Product Complexity,Quality of Institutions and the Protrade Effect of Immigrants

The paper assesses the trade‐creating impact of foreign‐born residents on the international imports and exports of the French regions where they are settled. The protrade effect of immigrants is investigated along two intertwined dimensions: the complexity of traded goods and the quality of institutions in partner countries. The trade‐enhancing impact of immigrants is, on average, more salient when they come from a country with weak institutions. However, this positive impact is especially large on the imports of simple products. When we turn to complex goods, for which the information channel conveyed by immigrants is the most valuable, immigration enhances imports regardless of the quality of institutions in the partner country. Regarding exports, immigrants substitute for weak institutions on both simple and complex goods.     

International trade in durable goods: Understanding volatility, cyclicality, and elasticities

Data for OECD countries document: 1. imports and exports are about three times as volatile as GDP; 2. imports and exports are pro-cyclical, and positively correlated with each other; 3. net exports are counter-cyclical. Standard models fail to replicate the behavior of imports and exports, though they can match net exports relatively well. Inspired by the fact that a large fraction of international trade is in durable goods, we propose a two-country two-sector model in which durable goods are traded across countries. Our model can match the business cycle statistics on the volatility and comovement of the imports and exports relatively well. The model is able to match many dimensions of the data, which suggests that trade in durable goods may be an important element in open-economy macro models.     

State Visits and International Trade

Politicians travel extensively abroad, for various reasons. One purpose of external visits is to improve bilateral economic relations. In this paper, I examine the effect of state visits on international trade. Based on a large data set that covers the travel activities of the heads of state of France, Germany and the United States for the period from 1948 to 2003, I find that state and official visits are indeed positively correlated with exports. I first apply a gravity model of trade to control for other trade determinants and find that a visit is typically associated with higher exports by about 8 to 10 per cent; the results are sensitive to the type of visit (as they should). I then use a differences‐in‐differences specification to deal with the issue of reverse causality. The results show a strong, but short‐lived effect of visits on bilateral exports growth, which is driven by repeated visits to a country. Additional support is provided by an exploratory instrumental vari‐ables analysis.     

Public Export Credit Guarantees and Foreign Trade Structure: Evidence from Austria

Foreign trade is usually not based on cash transactions, but rather sales on credit are the rule. The resulting monitoring costs for lenders and the risk of default on accounts receivable are part of the costs associated with cross‐border goods transactions. Relative to domestic trade credit, cross‐border credit creates trade barriers due to differences in language, business practice, jurisdiction and payment enforceability between trading partners. Export credit insurance has long been a domain of public export credit agencies. Only since the early 1980s private insurance is gaining ground. Using disaggregated panel data for goods exports from Austria over the period 1996 to 2002, we show that public export credit guarantees have a less than proportional positive effect on international trade volume. They predominantly affect the country structure of foreign trade but leave the industry specialisation almost unchanged.     

我国超额外汇储备规模的成因——基于FDI和加工贸易视角的解释

本文从国际收支平衡表结构入手分析超额外汇储备的来源,认为中国超额外汇储备规模与FDI和加工贸易净出口有正相关关系。以2001年1月至2008年12月的月度数据为样本,对FDI、货物贸易净出口、一般贸易净出口、加工贸易净出口和外汇储备增加值等变量之间的关系进行了Granger因果检验和VECM检验,结果显示FDI对来料加工净出口和进料加工净出口、来料加工净出口和进料加工净出口对外汇储备增加值均有显著的正向效应,FDI、来料加工净出口或进料加工净出口、外汇储备增加值之间存在长期均衡的协整关系。     

Paying a visit: The Dalai Lama effect on international trade

Is political compliance a precondition for healthy trade relations with China? The Chinese government frequently threatens that meetings between its trading partners' officials and the Dalai Lama will be met with animosity and ultimately harm trade ties. We run a gravity model of exports to China from 159 partner countries between 1991 and 2008 to test the extent to which bilateral tensions affect trade with autocratic China. In particular, we empirically investigate whether countries that receive the Dalai Lama despite China's opposition experience a significant reduction in their exports to China. In order to account for the potential endogeneity of meetings with the Dalai Lama, the number of Tibet Support Groups and the travel pattern of the Tibetan leader are used as instruments. Our empirical results support the idea that countries officially receiving the Dalai Lama at the highest political level are punished through a reduction of their exports to China. However, this ‘Dalai Lama Effect’ is only observed for the Hu Jintao era and not for earlier periods. Furthermore, we find that this effect is mainly driven by reduced exports of machinery and transport equipment and that it disappears in the second year after a meeting took place.     

Mergers and acquisitions & trade: A global value chain analysis

The present paper deals with how the insertion in international trade and global value chains (GVCs) of countries affects their capacity of attracting foreign mergers and acquisitions (M&As). To this end, we combine data for bilateral M&As and trade in value added for the period 2001–15 and estimate an augmented gravity equation. Results indicate that trade openness per se does not favour M&As. Nevertheless, bilateral free trade agreements, heterogeneity of destinations (sources) for exports (imports) of intermediate and final goods, and position and participation in global value chains are relevant for explaining bilateral M&As. Moreover, their role is significantly different depending on the level of development of the home and host countries.     

Movies and the Mystery of the Missing Trade: Is Hollywood Good for U.S. Exporters?

Research has shown that consumers have a preference for goods based on the origin of production. This is important because it suggests that, in some cases, even lowering trade barriers may not significantly increase trade flows. In particular, flows may be lower than are predicted by trade theories such as Heckscher-Ohlin. Despite evidence that home consumption bias exists in many countries, it is only recently that research has begun to examine the sources of this bias.

This article fills a gap in the literature by testing a model that addresses the source of this consumption bias. The paper's model incorporates consumers' exposure to foreign products and culture through media imports and tourist visits as factors affecting consumers' preferences for foreign products. Using panel data from 19 countries, the article's results support the hypothesis that lagged exports of U.S. movies have a positive impact on other U.S. exports. Some evidence is also found of a positive effect of tourist visits on U.S. exports.

Since U.S. media exports may generate demand for other U.S. goods and services, opening up foreign media markets should receive a higher priority in U.S. trade negotiations. Another interesting implication of the paper is that overall U.S. export losses resulting from media piracy may be lower than previously calculated, as the consumption of pirated media products may increase demand for other U.S. exports.     

FDI对我国价格贸易条件影响的实证分析

本文利用1985～2006年的统计数据,建立了包含价格贸易条件、初级产品进口额、工业制成品出口额、贸易顺差和外资企业出口占我国出口总额的比重这5个变量的协整模型和误差修正模型,对外商直接投资对我国价格贸易条件的影响进行了实证分析,实证结果表明工业制成品出口是导致价格贸易条件恶化的重要原因,而初级产品进口对改善价格贸易条件有正效应,但正效应目前还不显著,FDI对改善我国的价格贸易条件有显著的正效应。在此基础上,本文提出了改善我国价格贸易条件的政策建议。     

Isolating the Network Effect of Immigrants on Trade

Within the migration–trade nexus literature, this paper proposes a more carefully defined measure of migration business networks and quantifies its impact on bilateral trade. Using cross‐sectional data and controlling for the overall bilateral stock of migrants, the share of migrants employed in managerial/business‐related occupations has a strong additional effect on trade. Those immigrants should be the ones directly involved in the diffusion and transmission of information relevant for companies trading with other countries. Their presence is found to increase the volume of trade, especially of imports, beyond the already known effect of immigrants or highly educated immigrants. When we control for the presence of highly educated immigrants, the share of immigrants in business network occupations shows a particularly large effect on trade in differentiated goods. We also find that highly educated individuals in business‐related occupations are those contributing to stimulate import and export by the largest margin. Business network effects seem particularly important in stimulating exports to culturally different countries, such as those with different language and legal origin.     

Movements of People for Movements of Goods?

Whilst it is well established to think of international tourism as a type of exports, namely ‘home’ exports, the potential of tourism flows as an engine for fostering trade among countries is a poorly studied topic. In this paper, we show that this relationship can be studied at a very detailed level by exploiting the disaggregation of existing information on international trade and inbound tourism. We consider a sample of 25 countries belonging to the European Union, a region that has been interested by common shocks such as the establishment of the euro as the new currency for many countries and the liberalisation in the air transport market. We carry out a panel data analysis by means of which we assess whether international tourist arrivals by a given country activate additional exports towards the same country. We find not only that tourism can promote exports, but also that this effect displays important differences depending on whether or not consumption goods are considered. This finding is consistent with the idea that the experience of tourists in a given destination reduces the fixed costs of trade, thus facilitating access to the advantages of international trade for more peripheral economies.     

The role of inbound tourist flows in promoting exports

While it is established that tourism benefits growth through increased employment and investments, it is not well understood whether tourism has an effect on exports. This paper explores exports as an additional channel through which tourism affects domestic economic activity. Using bilateral tourist and trade flows, the paper explores the causal effect of tourist flows on exports. To deal with endogeneity, two instruments are constructed and subsequently used on two different sets of exporters, one of the instruments being the number of casualties due to terrorism in a country. We find that tourism affects mainly the exports of differentiated products. Specifically, we find that tourism benefits the exports from non‐OECD exporters of processed food products and this effect is only estimated for South–North trade with an elasticity close to 1. For European countries, the findings point in the same direction; tourism affects differentiated consumer products and processed food with elasticity close to 1, which adds plausibility to the earlier results. We also find a lagged effect for tourism mainly on the export of consumer goods (for the two samples) and processed food products (for European countries). The results suggest that exporting is an additional channel through which tourism can stimulate domestic economic activity in the tourist destination.     

Determinants of China's bilateral trade balance in global value chains

This paper identifies the determinants of China's bilateral trade balance using a new measure based on international input–output data, the so-called ‘trade in value-added’ (TiVA), which can prevent double counting in the estimation of bilateral trade balance. Our results show that using a measure based on gross exports, rather than TiVA, causes relatively large overestimation of the impact of the RMB exchange rate on China's bilateral trade balance. This overestimation is mainly because that the increasing production of exports may require increasing intermediate imports as a consequence of international fragmentation of production in global value chains. In addition, our results also show that the impact of FDI inflows on China's bilateral trade balances depends on the position and role of China and its trading partners in GVCs.     

Distance,Transaction Costs,and Preferences in European Trade

Beckerman (1956) and Linder (1961) have suggested that international trade is not determined by supply-side factors alone—perceptions about foreign countries and country preferences matter. We explore the relation between exports, cultural distance, and country preferences in Europe. The results show that several distance and preference-related variables, based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, income gaps, and voting patterns in the Eurovision Song Contest, are significantly related to bilateral trade. We conclude that cultural distance and preferences influence trade through several channels, both indirectly through transaction costs and more directly, as countries seem to prefer some trade partners before others.     

Do High‐Skill Immigrants trigger High‐Quality Trade?

This paper investigates the links between product quality and the pro‐trade effect of ethnic networks using a large panel on bilateral stocks of immigrants with information for 19 OECD destination countries and 177 origin countries. In line with the approach of Rauch and Trindade, we classify traded goods according to their quality level and separately estimate pro‐trade elasticity of ethnic networks for each subgroup. We allow for heterogeneity of immigrants according to both the level of per capita income of their country of origin and their education level. Our findings suggest that the trend of the pro‐trade effect of immigrants over quality seems to be driven by the North–South specialisation across varieties for both supply and demand. Indeed, ethnic networks mostly facilitate imports of those varieties for which their countries of origin have a comparative advantage; as for exports, ethnic networks are more effective in promoting exports to their homeland of those varieties for which there is relatively higher demand. We show that the same trend applies to products characterised by the same degree of differentiation according to the classification proposed by Rauch and – given their lower liquidity constraints and advantages in human capital – we find a greater impact of high‐skilled migrants consistent across all quality levels.     

Evaluating Export Promotion Programmes: U.K. Overseas Trade Missions and Export Performance

This paper examines the extent to which firms' knowledge and structural characteristics as well as firms' behaviour in foreign markets following trade mission participation impacts upon trade mission success and export performance. The findings suggest that: 1) A diversification strategy in terms of export markets benefits future expansion into new foreign markets; 2) Specific knowledge about the targeted markets should be acquired prior to participating in the trade missions; 3) Communication with potential business partners should be established prior to participating in the trade missions; and 4) The business relationships established before and during the trade missions should be cultivated through regular contacts using not only communication technology, but also regular visits. In summary, overseas trade missions contribute to the generation of incremental sales in foreign markets by enhancing the relationship-building process between business partners.     

论外贸企业的虚拟经营

随着信息技术的发展,生产者与消费者通过网络直接交易成为可能,商品在国际市场上的流动更加畅通。传统专业外贸企业作为“贸易中介”的作用相对弱化,引发了外贸企业组织结构的深刻变革。外贸企业的虚拟经营,形成了新的工贸关系。外贸企业依靠研发和品牌由过去生产企业商品的推销者,转变为国际市场的主导者。     

Networks of Value‐added Trade

Global value chains (GVCs) require new methods for evaluating interconnections among countries, which can no longer be accurately appraised by standard bilateral gross trade flows. This paper uses tools of network analysis to examine the evolution of value‐added trade from 1995 to 2011. GVCs are very centralised and asymmetric networks, with a few large economies acting as hubs, which exposes them to the propagation of idiosyncratic shocks. As GVCs expanded, the networks of foreign value added in exports became denser, more complex and intensively connected. The regional dimension of GVCs is still dominant but is progressively giving place to a more global network. Networks of foreign value added in goods exports outpace those of services exports. However, foreign inputs of services are important for exports of both goods and services. There is a striking rise of China as a supplier of value added, while Germany and the United States maintain a central role in GVCs over the whole period.     

Determinants of Bilateral Trade Protection

In this paper, determinants of bilateral protection levels are empirically identified when controlling for multilateral trade regulation and importing‐country‐specific factors. Strong empirical support is provided of that three bilateral factors are influencing the bilateral protection level. Specifically, a country's protection level on goods from a trade partner is positively affected by the domestic import penetration of goods produced by the trade partner, negatively influenced by the intra‐industry traded share of these imports and positively affected by the trade partner's protection level on domestic goods. Moreover, very high explanatory values are provided in the cross‐section estimations, indicating that these determinants, policy regulations and importer‐specific factors jointly explain almost all of the variation in bilateral protection levels. The results are general in the sense that estimations are performed for a large sample of bilateral trade relations including 22 trade partners that are highly differentiated in terms of country characteristics. The overall results indicate that, to the extent that policy makers can affect bilateral protection levels under multilateral trade regulation, they act on political‐economy rather than economic goals.     

我国对“一带一路”沿线国家出口态势浅析

"一带一路"倡议的实施不仅改善了外部发展环境,更是成为新常态下外贸提质增效的战略支撑。笔者基于我国对"一带一路"沿线国家的出口数据分析,揭示三大态势:一是初级产品与工业制成品出口双增长,但制成品出口中沿线国家所占份额趋于稳定,而初级产品出口中沿线国家占比不断上升;二是工业制成品中劳动密集型产品出口下滑而高新技术产品出口增势明显;三是对东盟出口中间品与进口最终消费品保持较快增长。进一步分析表明,上述三大态势缘自"一带一路"背景下我国对外直接投资的发展、经济增长方式的转型以及东亚分工体系的调整。