Gains and losses from potential bilateral US–China trade retaliation

Two closely related numerical general equilibrium models of world trade are used to analyze the potential consequences of US–China bilateral retaliation on trade flows and welfare. One is a conventional Armington trade model with five regions, the US, China, EU, Japan and the Rest of the World, and calibrated to a global 2009 micro consistent data set. The other is a modified version of this model with monetary non-neutrals and including China's trade surplus as an endogenous variable.Who may gain or loss from global trade conflicts spawned by adjustment pressures in the post crisis world is much debated. In a US–China trade conflict, Europe and Japan would seem gainers from preferential access to US and Chinese markets. The loss of markets would hurt the US, but moving closer to an optimal tariff could be the source of terms of trade gains. And the ease of substitution across trading partners' practices would determine costs for China.Results from the conventional model suggest that retaliation between the two countries can be welfare improving for the US as it substitutes expenditures into own goods and improve its terms of trade with non-retaliatory regions, while China and non-retaliatory regions may be adversely affected. Results in the endogenous trade surplus model from the central case model specification, however, suggest that both the US and the EU (the deficit regions) have welfare losses in most cases, while the surplus region, China, and the ROW have welfare gains. In both models, when the bilateral tariff rates are very high, gains accrue to the EU and Japan from trade diversion if the substitutions elasticities of imports are high. Costs are borne by the US and China in lost exports, lowered terms of trade and adjustment costs at home.     

Technical Progress and the North–South Terms of Trade

In a classical world where prices of both northern manufactures and southern raw materials are determined by market demand and supply, technical progress in one region leads to a terms-of-trade improvement of the other region irrespective of whether technical progress is labor-saving or raw-material saving. But in a neo-Kaleckian framework characterized by surplus capacity, and an effective demand problem in the North and a capacity constraint in the South, the terms of trade would turn against the South even if the North experienced a higher rate of technical progress than that of the South.     

Trade costs, international production shifting, and growth

In this paper I present a North-South endogenous growth model in which the impact of globalization on production location and growth can be analyzed. In the model the skilled-labor abundant North is the only innovator in the world. Using the model, I illustrate a scenario that is particularly interesting. Globalization (a reduction in trade costs) leads to a relocation of production to the South in a differentiated-product sector. As a result, more resources are shifted to R&D in the North, and the growth rate in the world increases. The model has several empirically consistent implications, such as rising relative wages of skilled to unskilled labor under globalization in both the North and South. I also discuss the welfare impact of globalization in this model.     

A dynamic profit function with adjustment costs for outputs

It is well known that there are adjustment costs associated with many input factors, which delays firms response to changes in relative prices. Although adjustment costs are implicitly acknowledged when a cost rather than profit function is used, little attention has been given to adjustment costs for outputs. However, in many cases there will also be adjustment costs associated with changes in the product mix for multioutput firms. In this paper we formulate a firm’s optimization problem in a profit maximizing set up that allows adjustment costs for all netputs from which it follows that adjustment cost for some factors affect the adjustment of both inputs and outputs. We also show that one can test whether a factor is quasi-fixed or fully fixed.      

Imitation and innovation driven development under imperfect intellectual property rights

Developing countries employ about two-fifth of the world's researchers, originate one quarter of world expenditures on R&D, and their inventions are subject to imitation. Nevertheless, the previous literature focuses on North–South setups in which the South is restricted to imitating northern inventions. To analyze the effects of IPR policies on developed and developing countries, we extend this literature to allow not only for southern innovation and imitation of northern goods, but also for imitation targeted at southern innovations. We find the effects of IPRs on R&D and welfare to be non-monotonic and dependent on innovation efficiency and an innovation threshold in the South. For sufficiently strong IPRs the South engages in original R&D and stronger IPRs promote southern innovation, welfare, and a reduction in the North–South wage gap. Below the threshold, a strengthening of IPR protection fails to promote innovation and decreases welfare. Stronger IPRs exclusively for southern firms can benefit both regions by shifting southern resources from the imitation of northern goods to original southern innovation.     

Regional infrastructure and firm investment: theory and empirical evidence for Italy

The authors model the channels through which public expenditure on infrastructure influences firm value and shapes its investment decisions via both adjustment costs and marginal profitability of capital. The authors test these hypotheses using a large panel of Italian firms. Empirical results show that infrastructure interacts with revenues and costs in shaping firm??s capital profitability and influences its adjustment costs. Finally, the authors find that infrastructure expenditure contributes to the reduction of the economic gap between the North and the South of Italy. These effects vary across regions and sectors.     

Preferences for risk in dynamic models with adjustment costs

This paper characterizes the solution to a consumption/savings decision problem in which one of the consumption goods involves transaction costs. It then analyzes how such adjustment costs affect consumersʼ risk attitudes. Previous studies have suggested that transaction costs, by resulting in infrequent but lumpy adjustments, magnify consumersʼ risk aversion with respect to moderate-stake risk and, simultaneously, stimulate the demand for large-stake wealth lotteries. This paper argues that such predictions, while naturally arising in static models, may disappear or even reverse in a dynamic setting, in which consumers can choose when to make an adjustment. Namely, it shows that such an option can eliminate the demand for large-stake lotteries, and that the consumers choosing to delay the adjustment may be more tolerant to moderate-stake risks than in the absence of adjustment costs. The paper also illustrates that both predictions crucially depend on the relationship between the time discount rate in the utility function and the interest rate.     

(In)determinacy, increasing returns, and the optimality of the Friedman rule in an endogenously growing open economy

This paper sets up a monetary endogenous growth model with Benhabib–Farmer production externalities for an open economy, and then uses it to investigate the possibility of indeterminacy. Moreover, the paper examines how the monetary authorities will set its optimal anchor of the money growth rate from the viewpoint of welfare maximization. Several main findings emerge from the analysis. First, when investment does not involve adjustment costs, the monetary equilibrium is locally determinate regardless of the strength of the labor externality and the extent of world capital market imperfections. Second, in the presence of investment adjustment costs, the monetary equilibrium may exhibit indeterminacy when the aggregate increasing returns-to-scale in production is sufficiently strong. Third, in the presence of world capital market imperfections, the Friedman rule of a zero nominal interest rate fails to be optimal. Fourth, in the face of perfect world capital markets, the optimal nominal money growth rate is maintained at the rate that is conformable to the Friedman rule, regardless of whether investment involves adjustment costs or not.     

Rebalancing the Euro Area: The Costs of Internal Devaluation

This paper investigates the economic costs of rebalancing current account positions in the Euro area by means of internal devaluation. Internal devaluation relies on wage suppression in the deficit countries. Based on an old Keynesian model we estimate a current account equation, a wage-Phillips curve and an Okun's Law equation. All estimations are carried out for a panel of twelve Euro area members. From the estimation results we calculate the output costs of reducing current account deficits. Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIIPS) had, on average, current account deficits of 8.4% of GDP in 2007. To eliminate these current account deficits, a reduction of GPD by some 47% would be necessary. Trade imbalances can be resolved in two ways: deflationary adjustment in the deficit countries or inflationary adjustment in the surplus countries. The economic costs of deflationary adjustment to those countries are equivalent to the output loss of the Great Depression. An adjustment of the surplus countries would increase growth and it would come with higher inflation, but it would allow rebalancing without a Great Depression in parts of Europe.     

Exchanging Goods and Damages: The Role of Trade on the Distribution of Climate Change Costs

The impacts of climate change vary significantly across world regions. Whereas tropical and subtropical regions are expected to suffer severely from the effects of climate change, the impacts in northern latitudes should remain relatively moderate. However, regions are not self-sufficient, and the costs of climate change can spread across regions through international trade. I study the international spillover of climate impacts within a regionalised, climate-sensitive, dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy. Using data from a global climate model shows that the world regions face welfare losses between 0.6 and 2.1 % due to climate change. I also show that climate change affects terms of trade and sectoral competitiveness. By means of a decomposition method, the extent of spillover impacts through international trade can be identified. Spillover impacts significantly affect, either positively or negatively, the total costs of climate change for a region. For regions with low exposure to climate change and high adaptive capacities, spillover effects are responsible for a 1/6 of the total cost of climate change.     

Global Production and Currency Devaluation*

We model the production allocation choices of a multinational enterprise (MNE) in a three‐country framework—one northern country and two southern ones. Products made in the South are of lower quality than those made in the North. Substitutability between goods differs due to variations in product quality. We investigate how exchange rates affect production, employment, and welfare, and find that currency devaluation from different countries brings contrasting results. In particular, an appreciation in the southern country (X) producing the lowest‐quality good with the least cost may reduce production (employment) in the North, while an appreciation in the other southern currency (Y) always does the opposite. A northern depreciation against both southern currencies may increase production in country X, but always reduces that in country Y. These arise because the MNE shifts production globally to minimize costs. Northern welfare always falls following currency appreciation in southern countries.     

Liberalizing NAFTA Rules of Origin: A Dynamic CGE Analysis

Most computable general-equilibrium (CGE) studies assessing the welfare impact of moving from a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to a deeper form of integration, for example a customs union (CU), typically proxy the integration as the adoption of a common external tariff toward the rest of the world. However, a CU is also an arrangement that allows for the elimination of FTAs' preferential rules of origin (ROO), which is typically not captured in CGE studies. This paper addresses the issue using a multicountry, multisector dynamic CGE model. Although the removal of distortionary ROO is likely to lower the unit costs of production within North America, it may also deteriorate North American terms of trade with the rest of the world. Thus, the net effect of the removal of NAFTA ROO on welfare is ambiguous and is an empirical issue.     

Southern Multinationals

Investments in the North by Southern firms are still unusual. While such investments may be motivated by tariff jumping and internalization, casual empiricism suggests that such reverse DFI may be motivated by improved technology access. This paper examines, within a theoretical framework, whether enhanced technology access provides sufficient motivation for the endogenous formation of southern multinationals. Southern firms are most likely to establish northern subsidiaries in industries with rapid technological obsolescence; when global sales are high relative to DFI costs; and when domestic production costs are high. Neither market power nor significant market shares are a prerequisite for southern multinationals.     

Sustainable Development and International Distribution: Theory and Application to Rainforests

A situation is analyzed in which two countries negotiate the financing of costs that accrue if one of them switches onto a sustainable development path. The other country's incentive to pay arises as it benefits from the developing country's environmental resources, but at an ever declining rate as long as development remains nonsustainable. In an application to the protection of tropical rainforests it is shown that North to South redistribution of welfare would be substantial, yet the North would still gain enormously in efficiency terms. An explanation is given of why the Rio Conference failed in terms of rainforest protection.     

Globalization and the Inequality–Unemployment Tradeoff

Over the last 20 years, advanced economies have experienced an “unemployment versus inequality” tradeoff that is critically uneven across countries. To explain this, we propose an extended HOS model in which: the factors are skilled and unskilled labor; there is a continuum of goods; the world comprises two North countries (one egalitarian and one nonegalitarian) and the South; there is no factor price equalization; globalization consists in the South cornering a growing share of world production. In the North, globalization entails an inequality–unemployment tradeoff and the adjustment to globalization is more painful for the country that was initially inequality‐oriented.     

How credible is the North Korean threat?

We perform event analysis on particular episodes of tension in the Korean peninsula between 2000 and 2008, and investigate the effect of the events on South Korean financial markets (stock markets, bond yield spreads and the exchange rate) given that South Korea would be the first affected by a military aggression from North Korea. Surprisingly, in nearly all cases, these events, which have often been dramatized in the world media, have no significant impact on either of these variables or only a very small one. We also find no significant impact of events on listed firms that would a priori be likely to suffer from increased tension between the two Koreas. Since financial markets often contain better predictions than expert opinions or surveys, these results strongly suggest that the North Korean threat is non‐credible.     

THE ECONOMIC COST OF U.S. OIL CONSERVATION

This article examines the costs of U.S. oil conservation by using parameters of five world oil models from a recent Energy Modeling Forum study. Variation in the estimated cost of oil conservation across the models suggests that achieving oil conservation through flexible policies that adjust to market conditions would better serve economic efficiency than would setting government-mandated levels of oil consumption. Additionally, net world oil conservation is likely to be somewhat less than gross U.S. conservation. U.S. oil conservation lowers the world oil price and stimulates non-U.S. oil consumption. Including the gains in non-U.S. oil consumption raises the estimated costs of achieving a given conservation level .     

The Incentives for North-South Transfer of Climate-Mitigation Technologies with Trade in Polluting Goods

The need to transfer climate mitigation technologies towards the developing world has been acknowledged since the beginning of climate negotiations. Little progress has however been made, as shown by Article 10 of the Paris Agreement. One reason is that these technologies could become vital assets to compete on global markets. This paper presents a partial equilibrium model with two regions, the North and the South, and imperfect competition in the international polluting goods market, to analyze the North’s incentives to accept technology transfer. Results crucially depend on the existence of environmental cooperation. When both northern and southern governments set emission quotas non-cooperatively, inducing fewer global emissions is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the North to accept the transfer. In contrast, when governments set quotas cooperatively, the North has no incentive to share its technology either before or after the agreement. Technology transfer commitments may be included in the agreement, but with no effect on global emissions and global surplus. The only impacts are distributional, technology transfers and side payments may be substitute instruments.     

中国粮食供求变化趋势预测:基于区域化市场均衡模型

本文通过构建一个涉及 1 8种 (类 )主要农产品和 7个地区的中国农产品区域市场均衡模型并基于二种不同情景的模拟分析 ,从全国和地区二个层次上预测和分析了 2 0 0 6年和 2 0 1 0年我国稻谷、小麦和玉米三种粮食的供求形势。模型结果显示 ,未来几年我国粮食供求关系在总体上将保持基本稳定的发展态势 ,国内外粮价回升可使我国粮食生产在近期内取得恢复性增长。预计稻谷、小麦和玉米的总产量将超过 4亿吨 ,粮食自给率在 92 %左右 ,国内粮食产需缺口将维持在目前的 3 50 0万吨左右 ,其中小麦占五分之三 ,玉米将从目前基本平衡转变为净进口。这种供求变化趋势同时也具有明显的区域特征。华东和华南地区粮食缺口规模将不断扩大 ,东北和华北地区将呈现以玉米为主导的快速粮食生产增长态势且超过需求增长 ,中南地区将从短缺转向粮食基本自给 ,西南和西北地区将继续保持现有缺口规模。为现实中国粮食供求的长期稳定与均衡发展 ,本文最后提出了涉及耕地保护、跨省区粮食贸易、国际粮食安全合作、价格增产效应和政府决策科学化等五方面的政策建议     

Distance and trade: Disentangling unfamiliarity effects and transport cost effects

This paper provides evidence supporting Grossman's (Comments on Alan V. Deardorff, Determinants of bilateral trade: Does gravity work in a neoclassical world?. In: Jeffrey A. Frankel (Ed.), The regionalization of the world economy. Chicago: University of Chicago for NBER; 1996) claim that not only transport costs but also unfamiliarity can explain the negative correlation between geographic distances and bilateral trade volumes. A gravity model that controls for as many natural causes of trade as possible reveals that countries high in uncertainty-aversion (based on Hofstede's survey) export disproportionately less to distant countries (with which they are presumably less familiar). More important, this result is mainly driven by differentiated products, not by products with international organized exchanges or with reference prices. For transport costs alone to explain such a trade pattern, one would have to assume that distance-related ad valorem transport costs are higher when a trade route originates from a high uncertainty-aversion country, which is unlikely. This trade pattern is easy to explain, however, if one accepts that geographic distance is a proxy for unfamiliarity and that exporters in high uncertainty-aversion countries are more sensitive to informational ambiguity. A further result is that high uncertainty-aversion countries trade less and thus grow poorer in the long run, which suggests that cultural factors are as important as geographic ones in determining trade openness and prosperity.