Trade in variety and domestic production: Evidence from US manufacturing

Welfare gains from increasing product variety are an important source of the gains from international trade. Previous empirical studies, however, typically focus on measuring gains from imported varieties. This paper introduces a measure to analyze changes in domestically produced varieties to estimate the total variety gains. Our analysis suggests that, for US manufacturing, losses in domestic varieties from 1992 to 2006 seem substantial given the large decline in the number of US establishments. Yet, once we account for the reallocation of resources towards large multi‐variety firms, we find considerable domestic variety gains, adding to those from imported varieties.     

Employment dynamics in foreign and domestic plants: Evidence from Irish manufacturing

In this paper we investigate the driving factors behind the diverse employment performances of indigenous and foreign‐owned (multinational) plants in Ireland. Examining aggregate job creation and job destruction rates we find that the net gain of the foreign sector in Irish manufacturing employment was due to a considerably lower rate of job destruction and a slightly higher job creation rate. An econometric investigation into the determinants of net employment growth at the plant level lends further credence to the argument that foreign plants performed better than domestic plants. Even after controlling for a number of plant and sector specific effects, multinationals experienced greater net employment growth rates than their indigenous counterparts.     

Trade liberalization and the wage–skill premium: Evidence from Vietnamese manufacturing

This paper examines the wage–skill premium in Vietnamese manufacturing since the reform programme. The effects of tariff reductions on the wage–skill premium are analyzed in the presence of exporting opportunities, foreign investment, and research and development. The findings with firm‐level data reveal that a 10‐ percentage point fall in output tariffs is associated with a 4 percent increase in the wage–skill premium. The wage–skill premium in foreign‐invested enterprises is 40 percent higher than that of domestic enterprises. Trade liberalization influences the wage–skill premium in the presence of foreign ownership and R&D, while its impact on the skill premium only works through exporting.     

Inequality in National Inter-Generational Transfers: Evidence from Colombia

Public transfers are designed with the idea of reducing poverty and inequality among specific population groups. The National Transfers Account methodology suggests the use of household head education (HHE) as a poverty proxy in the construction of profiles by socio-economic status. Considering the higher levels of inequality in developing countries, we construct and check inequality and intergenerational transfers using an alternative measure based on variables not endogenous to the underlying idea of intergenerational transfers: a Multidimensional Quality of Life Index (MQLI). We apply the methodology to a developing country, Colombia, and show that inequality and disparities in intergenerational transfers are best understood when using the MQLI.     

Trade liberalisation,market competition and wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector

Economic reforms of the late 1980s have contributed to rapid economic growth in China. While the overall standard of living has improved, economic growth has also resulted in an increase in income inequality. Rising income inequality can increase social tensions that can impede further economic growth. By making use of firm level panel data, this paper focuses on the impact of increased market competition and trade liberalisation on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector. A theoretical model is used to argue that trade liberalisation and market competition can affect skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Based on this result, an econometric model is specified. The empirical analysis presented in this paper shows that increased trade liberalisation has contributed to an increase in skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China's manufacturing sector. However, increase in market competition has the opposite effect.     

Political openness and armed conflict: Evidence from local councils in Colombia

In this paper, I empirically investigate how the openness of political institutions to diverse representation can impact conflict-related violence. Regression discontinuity estimates that exploit plausibly exogenous variations in the number of councillors in Colombian municipalities show that political openness substantially decreases conflict-related violence, namely the killing of civilian non-combatants. Empirical evidence suggests that the lower level of political violence stems from parties with close links to armed groups having greater representation on larger municipal councils. Using data about the types of violence employed by these groups, and government representation, I argue that armed violence has decreased not because of power-sharing arrangements involving armed groups linked to the parties with more political representation, but rather because armed groups with more political power deter other groups from initiating certain types of violence.     

Politics and the stock market: Evidence from Germany

We analyze the interaction of stock market movements and politics in Germany. Evidence from popularity functions and VAR-based evidence suggests that stock market returns have affected the popularity of German governments. We only find weak evidence that the political process has had an impact on the stock market. In contrast to empirical evidence for the U.S., we do not find that German stock market returns tend to be higher during left-wing than during right-wing governments. Also in contrast to results for the U.S., we find no evidence for an election cycle in German stock market returns.     

Trade Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from India

We evaluate empirically the impact of the dramatic 1991 trade liberalization in India on the industry wage structure. The empirical strategy uses variation in industry wage premiums and trade policy across industries and over time. In contrast to most earlier studies on developing countries, we find a strong, negative, and robust relationship between changes in trade policy and changes in industry wage premiums over time. The results are consistent with liberalization‐induced productivity increases at the firm level, which get passed on to industry wages. We also find that trade liberalization has led to decreased wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in India. This is consistent with the magnitude of tariff reductions being relatively larger in sectors with a higher proportion of unskilled workers.     

Trade liberalization and volatility: Evidence from Indian firms

I look at the impact of trade liberalization on sales growth volatility of firms. Exploiting India’s externally imposed trade reform to identify trade liberalization effects, I find that while a fall in the tariff on the final product produced by the firm is associated with an increase in volatility in Indian manufacturing firms, a fall in the tariff on intermediate inputs is associated with a decrease in volatility, with the latter effect dominating the former. I hence propose an additional channel for gains from trade liberalization to the ones documented in the literature.     

Trade and Rural-Urban Income Inequality: Evidence from China

Using the provincial panel data from 1978 to 2007, this paper makes an empirical analysis of the relationship between international trade and rural-urban income inequality in China. The results show that international trade has a fundamental impact on rural-urban income inequality. For the whole country, the development of international trade from 1978 to 2007 enlarged the rural-urban income gap. During the three different periods (defined in section 3.3), the impact was also noticeable in terms of extent, direction and significance respectively at the national and regional levels. During the three periods, the relationship has an inverted “U” shape for China as a whole, central China and western China, but for eastern China the relationship has a “U” shape. At the same time, exports and imports have different influences on the rural-urban income gap in China, the influences were also different across regions; and the imports has had a more significant influence on these regions than exports has had.     

Firm productivity and importing: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

This paper investigates various aspects of the relationship between firm productivity and importing for a large sample of Chinese firms between 2002 and 2006 making a distinction between the origin, variety, skill and technology content of imports. Employing a random effects probit model and a propensity score matching with difference‐in‐differences (PSM–DID) approach and treating imports as endogenous in our measure of total factor productivity (TFP) (De Loecker 2007), we test the self‐selection and learning‐by‐doing hypotheses. Our results show evidence of a bi‐directional causal relationship between importing and productivity. Although importing firms tend to be more productive before entering the import market, once they start importing firms experience significant productivity gains for up to two years following entry. We also find evidence of learning effects following the decision to import, which is stronger when import starters source their products from high‐income economies, import a wider variety of products and import products with a higher skill and technology content. A number of robustness checks confirm the learning effects of importing on TFP growth.     

Wealth in Latin America: Evidence from Chile,Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay

Drawing on recently-available microdata from financial surveys, this paper presents harmonized indicators for household wealth, its components, and its determinants in four Latin American countries (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay), using Spain as a comparison benchmark. The paper analyzes the relationship between wealth indicators and sociodemographic characteristics of household heads (age, education, gender, marital status). For Uruguay, we are also able to analyze wealth patterns and intergenerational mobility (inheritance, family businesses and parental education).     

Imported carbon emissions: Evidence from French manufacturing companies

This paper analyzes imported carbon emission at the firm level. To do so, we combine information on emissions, imports, imported emissions and energy prices for French manufacturing firms between 1997 and 2014. We document a significant increase of the carbon emissions embedded in imports of French manufacturing companies over the period 1997 to 2014 that is attributable mainly to a shift towards more carbon-intensive products and countries. We then estimate the impact of imported emissions on domestic emissions and emission intensity using a shift-share instrumental variable strategy based on third countries supply shocks. We do not find compelling evidence of an impact of carbon imports on total emissions, but emission efficiency improves significantly in companies offshoring emissions abroad. A 10% increase in carbon offshoring causes a 4% decline in emission intensity. In addition, we find that the elasticity of domestic emission intensity to imported emissions is stronger in energy-intensive sectors, on high-productivity companies and among exporters. Reassuringly, the relationship between imported emissions and emission intensity does not seem to be driven by a pollution haven motive.     

Dynamic hedging strategy in incomplete market: Evidence from Shanghai fuel oil futures market

This paper introduces a new incomplete index and establishes a new optimal hedging model. We find that when the market micro-noise is perfectly negatively correlated with the return of futures market, market incompleteness depends on the relative level of noise volatility. Especially when noise volatility is less than the futures market yield, noise volatility will be offset by return volatility. As a result, complete optimal hedging model emerges. As an aside, it is interesting to note that as different conditional variances derived from different volatility models being applied, the hedge performance tends to be basically consistent with subtle difference: DCC–GARCH model is more likely to execute the hedging with 1:1 ratio, while other multivariate GARCH models would give a hedging ratio with greater probability less than 1:1 and is less likely to be a perfect hedge. Therefore, we believe that a simpler econometric model might produce better empirical results.     

Investor attention and stock market activity: Evidence from France

The aim of this paper is to study the influence of investor attention on the French stock market activity and volatility. Following an original way, we construct a non-standard proxy of investor attention on the basis of investors' online search behavior exclusively provided by “Google insights for search”. We find that Google search volume is a reliable proxy of investor attention. Interestingly, we show that investor attention is strongly correlated to trading volume and is a significant determinant of the stock market illiquidity and volatility. Most importantly, this evidence is maintained even after controlling for the financial crisis effect.     

Currency appreciation and stock market performance: Evidence from China

This paper analyzes the relationship between the change of the exchange rate and the performance of the Chinese stock market after exchange rate regime and split share structure of stock market reformed in 2005, which is important for us to understand the linkages and mechanisms between the two markets deeply. We find that the exchange rate is highly related with the stock market, and there exists long-term cointegration. The results demonstrate that in the long term, the relationship between the two variables mainly belongs to flow-oriented model; Shanghai A Share index is influenced by the exchange rate, yet Shanghai B Share index has shown less indication of long term interrelation with the exchange rate. In the short term, the relationship between the two variables mainly belongs to stock-oriented models, there are inter influence between the stock market and the exchange market. The paper further analyzes the possible influence of different sector indices to exchange rates. Finally, the paper puts forward some advices and policy suggestions.     

FDI and pollution havens: Evidence from the Norwegian manufacturing sector

This is an empirical study of the firm and country determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and how it is affected by the stringency of environmental regulations in host countries. We employ disaggregated data on sales by Norwegian multinationals' affiliates from 1999 to 2005 that allow such affiliates to be categorized as either efficiency-seeking (vertical) or market-seeking (horizontal) FDI. While the environmental stringency of a host country and its enforcement are found to have no effect on the average investment, we find a significant negative effect on multinationals with vertical motives. Compared to those located in lenient countries, the efficiency-seeking affiliates in more environmentally regulated countries receive less investment from their parent companies in terms of (i) equity capital, (ii) capital stock, and (iii) assets. We further find that the total exports from affiliates to parent companies in Norway decrease with the level of enforced environmental stringency in the host countries.     

Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing

The impact of trade liberalization on productivity growth is still an empirical issue; the theoretical literature is as yet unclear on the direction of any such association. This paper develops an analytical framework and employs it to empirically test whether trade liberalization in Indian manufacturing has raised total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The answer is in the affirmative. The results also support a key postulate of the new growth theories, that liberalization of the intermediate-good sectors has a larger favorable impact on TFP growth than that of the final-good sectors.     

Production Networks and Patterns of Trade: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the role of production networks in determining the pattern of international trade. Using Taiwan's trade data for 1991, production networks are found to have a discernible impact on the pattern of trade, aside from the variables typically envisaged by conventional and new trade theories, including factor proportions and technological difference. Taiwan's industries are shown to be relatively strong in horizontal networks, but weak in vertical ones. However, the strength in horizontal networks can be undermined by high wages, and the weakness in vertical networks can be strengthened by high R&D intensities. Both networks are conducive to intra-industry trade, which means that networks are useful devices for product differentiation.     

Trade Openness and Environmental Emissions: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

Environmental and Resource Economics - How trade affects environmental emissions has generated heterogeneous results over the years. This is due to empirical ambiguities that are endemic in the...