No Pain, No Gain: Rethinking the Telecoms Crash

This paper reflects upon the boom and bust of the telecommunications industry from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Unlike the conspicuous burst of the dotcom bubble, the telecoms crash came quietly, but turned out to be bigger and more catastrophic. This paper argues that bounded rationality, decision making under uncertainty and the focus on short-term individual interest all played a significant role in the telecoms crash. However, this painful crash also had its positive effects. Executives, specialists, regulators and government policy makers should pay more attention to the fundamentals and balance the need for both short-term and long-term interests in approaching the coming challenges in the fast-changing telecoms industry.     

Linking Absolute and Comparative Advantage to Intra-Industry Trade Theory*

Two countries, which differ with respect to domestic demand for two groups of differentiated products, are considered in a setting of monopolistic competition where international trade is subject to transaction costs. It is shown that relative differences in demand determine the trade pattern. Each country is a net exporter of that group for which domestic demand is relatively larger-where the country has a comparative home-market advantage. Absolute differences in demand determine relative wages. Thus, the paper argues that the notions of absolute and comparative advantage as found in traditional trade theory also have meaning in new trade theory.     

贸易与劳工标准挂钩:新的贸易保护主义

贸易和劳工标准的关系问题是当今国际经济学界的一个重要问题,本文首先阐述了贸易与劳工标准挂钩的两派观点,然后从实证的角度探讨了贸易与劳工标准的关联性,笔者发现:劳工标准与国际贸易并没有必然联系,将劳工标准与国际贸易挂钩缺乏理论或者事实依据.本文最后把劳工标准问题置于经济全球化背景下进行研究,剖析了发达国家将劳工标准与贸易挂钩的保护主义实质,并提出了我国应采取的对策.     

Linder Revisited: Trade and Development in the Spanish Economy

The literature has tended to treat Linder’s hypothesis with excessive simplicity given the absence of any formalization for this intuitive theory on trade potential in manufacturers, closely related to the intra‐industry trade paradigm. Against this background, in this paper we first propose a complete empirical model of bilateral trade containing all the determinants suggested by Linder, with special emphasis being placed on non‐homothetic preferences, national income distribution, international economic convergence and geographic distance. We then test the model in an appropriate case, namely that of Spain during the period of its economic transition running from approximately 1959 to 1986. This period was characterized by increasing openness and structural change, as well as by convergence until that country’s integration into the then European Economic Community. The results confirm the importance of the characteristics of internal demand, essentially of income distribution and non‐homothetic preferences. We find that trade horizons delimited by bilateral proximity in development and geographical distance, together with multilateral convergence in economic development are the main indicators for selecting trade partners as markets and suppliers, thereby reinforcing the idea that foreign markets can be considered as an extension of the national market.     

The Credibility Problem Revisited: Thirty Years on from Kydland and Prescott*

Macroeconomics research has changed profoundly since the Kydland–Prescott seminal paper. In order to address the Lucas Critique, modeling is now based on micro‐foundations treating agents as rational utility optimizers. Bayesian estimation has produced models which are more data‐consistent than those based simply on calibration. With micro‐foundations and new linear‐quadratic techniques, normative policy based on welfare analysis is now possible. In the open economy, policy involves a “game” with policymakers and private institutions or private individuals as players. This paper attempts to reassess the Kydland–Prescott contribution in the light of these developments.     

Relative Incentives and Trade Strategies: Typologies and Possibilities*

The paper investigates trade strategy classification within a general equilibrium framework which includes both tradeables and non-tradeables. In a three-sector model there is apparently a wider range of trade strategies available than in the traditional two-sector model. Besides pure import-substitution (IS) and export promotion (EP) policies, mixed IS/EP policies might seek (ex ante) to create a protradeables bias rather than approximate neutrality. However, the ex-post outcome depends upon the substitution, complementarity and/or income effects of commercial policies on equilibrium relative prices. The paper demonstrates that the actual change in the incentive structure may differ from the intended strategy.     

Trade and productivity: Self-selection or learning-by-exporting in India

Recent literature tried to explain the Indian growth miracle in different ways, ranging from trade liberalization to industrial reforms. Using data on Indian manufacturing firms, this paper analyzes the relationship between firm's productivity and export market participation during 1991–2004. While it provides evidence of the self-selection hypothesis by showing that more productive firms become exporters, the results do not show that entry into export markets enhances productivity. The paper examines the explanation of self selection hypothesis for total factor productivity differences across 33,510 exporting and non-exporting firms. It uses propensity score matching to test the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. In line with the prediction of recent heterogeneous firm models of international trade, the main finding of the paper is: more productive firms become exporters but it is not the case that learning by exporting is a channel fuelling growth in Indian manufacturing.     

A Theory of Trade Secrets in Firms*

This article provides a simple theoretical model of trade secrets in hierarchical firms. A crucial assumption is that each manager has access to trade secrets pertaining to his own hierarchical level as well as to all lower levels. The article explores some implications of this assumption for optimal degree of trade secrets accumulation and protection as well as for the wage structure in firms. In addition, the model implies that managers may have an incentive to overpay their subordinates and protect their firms’ trade secrets too much.     

To Trade Or Not To Trade: Economies With A Variable Number Of Tradeables*

We present a general equilibrium model that encompasses the endogenous selection and shadow‐pricing of a set of tradeable commodities, with home‐based and social production activities. In the model, a market system is a set of costly social institutions which embody the trade and production technologies available in the economy. Our equilibrium concept describes the pricing of market institutions, thus pricing the tradeability of a commodity. We obtain the existence and the decentralization of Pareto‐efficient allocations. We discuss an example regarding the transition of a guild‐based economy into a market‐based economy.     

To Save or to Consume: Linking Growth Theory with the Keynesian Model

In the neoclassical growth theory, higher saving rate gives rise to higher output per capita. However, in the Keynesian model, higher saving rate causes lower consumption, which may lead to a recession. Students may ask, "Should we save or should we consume?" In most of the macroeconomics textbooks, economic growth and Keynesian economics are in separate, sometimes unsequential, chapters. The connection between the short run and the long run is not apparent. The author builds a bridge between the neoclassical growth theory and the Keynesian model. He links the Solow diagram and the IS-LM curves and depicts the short-run to long-run transition of the economy after changes in saving and other macroeconomic policies.     

Industrial Policy As an Alternative to Trade Policy: Helping By Hurting*

Abstract Industrial policies that are essentially nonlinear taxes or subsidies on adjustment costs of domestic firms affect those firms' market power in oligopolistic international markets. These adjustment policies often can achieve a strategic purpose at lower cost to the government than linear trade or investment subsidies and are less likely to result in retaliation by other governments. Many governments, however, use adjustment policies for nonstrategic purposes without recognizing that they are reducing their firms' market power by subsidizing adjustment costs rather than taxing them.     

Determinants of International Trade Flows in Travel and Passenger Services*

In the past decade there has been a great increase in interest in trade in services. This paper estimates the determinants of trade flows for two service industries, travel and passenger transportation services, for 16 OECD countries Traditional and more recent models of import demand and demand for export functions are utilized The empirical results indicate similarity between trade in goods and trade in services. Price competitiveness is an important factor in determining the trade flows in travel services and like trade in manufactured goods, exchange rate variations have some influence on the volume of travel and passenger transportation services     

贸易自由化中并购问题的经济学剖析

在贸易自由化对并购影响进行考察的基础上 ,可以发现 ,贸易自由对于潜在的并购者来说有两种意义 :受到保护的市场中的低效企业此时更容易被并购 ,对相对低效企业进行的并购变得越来越缺乏吸引力 ,不能实际地融合在一起 ,或者如果已经融合在一起的话 ,就出现了 (资源的 )耗散。无论在哪种意义上贸易的自由化都会激发并购活动的发生 ,但其中并不是所有的都符合整个社会的利益     

大型工程中基于协商的参与式决策

针对大型工程建设中的公众民主参与机制,本文提出一种基于协商的公众参与式决策模式,该模式结合传统从上而下决策模式和自下到上参与式模式优点,符合大型工程建设特点和中国国情。协商的参与式决策,关键在于政府、公众和商业部门三方之间的协商。市民社会的培育、规范化公众参与程序和方法,是参与式决策目前的主要障碍。