Trade preferences and political equilibrium associated with trade liberalization

This paper, motivated by the so-called North–South problem in trade, analyzes ex ante trade preferences and the source of potential political conflicts regarding trade liberalization. Developing a dynamic extension of the traditional Heckscher–Ohlin model with imperfect labor mobility and tracking overall dynamic paths from the autarky to free-trade steady states, we demonstrate that in the presence of inter-sectoral migration barrier, bilateral free-trade agreements can be welcomed (opposed) by the majority of workers in a capital-abundant (labor-abundant) country, which is inconsistent with the welfare prediction by Stolper and Samuelson. This paper also proposes a numerical algorithm to solve for the entire transition path of the model under rational expectation. Our simulation experiments further reveal that preannounced and delayed implementation can facilitate a bilateral free-trade agreement by partially neutralizing short-run transitional gains and losses so as to persuade the losers to support the reform without affecting the beneficiaries’ trade preferences.     

Unions, competition and international trade in general equilibrium

We develop a two-country, multi-sector model of oligopoly in which unionised and non-unionised sectors interact in general equilibrium. The model is used to study the impact of trade liberalisation, deunionisation and firm entry on wages in unionised and non-unionised sectors, and on welfare. We find that a shift from autarky to free trade increases non-union wages and welfare, whereas the effect on union wages is ambiguous. We also show that partial deunionisation leads to higher wages in both unionised and non-unionised sectors, but only increases welfare when the proportion of unionised sectors is sufficiently low. Finally, wages in non-unionised sectors necessarily increase with firm entry, while the response of union wages and welfare depends on the trade regime.     

International trade with endogenous mode of competition in general equilibrium

This paper endogenizes the extent of intra-sectoral competition in a multi-sectoral general-equilibrium model of oligopoly and trade. Firms choose capacity followed by prices. If the benefits of capacity investment in a given sector are below a threshold level, the sector exhibits Bertrand behavior, otherwise it exhibits Cournot behavior. By endogenizing the threshold parameter in general equilibrium, we show how exogenous shocks such as globalization and technological change alter the mix of sectors between “more” and “less” competitive, or Bertrand and Cournot, and affect the relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers, even in a “North–North” model with identical countries.     

The effect of trade liberalization on child labor

The question of how trade liberalization affects the employment of children in developing economies is at the core of the debate on globalization. Trade theory predicts that an increase in the price of an exported good could either increase or decrease child labor depending on the magnitudes of the substitution and income effects. In this paper, we study the relationship between changes in the relative price of an exported commodity and child labor using household-level data from within a poor country. In particular, we relate child labor to regional and intertemporal variation in the real price of rice surrounding national and international rice market integration in Vietnam. We find that higher rice prices are associated with declines in child labor. Income effects play an important role in this relationship. Rice price increases are associated with the largest declines in child labor in households that are large net producers of rice. These findings show that greater market integration can be associated with less child labor. Moreover, our results suggest that the use of punitive trade sanctions on exports from developing countries to eradicate child labor is unlikely to yield the desired outcome.     

从发展中国家的角度看家产品贸易自由化的主要问题——兼评菲律宾农业贸易自由化的负面影响

在乌拉圭回合谈判的过程中，大多数研究都预测随着乌拉圭回合谈判的结束和世贸组织的建立，发达国家将按照农业协议大幅度削减对农产品的国内支持与出口补贴，世界市场的农产品价格将上升，除了极少数的农产品食品净进口国外，大多数发展中国家将从农产品贸易自由化中受益，国民经济的增长也因此而加快。然而，８年过去了，大多数发展中国家既未享受到更加自由的农产品贸易，更未从中受益。现实中的情况是主要农产品的国际价格继续下降，而发展中国家贸易总量也基本保持在原有的水平。从１９８０年到１９９７年的１７年内，发展中国家在世界…     

Endogenous firm heterogeneity and the dynamics of trade liberalization

In this paper, we build a dynamic model with endogenous firm-level productivity that involves ex ante identical firms behaving differently in equilibrium. Heterogeneity arises in equilibrium as firms choose different dates to adopt a new technology. We investigate the effects of international trade on technological diffusion and show that trade has a generally positive impact on the equilibrium rate of adoption (and hence on firm-level productivity). In addition, the model can replicate the stylized fact that exporters are larger and more productive than non-exporters. Finally, we show how our model can be used to interpret the emerging empirical evidence on the firm-level productivity effects of CUSFTA.     

How can the crisis of liberalization trade be overcome?

Since the seventies the existing order of international economic relations has been exposed to ever stronger pressures. Access to foreign markets must once again be regarded as a scarce commodity, since the far-reaching removal of tariff barriers has been more than compensated for by non-tariff restrictions.     

Education bias of trade liberalization and wage inequality in developing countries

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of increased trade on wage inequality in developing countries, and whether a higher human capital stock moderates this effect. We look at the skilled–unskilled wage differential. When better educated societies open up their economies, increased trade is likely to induce less inequality on impact because the supply of skills better matches demand. But greater international exposure also brings about technological diffusion, further raising skilled labour demand. This may raise wage inequality, in contrast to the initial egalitarian level effect of human capital. We attempt to measure these two opposing forces. We also employ a broad set of indicators to measure trade liberalization policies as well as general openness, which is an outcome, and not a policy variable. We further examine what type of education most reduces inequality. Our findings suggest that countries with a higher level of initial human capital do well on the inequality front, but human capital which accrues through the trade liberalization channel has inegalitarian effects. Our results also have implications for the speed at which trade policies are liberalized, the implication being that better educated nations should liberalize faster.     

金融服务贸易自由化及我国的对策

我国加入世贸组织以来,对外贸易取得了快速发展,但相对于我国的货物贸易来讲,服务贸易中的金融服务和保险服务的发展状况与对外贸易总的发展状况不相符,已成为制约我国服务贸易发展的重要因素。我国应争取在WTO框架内更好地发展金融服务,有效利用世贸组织关于金融服务的相关规定,对金融和保险等产业进行保护,政府应积极介入,改变经营战略,有效监管,以确保金融市场的平衡发展。     

舟山实现大宗商品贸易自由化的可行性分析

浙江舟山群岛新区拥有独特的区位优势,是江海联运的重要枢纽,在"一带一路"以及自由贸易港区的背景下力争成为全球主要大宗商品的交易中心、仓储中心、物流中心和信息中心。但是目前舟山要发展还存在一些自身及外部的阻碍。本文从舟山的自身特点、政策条件出发,分析舟山发展大宗商品交易存在的不足,同时也为形成完善的大宗商品交易体系提出一些意见和建议。     

Welfare implications of trade liberalization and fiscal reform: A quantitative experiment

This paper studies the welfare implications of revenue-neutral trade liberalization and fiscal reform programs for developing economies using a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy. We analyze how different combinations of tariffs – on imported consumption goods, intermediate inputs, and capital goods – and taxes – on consumption, labor income and capital income – affect the transitional and long-run welfare. We report three main findings. First, trade liberalization programs financed by consumption and labor income taxes tend to result in substantial welfare gains, but financing the lost tariff revenue through capital income taxes can have an adverse impact on welfare. Second, a significant fraction of welfare changes is due to transitional effects stemming from the allocation of resources in response to changes in tariffs and taxes. Third, trade liberalization and fiscal reform programs often translate into much larger welfare gains in countries that are more open to international financial markets.     

Establishment heterogeneity,exporter dynamics,and the effects of trade liberalization

We study the effects of tariffs and iceberg trade costs in a two-sector dynamic variation of the Melitz (2003) model extended to include a sunk cost of exporting, establishment-level uncertainty in productivity, capital accumulation, and material usage. We calibrate the model to match both cross-sectional and dynamic aspects of US producers related to export participation and the establishment lifecycle. We find a tariff equivalent of fixed export costs of 30 percentage points. We also find that a sizeable share of export profits is a return to the organizational capital from investing in export capacity rather than creating an establishment. We use the model to estimate the effect of reducing tariffs on welfare, trade, and export participation. We find that eliminating an 8 percent tariff increases the ratio of trade to GDP from 3.9% to 7.4% and raises welfare by 1.02%. Along the transition, consumption overshoots its steady state, even as trade and the capital stock grow gradually, so that the change in steady state consumption understates the welfare gain. Models without a dynamic export decision generate more gradual aggregate transition dynamics and smaller gains from trade. Capital accumulation and material usage are important sources of the welfare gains to trade.     

The clash of liberalizations: Preferential vs. multilateral trade liberalization in the European Union

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are characterized by liberalization with respect to only a few partners and thus they can potentially clash with, and retard multilateral trade liberalization (MTL). Yet there is almost no systematic evidence on whether the numerous existing PTAs actually affect MTL. We provide a model showing that PTAs hinder MTL unless they entail accession to a customs union with internal transfers. Using product-level tariffs negotiated by the European Union (EU) in the last two multilateral trade rounds we find that several of its PTAs have clashed with its MTL. However, this effect is absent for EU accessions. Moreover, we provide new evidence on the political economy determinants of trade policy in the EU.     

Trade liberalization,division of labor and welfare under oligopoly

Incorporating explicitly division of labor into a two-country general oligopolistic equilibrium model, we examine the effects of trade liberalization on firm productivity and welfare. We show that a tariff reduction increases the firm productivity of the trading industries but decreases that of the non-trading industries. An expansion of the trading industries, in contrast, decreases the firm productivity of both the trading and non-trading industries. We then find that a tariff reduction necessarily reduces welfare while the welfare effect of expansion of trading industries is ambiguous.     

The effects of relative country size and endowment similarity in influencing trade volume and composition in general equilibrium monopolistically competitive markets

In order to explain two-way trade, the standard H-O model has recently been modified by assuming a market structure with monopolistic competition. The factors that affect the volume of total trade and its intra-industry component have been previously specified. This paper attempts to generalize these results to the N-good, M-country case. Although endowment similarity increases the intra-industry component in the 2×2 case, this proposition does not strictly hold for bilateral trade in the N × M case. Similarity of relative income size (GNP) does increase intra-industry trade in the 2×2 case, but does not increase the intra-industry share as assumed by several authors. In the N × M case, similarity of relative income size does not affect the bilateral volume of intra-industry trade nor its intra-industry share. This article thus shows that ceteris paribus comparative static changes in a 2-country model are not equivalent to changes in that variable across a cross-section of a multicountry model.     

中美贸易中的几大热点问题

据中国海关统计,2000年中国对美国出口额为521亿美元,2004年为1250亿美元,增长140%;此间,中国对美国贸易顺差由299亿美元上升至803亿美元,增长169%。据美国海关统计,2000年美国对中国出口额为162亿美元,2004年为347亿美元,增长114%。在美国前15大贸易伙伴中,对中国出口增长是最快的。此间,美国对华贸易逆差由838亿美元上升至1620亿美元,增长93.3%,占2004年美国商品     

The impact of trade liberalization on productivity: Evidence from India's formal and informal manufacturing sectors

Despite a large literature investigating the impacts of trade on firm productivity, there is almost no evidence on how small firms react to trade liberalization. Using a unique dataset of firm-level surveys that are representative of the entire Indian manufacturing industry, I show that India's unilateral reduction in final goods tariffs increased the average productivity of small, informal firms, which account for 80% of Indian manufacturing employment but have been excluded from previous studies. In contrast, the increase in productivity among larger, formal firms was driven primarily by the concurrent reduction in input tariffs. By examining the effect of the tariff liberalization on the distributions of productivity and firm size, I find evidence consistent with the exit of the smallest, least productive firms from the informal sector. In addition, I find that although the decline in final goods tariffs did not significantly impact average formal sector productivity, it did increase productivity among the top quantiles of the distribution.     

中国建立自由贸易港的实践探索

随着对外开放的深入推进,中国正在探索、实施具有中国特色自由贸易港的建设。中共十九大报告提出了“赋予自由贸易试验区更大改革自主权,探索建设自由贸易港”,为各地区建设自由贸易港提供了指引。在阐述自由贸易港范畴与特征及功能类型的基础上,探究了中国建立自由贸易港实践中面临的主要问题,进而提出了完善法律制度,明确自由贸易港法律定位;加大统筹推进,实现各地区互联互动;全方位发展,加强进口、转口贸易制度创新;加强服务贸易、数字贸易制度创新,推动自由贸易港国际化发展;建立公平贸易环境,提升中国在国际经贸领域的话语权等对策建议。     

Making sense of Bolkestein-bashing: Trade liberalization under segmented labor markets

An increase in the range of tradable goods is analyzed in a two-country Dornbusch-Fischer-Samuelson style model, where labor cannot relocate to another sector upon a non-expected increase in the range of goods that can be traded.The effect of liberalization on the terms of trade tend to favor the poorer country (the “East”), if (as assumed) the most sophisticated goods are tradable before reform. Second, under ex-post liberalization, there exists a class of workers in the West who are harmed because they face competition from Eastern workers and cannot relocate to other activities. But if the East's economy is relatively small, their wage losses are not very large. Things are different, however, if there exist asymmetries in labor market institutions, such that upon reform, labor can relocate in the East but not in the West. Some workers in the West can then experience very large wage losses. Thus, rigid labor markets in the West magnify opposition to reform there.