Openness and income: The roles of trade and migration

This paper explores the relationship between openness to trade, immigration, and income per person across countries. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy introduced by Frankel and Romer (1999). We build predictors of openness to immigration and to trade for each country by using information on bilateral geographical and cultural distance (while controlling for country size). Since geography may affect income through other channels, we also control for climate, disease environment, natural resources, and colonial origins. Most importantly, we also account for the roles of institutions and early development. Our instrumental-variables estimates provide evidence of a robust, positive effect of openness to immigration on long-run income per capita. In contrast, we are unable to establish an effect of trade openness on income. We also show that the effect of migration operates through an increase in total factor productivity, which appears to reflect increased diversity in productive skills and, to some extent, a higher rate of innovation.     

Economic geography and international inequality

This paper estimates a structural model of economic geography using cross-country data on per capita income, bilateral trade, and the relative price of manufacturing goods. We provide evidence that the geography of access to markets and sources of supply is statistically significant and quantitatively important in explaining cross-country variation in per capita income. This finding is robust to controlling for a wide range of considerations, including other economic, geographical, social, and institutional characteristics. Geography is found to matter through the mechanisms emphasized by the theory, and the estimated coefficients are consistent with plausible values for the model's structural parameters.     

Autocracy,democracy and trade policy

This paper develops a politico-economic model for use in studying the role of intra-elite conflict in the simultaneous determination of a country's political regime, trade policy and income-tax-based redistribution scheme. Three socioeconomic groups are involved: two elite groups and workers, whose preferences regarding trade policy and income taxation are derived from a simple open-economy model. The critical point is that income taxation induces a rich–poor/elite–workers political cleavage, while trade policy opens the door to intra-elite conflict. In this model, when there is no intra-elite conflict, changes in trade policy are associated with political transitions. Coups (democratizations) open up the economy if and only if both elite groups are pro-free-trade (protectionist). However, in the presence of intra-elite conflict, autocracies respond to popular revolts by changing trade policy and reallocating political power within the elite (to the elite group with the same trade policy preference as the workers) rather than offering to democratize the country. The change in trade policy is credible because the elite group with the same trade policy preference as the workers controls the autocracy. Moreover, in the presence of intra-elite conflict, coups tend to result in the maintenance of the existing trade policy unless popular demands are extremely radical and/or the elite group with the same trade policy preference as the workers is exceptionally weak.     

Does trade raise income?: Evidence from the twentieth century

Efforts to estimate the effects of international trade on a country’s real income have been hampered by the failure to account for the endogeneity of trade. Frankel and Romer recently use a country’s geographic attributes — notably its distance from potential trading partners — to construct an instrument to identify the effects of trade on income in 1985. Using data from the pre-World War I, the interwar, and the post-war periods, we find that the main result of Frankel and Romer is confirmed throughout the whole century: countries that trade more as a proportion of their GDP have higher incomes even after controlling for the endogeneity of trade. We also find that the OLS estimate of trade’s effect on income is biased downwards in almost every sample year. However, this result is not robust to the inclusion of distance from equator (latitude).     

Trade and income convergence: Sorting out the causality

This paper studies the linkage between international trade and income convergence across countries. Different theories offer conflicting predictions regarding how they might affect each other. In the existing empirical literature estimating the trade impact on income convergence, a long-lasting problem is the reverse causality from income convergence to trade. This paper provides a disaggregated bilateral trade data analysis to solve this problem. The results show that the reverse causality from income convergence to trade exists in differentiated product sectors, but not in homogeneous product sectors. Trade in homogeneous sectors reduces the income gaps among trade partners, but it is not significantly affected by their income difference. Therefore, the negative effect of trade in homogeneous sectors on the income gap is free from the reverse causality problem. It can be taken as a pure evidence of trade-induced income convergence. This result is robust to various econometric methods.     

Surviving globalisation

This paper investigates the effects of international trade on firms' strategies for industry exit, either via closedown, switching industry or being acquired. We use a rich dataset of Swedish firms that extends over two decades to track firm choices between alternative strategies. We find that higher levels of international competition increase the probability of exit by merger and closedown. If trade is more intra-industry in character, the effect of import penetration on the probability of exit is less. The probability of exit by switching industry is higher in revealed comparative disadvantage industries. Finally, we find that the geographical source of international competition is important, the effects of trade on exit being strongest when trading partners are other OECD countries.     

Technology Trade in Economic Development

Recent evidence on the respective contributions of institutions and trade to income levels across countries has demonstrated that – once endogeneity is considered – institutional quality clearly dominates the effect of trade. We argue that overall trade is not the most appropriate measure for technology diffusion as a source of productivity growth and propose to focus on imports of research and development (R&D)‐intensive goods instead. Overall, we confirm previous findings that institutions matter most and that overall trade is not positively associated with per‐capita income levels. Yet this does not hold for technology trade, as there is a positive and significant linkage between technology imports and income levels. This outcome is robust to various model specifications, including an instrumental variables approach.     

Trade openness,income levels,and economic growth: The case of developing countries, 1970–2009

This paper attempts to investigate the extent to which trade openness has had an impact on the levels of income and rates of growth in a sample of 115 developing countries for the period 1970–2009. Additionally, to assess whether there is an income level threshold for a country to benefit from international trade, the sample is broken down into three mutually exclusive groups of countries: low-income, lower middle-income, and upper middle-income countries. The main novelty of the paper lies on the use, on the one hand, of a new and better trade openness measure and, on the other hand, of non-stationary heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques to cope with the problem of cross-sectional dependence. The results show a positive bi-directional relationship between trade openness and income level in the long run, thus suggesting that trade openness is both a cause and a consequence of the level of income. The results for the short run, that is, the link between openness growth and economic growth, go in the same direction.     

Trade,development, and poverty-induced comparative advantage

This paper deals with the relation between trade and development when poverty affects individual decision making. We develop a two-sector model that links production and schooling decisions under poverty with standard neo-classical trade analyses. The decision to either work or acquire skills depends on households having reached subsistence levels of income, implying that the income level of a country becomes important in establishing comparative advantages and trade patterns. Trade liberalisation is always allocative efficient, but its timing is important for the speed by which countries industrialise. Our analysis supports the idea that there are instances that stalling trade liberalisation may serve industrial development.     

Regional Trade Agreements and the Pattern of Trade: A Networks Approach

This paper uses a complex network approach for the analysis trade effects from regional trade agreements on world trade flows. We use bilateral trade data to compute the network community structure for every year between 1970 and 2000. We compare this to null community structures that emerge from various models based on regional and geographical classifications, the implementation of RTA's and gravity models of trade. Our results show that RTA formation appears to have a cyclical pattern on the world trade network community structure. We document periods where bilateral trade flows and the structure of the world trade network are consistent with those predicted by formation of RTAs. These cycles occur in 1980–86 and 1990–96. At the same time, we document periods in which the pattern in the world trade network is not explained by RTA formation. Two periods, 1986–90 and 1997–2000, show a pattern of bilateral trade flows that moves away from the prediction that results from assuming RTA formation as the driving force in the determination of the world trade network structure. Factors contributing to the latter parts of the cycle during our sample period include formation of regional trade networks in East Asia that account for a significant portion of world trade but are not formalised by RTAs in force.     

Trade in Services: The Elasticity Approach for The Case of Turkey

This study includes the analysis of global trade in the services and service sector in Turkey, and estimates the elasticity of trade in services to real exchange rates and income. There is an increasing role of the service sector in the Turkish economy; however, a decreasing trend of trade in services is taking place. The commitments of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) were found to be ineffective, at least in the case of Turkey. The empirical findings suggest that the real exchange rate is not a significant determinant for the trade in services. We found an inelastic real exchange rate and income elasticities in trade demand functions. However, the value of income elasticity significantly exceeds the value of real exchange rate elasticity.     

Income distribution and unequal gains from trade

This paper studies welfare gains from trade in a tractable model with a nonhomothetic preference over product quality. We show that the welfare changes due to trade shocks are unequal across consumers and derive a parsimonious formula to measure these welfare changes as in Arkolakis et al. (2012, American Economic Review, 102, 94–130). We find that the welfare changes are larger for consumers with lower income. Moreover, this paper shows that the welfare implications are different between a change in (iceberg-type) variable trade cost and a change in tariff when tariff revenue matters. More importantly, we show that the difference varies across consumers with different income levels.     

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.     

CHANGING PATTERNS OF REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE: The Case of Canada Under NAFTA

Recently, the issue of regional and international trade flows has attracted increased attention. Papers by Helliwell and McCallum have stressed the importance of national borders in determining the nature of Canadian economic activity even when adjustments are made for distance and trade barriers. This article, using Provincial Economic Accounts data, estimates an almost ideal demand system to explain the interprovincial and international flow of goods, accounting for changes in relative prices and other factors that have arisen since the formation of NAFTA. The results allow conclusions to be drawn with respect to the importance of geographical proximity to the U.S. border, the influence of price and income elasticities, and the nature of the industrial/resource endowment mix of the province. The relevant elasticities allow for the examination changes to the internal and external trade patterns and to the differences which have developed in the various regions of Canada.     

贸易收入余额对中美贸易的影响

随着经济全球化的加深,越来越多的跨国公司通过对外直接投资向海外销售产品和服务的方式来获取收益。传统的贸易余额没有包含对外直接投资收入。本文指出与传统的贸易余额相比,加入对外直接投资净收入的贸易收入余额更能反映当今一国的对外贸易状况及国家间的经济利益,用贸易收入余额衡量的美国贸易逆差和中国贸易顺差将大幅减少,中美贸易收入逆差将使中美贸易逆差小幅下降。     

对外贸易与收入不平等——基于我国的经验研究

本文采用我国1985-2005年的时间序列数据,就对外贸易与收入不平等的关系进行了实证研究。发现对外贸易与收入不平等是一种倒"U"形的关系。1985-2004年对外贸易拉大了我国的收入不平等,之后则缩小了收入不平等。在此基础上,分析了对外贸易与收入不平等成倒"U"形关系的成因,并就今后发展对外贸易与缩小收入不平等提出了相关建议。     

我国工业制成品贸易条件的影响因素分析

本文运用1981-2006年的数据,对我国工业制成品的价格贸易条件、收入贸易条件和单要素贸易条件的影响因素进行了实证分析。结果表明:技术进步与我国工业制成品的价格贸易条件和收入贸易条件呈显著正相关关系,人均资本存量与收入贸易条件呈显著负相关关系,资本技术密集型产品出口占工业制成品出口的比例与价格贸易条件呈显著正相关关系;经济增长与收入贸易条件、单要素贸易条件呈显著正相关关系,累积外国直接投资占国内资本存量的比例与价格贸易条件和收入贸易条件呈显著负相关关系;以直接标价法表示的实际汇率变动与三种贸易条件均呈显著负相关关系。本文在此基础上提出了相关的政策建议。     

论原产地规则对国际供应链的影响

货物原产地最初是一种自然地理意义上的概念,指货物作为商品在国际贸易及国内贸易中的最初来源地。随着国际经济交往的深入和供应链的专业化分工,原产地的概念也今非昔比。如今的货物原产地标签已经成为一种规则主导的结果,因而很多参与国际贸易的企业出于规避贸易管制措施和品牌营销的目的,根据原产地规则改变产品的原有的供应链安排从而人为操作控制产品的原产地。本文将从原产地规则在供应链中产生的经济影响进行分析并提出有关政策建议。     

Skill classification does matter: estimating the relationship between trade flows and wage inequality

Empirical work must pay careful attention to how it measures the relative skill abundance of countries and the relative skill intensity embodied in trade flows. This paper compiles a new data set, using income levels, average education, manufacturing wages, and an index of these three variables, to classify countries and trade flows as relatively high skill or low skill. Then, in order to show the importance of skill classification, it uses a reduced-form fixed-effects model to estimate the relationship between trade flows and wage inequality. This specification not only controls for any time-invariant omitted variables, but also permits the inclusion of a large number of diverse countries. When more accurate skill rankings are utilized, results suggest that, in high-skill abundant countries, increased trade with lower-skill countries is correlated with an increase in wage inequality. This relationship is significant and highly robust and is driven by the negative relationship between trade and low-skill wages (instead of a positive relationship between trade and high-skill wages.) Results, however, are highly dependent on the skill classification utilized.     

Trade reform,infrastructure investment,and structural transformation in Africa: Evidence from Guinea-Bissau

This study examines the impacts of trade reform and infrastructure investment on structural transformation and poverty alleviation in Guinea-Bissau using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. We found that partial or complete tariff rate cuts accompanied by a scaling-up infrastructure investment funded by debt only positively impact macro-and micro-outcomes but do not generate structural transformation. Conversely, trade reform and infrastructure investment funded by a mix of debt and tax rates on the firm's income generate structural transformation with labor reallocation from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors. This structural transformation pattern favors the poor and contributes to reducing income inequality over time.