配置,并对我国产业结构的调整产生重要影响。本文从三次产业结构调整和不同要素密集度行业结构调整两个角度展开分析,分别研究人民币有效汇率对其影响。其中,从三次产业结构调整的角度,对国家和地区层面进行实证研究,结论表明人民币有效汇率变动对第二产业具有明显的抑制作用,而对第三产业发展具有促进作用,且对经济发达的东部地区的影响明显大于对中西部地区的影响;从资源配置的角度,以劳动力、资本要素在产品市场和要素市场的流动为切入点,对汇率变动影响产业结构变化的机理及其路径进行了深入系统的理论研究,结论表明,人民币有效汇率对资本密集型行业和技术密集型行业具有促进作用,且实际有效汇率的影响大于名义有效汇率的影响。\     

Factor or Industry Cleavages in Trade Policy? An Empirical Analysis of the Stolper–Samuelson Theorem

If factors of production are mobile between industries, the Stolper–Samuelson Theorem predicts that cleavages over trade policy will form along factor lines. Conversely, if factors are immobile, cleavages will form along industry lines. These two hypotheses are empirically examined using micro-data from a survey conducted during the 1988 Canadian federal election—a de facto referendum on free trade. Factors of production are found to be important determinants of preferences on trade policy. However, the industry of employment also helps determine preferences on trade policy. These results are consistent with partial factor mobility.     

Testing the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theory with a natural experiment

I use the historical episode of near‐elimination of commuting from the West Bank into Israel to test three key predictions of the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek model of trade and find strong support for them. On the production side, I use variation between districts and find that wage changes were not correlated with the size of the shock to the labour force (factor price insensitivity) and that districts that received larger influx of returning commuters shifted production more towards labour‐intensive industries (Rybczynski effect). On the consumption side, data are consistent with identical homothetic preferences, which, combined with the production results, supports the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theorem on the factor content of trade.     

Determinants of international fragmentation of production in European Union

The growth in world trade during the last decades was largely caused by increasing bilateral exchanges of parts and components as a consequence of international fragmentation of production. Apparently, the international integration of the Newly Industrializing and Eastern European economies prompted firms in ‘high-wage’ countries to exploit factor price differences in order to increase their international competitiveness. However, theory predicts that, beside factor price differences, international fragmentation of production should be driven by a multitude of additional determinants. Against this background, the present paper reveals empirical evidence on parts and components trade as an indicator for international fragmentation of production in the European Union and determines its main explanatory factors. The results of a panel data analysis show that especially industry specific factors as well as communication and transportation infrastructure are likewise important for shifting production to or sourcing components from foreign countries.     

Trade,Wages, and Specific Factors*

In this paper, we use a multisector specific‐factors model with sector‐specific capital and two mobile factors, skilled and unskilled labor, to examine the effects of trade, technology, and factor endowments on the skill premium in US manufacturing industries. Based on this model and data for the US manufacturing sector from 1958–96, we calculate changes in the skill premium and then carry out a decomposition to identify the changes caused by product price changes (trade), technological progress, labor, and capital endowment changes. The decomposition reveals that trade effects, working through product price changes, caused the skill premium to increase moderately. Changes in capital endowments (new investments) had a positive effect on the skill premium, with the strongest impact during the 1980s, while the effect of technological change on the skill premium varied over time. Finally, changes in relative labor endowments had a negative effect on the skill premium.     

Sectoral FTA gains,conflicts, and the role of interindustry factor mobility: Evidence from Korea's free trade agreement

Free trade agreements (FTAs) can ignite domestic conflicts between export- and import-competing industries over trade gains. However, if the factors of production, such as capital and labour, move freely across industries, the returns to factor owners will quickly converge. Then, sectoral conflicts over FTAs will be less likely to arise. We analyse the case of South Korea's FTAs to measure (a) sectoral FTA gains and (b) interindustry factor mobility and to examine (c) the role of interindustry factor mobility in mitigating sectoral conflicts over trade policies. South Korea is an ideal case study due to the low barriers to domestic geographic mobility and high trade dependence. Based on data on its trade with 252 countries and factor returns between 2002 and 2017, we find that export industries did not gain much from the FTAs, while the import-competing agricultural sector was the winner. Sectoral conflicts greatly decreased over 2008–2010. Interindustry capital mobility plays a significant role in weakening the sectoral conflicts, while the impact of interindustry labour mobility is limited.     

工业经济的节约型增长及其动力

利用资本、能源和劳动三要素随机前沿成本模型对中国工业成本节约之源进行研究,将成本变动分解为技术进步、价格调整、效率改进与规模变动效应。规模扩大是推动2000—2007年工业成本增长的首要因素,其次是价格调整效应。技术进步和效率改进共同推动节约型增长,前者对节约型增长的影响更广泛、深入。主要依靠技术进步实现节约型增长,是新世纪以来工业增长的重要特征。效率改进提供的额外动力使轻工业成为节约型工业增长的先导部门。     

Trade liberalization and the Labor Market Revisited

This paper provides new insights in understanding the adjustments of the labor market to trade liberalization policies in an economy producing tradeables and nontradeables. The results of the paper indicate that the short-run effects of trade liberalization on wages, labor allocation and worker welfare is contingent on certain explicit production and demand conditions that exist in an economy. The production condition is related to the slope of the labor demand curve in a given economy and the demand condition is related to the difference in the cross-price elasticity of demand of nontradeables to the price of importables and exportables. The necessary combination of these conditions needed for trade liberalization to be welfare improving in the short run is explored.     

Trade Policies for Exporting Industries under Free Entry

This paper computes optimal export taxes and domestic production subsidies for exporting industries under free entry. We show that domestic welfare is not at maximum, as is typically believed, when the export price is a monopoly price, and the domestic price is a competitive price, because a market structure effect has to be taken into account. Furthermore, we show that the optimal tax/subsidy formulas for an oligopoly coincide with those under perfect competition, if foreign and domestic demand functions are both linear. We also discuss optimal trade policies when only one instrument is available, and we run numerical simulations to determine and compare optimal trade taxes under endogenous and exogenous market structures.     

Adjustment costs and threshold effects in factor demand relationships

It has been recently argued that producers may not respond to every input price change in the way that a linear factor demand model would predict. This lumpy response is due to adjustment costs that are inherent in the act of adjusting the mix of inputs applied in the underlying production technologies. This study aims to provide a solid conceptual framework for these nonlinearities in factor demand relationships. Industry-specific implications of convex and non-convex adjustment costs for the linearity of the factor demand relationships as well as price and substitution elasticities are explored. A two-regime threshold system of factor demand equations is estimated for several manufacturing industries in the United States. Empirical results suggest significant threshold effects in the factor demand relationships in most nondurable goods sectors. The size and the nature of thresholds depend upon industry characteristics, including input composition and (non)convexity of underlying adjustment costs. Complete matrices of price and substitution elasticities for each industry are derived using estimates of threshold factor demand systems. Discussion of two contrasting cases in greater detail sheds light on how the effect of price shocks on factor demand relationships varies across industries with different adjustment cost structures.     

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation

This paper examines the special role that trade liberalization in service industries can play in stimulating not only trade in services but also in goods. International trade in goods requires inputs from several services industries (trade services, such as transportation, insurance, and finance) in order to complete and facilitate international transactions. Restriction on the ability of national service providers to provide these services across borders and within foreign countries creates additional costs and barriers to international trade above those that would arise in otherwise comparable intranational exchange. As a result, trade liberalization in services can yield benefits, by facilitating trade in goods, that are larger than one might expect from analysis of the services trade alone. This paper explores this idea using simple theoretical models to specify the relationships between services trade and goods trade. The paper also notes the role of services trade in a model of international industrial fragmentation, where production processes can be separated across locations but at some cost in terms of additional service inputs. The incentives for such fragmentation can be larger across countries than within countries, owing to the greater differences in factor prices and technologies available. However, the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if regulations and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a result, trade liberalization in services can also stimulate fragmentation of production of both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from trade even further.     

The aggregate elasticity of factor substitution with middle products

The elasticity of substitution between factors in production relates the change in the ratio of factors used in a production process to a given change in the factor price ratio. An aggregate concept of such an elasticity relates a change in overall factor endowments to the resulting change in factor prices. For a closed economy the behavior of consumers is an important part of such an aggregate elasticity, since endowment changes can bring about changes in commodity prices and resulting adjustments to factor prices. For a small open economy, commodity prices in typical models are exogenous. In the model with middle products, all final consumer goods are non-traded, so that local consumer behavior can affect factor prices. The aggregate elasticity of substitution is shown to be an average of production elasticities and demand elasticity even for a small open economy.     

Factor price overshooting with trade liberalization: theory and evidence

This paper develops an intra‐industry trade model with skilled and unskilled labor as factors of production, endogenous accumulation of skilled labor and firm heterogeneity in factor intensities to examine the effect of trade reforms on factor prices. Since exporters are more skill intensive than non–exporters, a decrease in trade barriers initially increases wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers, as a result of an increase in the relative demand for skilled labor. Over time, however, as agents respond to the change in relative wages by investing in skilled labor, the relative wage of skilled labor decreases. Evidence from Chilean plant–level data supports the idea of factor price overshooting with trade liberalization.     

Factor Endowment,the Choice of Technology,and the Volume of Trade

Abstract

This paper studies impacts of factor endowment on international trade in a general equilibrium model in which firms choose their technologies endogenously. Although countries only differ in factor endowment ex ante, countries may also differ in their chosen technologies. If industries choose different capital-labor intensities in equilibrium, the Heckscher–Ohlin theorem, factor price equalization theorem, the Rybczynski theorem, and the Stolper–Samuelson theorem hold. If industries choose the same capital-labor intensity in equilibrium, the volume of trade is zero. None of the four theorems applies.     

基于产业结构区际贸易壁垒的实证分析

文章分别利用直接贸易流量和间接产业趋同两种分析方法考察我国三次产业的地方保护程度。一方面,利用中国投入产出表中的贸易及相关数据,运用边界效应模型分别考察了八大区域中的总贸易和三次产业地方保护程度,分析了生产规模、产品价格、区域位置及区间距离等因素对区际产业贸易的影响,测算边界效应值并运用区域贸易依存度进行了验证和区域分析。另一方面,通过计算产业地区集中度,考察1997-2005年期间地区产业结构的分布趋势,以此考察各产业贸易壁垒的趋势变化。研究发现,产业属性差异对区际贸易有一定阻碍作用,因此,根据产业结构特点制定和谐的贸易体制,尊重比较优势的差异化发展,降低区际贸易壁垒,对促进我国区域经济协调发展尤为重要。     

China's membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the exports of the developing economies of East Asia: a computable general equilibrium approach

There is a general perception particularly among the developing countries of East Asia that China's WTO membership would spell bad news for their exports. The ASEAN countries in particular are quite concerned about its likely negative impact on their export and growth potentials. In this light, the main objective of this paper is to empirically assess the trade implications of China's WTO membership for these countries. Only few studies, using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) approach, have addressed the issue of China's WTO membership trade implications. Further, these studies have not adequately addressed the issue from the perspective of the developing countries of East Asia, particularly the ASEAN countries. Using the latest version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and based on the latest tariff reduction commitments by China, the results showed that, contrary to the current perception and previous studies, almost all of the developing countries of East Asia are likely to benefit from China's WTO membership overall, after allowing for anticipated price adjustments. Without the price adjustments, the Philippines and Singapore would have come out as net losers. These findings have confirmed the need for economic and export restructuring among the ASEAN countries and the importance of accelerating their economic integration. They have also highlighted the importance of promoting trade and investment cooperation between China and ASEAN countries.     

Demand Shift across US Industries and the Stabilizing Function of Nominal Wage and Price Flexibility.

Nominal wage and price adjustments in response to demand shocks are likely to determine industrial output variability. The direction of this relationship is complicated, however, by demand and supply factors. The empirical investigation across a sample of private industries in the United States produces the following evidence. Price flexibility moderates the response of the output supplied to a given shift in industrial demand. Similarly, nominal wage flexibility moderates, although insignificantly, the output response to a given shift in industrial demand. The size of industrial demand shifts dominates, however, supply-side constraints in differentiating output fluctuations across industries. While price flexibility moderates shifts in industrial demand in response to aggregate demand shocks, these shifts are larger the higher the nominal wage flexibility across industries. The combined supply and demand effects differentiate the stabilizing function of nominal wage and price flexibility. Nominal wage flexibility increases output fluctuations in response to aggregate demand shocks. In contrast, output fluctuations are smaller the larger the price adjustment to demand shocks across industries. Given the endogeneity of price flexibility, it is necessary to control for variation in demand variability in order to reveal the stabilizing effect of price flexibility on output across industries.     

Uncertainty and the theory of international trade in long-run equilibrium

We consider a country with two factors and two industries, each of which faces technical and price uncertainty. Entrepreneurs choose outputs in order to maximize the expected utility of profits. They also draw factor payments and purchase consumption goods after the uncertainty isresolved. They enter and exit from an industry according to whether participation there increases their expected utility. Within this model, the validity of the propositions of neoclassical trade theory depends on how the entrepreneurs' entry decisions are affected by parameter changes via their roles as risk bearers, consumers and factor owners.     

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。