论比较优势的成本基础——从生产成本向“全成本”的拓展

贸易理论的历史演进表明,比较优势是一国参与国际分工和贸易的基本动因。古典、新古典和新贸易理论分别从劳动生产率、要素禀赋、生产规模等不同视角论证了基于生产成本的比较优势,进而可表达为"相对生产成本不等式"。随着制度、生态环境、"可持续性"等要素在国际贸易中日趋重要,使用制度要素所形成的交易成本、使用生态环境要素所形成的环境成本、耗费"可持续性"要素所形成的代际成本也逐步成为比较优势的成本基础。于是,可将使用或耗费广义要素的代价理解为"全成本",它构成了一国参与国际分工和贸易的比较优势的基础。     

电子信息产业国内价值链省域比较优势测度及空间差异研究

为应对后疫情时代全球电子信息产业加剧的“比较优势陷阱”,中国亟需通过国内价值链省域比较优势的互补协同提升整体国际竞争力。在价值链产品内,基于垂直专业化分工框架,兼顾增值能力与劳动生产率两个维度,使用非竞争型投入占用产出模型,设计一个评测国家内部区域电子信息产业真实比较优势的新指标。结果表明,东部沿海省域比较优势强度与广度最为显著,内陆省域比较优势集中于上游能源型部门;制造业部门比较优势凸显,服务业部门比较优势相对薄弱;比较优势高省域集中度与低省域集中度的产业部门中,均存在整体比较优势强弱差异,其中,高省域集中度产业部门比较优势强度更高。     

比较优势与东北地区外贸发展

国际贸易理论认为比较优势是动态发展的。文章对东北地区外贸的发展滞后、在全国的份额下降、对区域经济的贡献减弱的现状进行了分析，指出造成这种状况的原因，主要是受资源、技术投入、投资经营环境与外部环境等因素的制约。最后探讨了如何立足动态比较优势，促进东北地区外贸发展的主要措施。     

Competition or Comparative Advantage: What Drives Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions?

The theory of comparative advantage explains the upsurge of cross border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs) in the era of reform led trade liberalization. This paper tests the theory of comparative advantage for CBMAs by firms belonging to a developing country, viz. India. Using count data the paper also shows that CBMAs have occurred in country and sector specific waves. This implies in developing countries, it is competition rather than comparative advantage which drives CBMAs. However, the paper finds that occurrence of the country specific wave and sector specific wave are negatively affected by favourable outward FDI policy.

     

Absolute and Comparative Advantage, Reconsidered: The Pattern of International Trade with Optimal Saving

The paper obtains new results about absolute and comparative advantage, by introducing international technological differences into the three–sector Findlay–Komiya and two–sector Oniki–Uzawa–Stiglitz models of open–economy growth with optimal saving. For example, if a country has the same Hicks–neutral advantage in all industries, it exports the capital–intensive tradable, even though the technological advantage is only absolute rather than comparative. Alternatively, even a small comparative advantage in some good is sufficient for the advanced country to export this product, regardless of relative factor supplies. In either case, the fundamental reason for trade is technological superiority rather than factor abundance.     

贸易失衡演进历史的国际比较——基于跨时贸易视角的分析

从跨时贸易的视角来看,贸易顺差、逆差的转换是一国跨时贸易模式变化的结果。当期生产能力强、未来生产能力弱时,一国跨时贸易的模式是出口当期产品,进口未来产品,贸易出现顺差;当期生产能力弱、未来生产能力强时,一国跨时贸易的模式是进口当期产品,出口未来产品,贸易出现逆差。跨时贸易模式主要受跨时比较优势的影响,跨时比较优势的变化与一国的技术优势、经济发展阶段、劳动力成本、国际分工地位以及产业结构的演变密不可分。各国贸易失衡的演进历吏与跨时贸易理论相符。     

Comparative Advantage and Economies of Scale: When Does Ricardo Dominate Smith?

This paper develops a two-country, two-sector (X and Y) model of international trade. One country has comparative advantage in the increasing returns Y-sector. The direction of trade depends on the relative size of the countries and the relative strength of economies of scale and comparative advantage. An equilibrium where the smallest country exports the Y-good and the largest country loses from trade is possible. A dynamic equilibrium where the X-sector is subject to learning by doing locks in the initial pattern of specialization. Yet, there may be few welfare gains from protecting the X-sector in the small country.     

A Neo-Heckscher–Ohlin Model of Trade with Endogenous Production Patterns*

We propose a Neo-Heckscher–Ohlin (HO) model of trade that combines comparative endowment advantage, comparative technological advantage, international capital mobility and trade costs. Using an inframarginal approach, we produce a partition of the exogenous parameter space in a host of parameter value subsets that demarcate the various equilibrium patterns of production and trade. The results are startling! They suggest that production within the diversification cone – a key assumption of the Heckscher–Ohlin theory that is required for its core propositions (such as factor price equalisation) to hold – may only prevail on the razor's edge, or under exceptional circumstances. In addition, our findings nominate a mechanism by which improvements in transaction efficiency facilitate international trade thereby stimulating cross-country division of labour. Contrary to other generalisations of the Heckscher–Ohlin (such as the various derivatives of the Kemp–Jones model of trade), our model does not assume a purely Ricardian character: comparative endowment advantage may determine the pattern of trade even in the presence of opposing technological differences, as long as total factor productivity coefficients adjusted for transaction efficiency and factor intensity do not confer unambiguous comparative (technological) advantage. Still, ‘intensity-efficiency’-adjusted comparative technological advantage supersedes factor endowments in determining the flow of trade.     

Industrial subsidy policy and the optimal level of specialization

Despite compelling rationale based on the theory of comparative advantage for free trade, many countries adopt restrictive trade practices. In this paper we investigate this puzzle in a stylized two-country two-good Ricardian model of international trade. Governments can offer protection to domestic industries via industrial subsidy policy in this model. We prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium in the two-player game where industries choose the level of specialization. We determine the necessary conditions for complete specialization in (a) the free-trade regime; and (b) the protectionist regime implemented through industrial subsidy policy. Our results show that if the government intends to promote complete specialization, then a high degree of comparative advantage and a large elasticity of substitution between export and import goods are required. Empirical evidence on these two parameters indicate that complete specialization is unlikely to survive in the protectionist regime.     

比较优势、国际分工与发展战略

比较优势理论是国际分工与贸易理论的重要组成部分,但是对于一国发展是否适宜以比较优势理论为指导却存在极大争议。以比较优势、国际分工与发展战略三者之间的关系为逻辑起点,从辨析比较优势的概念内涵、梳理比较优势的发展脉络、分析比较优势作为发展战略的适宜性和阐述动态比较优势的形成机制等方面对比较优势理论的发展进行梳理,指出培育动态比较优势应该是发展中国家经济发展的主要战略之一。     

An Inframarginal Analysis of the Ricardian Model

This paper shows that a 2 × 2 Ricardian model has a unique general equilibrium, and the comparative statics of the equilibrium involve discontinuous jumps. If partial division of labor occurs in equilibrium, the country producing both goods would impose a tariff, whereas the country producing a single good would prefer unilateral free trade. If complete division of labor occurs in equilibrium, both countries would negotiate to achieve free trade. In a model with three countries, the country which does not have a comparative advantage relative to the other two countries, and/or which has low transaction efficiency, may be excluded from trade.     

自然开放度、政策导向开放度与劳动生产率提升——理论和基于中国省际面板数据的实证研究

本文以李嘉图模型为基础,分析了贸易开放对提升中国劳动生产率的效应。本文使用1994-2005年间中国省际面板数据,就贸易开放对提升中国劳动生产率水平所产生的效应进行了实证研究。本文得出两个重要的分析结果:第一,贸易开放可以通过比较优势来确定一国专业化产品的生产,如果一国的比较优势存在于干中学系数较大的部门,贸易开放将提高劳动生产率;但若一国的比较优势存在于干中学系数较小的部门,贸易开放将降低劳动生产率;第二,本文将贸易开放度分解为自然开放度和政策导向开放度,结果发现,当自然开放度较小时,政策导向开放度的增加将降低劳动生产率;当自然开放度较大时,政策开放度的增加将提高劳动生产率水平。     

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms

This paper examines how country, industry, and firm characteristics interact in general equilibrium to determine nations' responses to trade liberalization. When firms possess heterogeneous productivity, countries differ in relative factor abundance, and industries vary in factor intensity, falling trade costs induce reallocations of resources both within and across industries and countries. These reallocations generate substantial job turnover in all sectors, spur relatively more creative destruction in comparative advantage industries than in comparative disadvantage industries, and magnify ex ante comparative advantage to create additional welfare gains from trade. The improvements in aggregate productivity as countries liberalize dampen and can even reverse the real-wage losses of scarce factors.     

Growing through trade in intermediate goods: the role of foreign growth and domestic tariffs

We show that pure Ricardian trade can account for the empirical evidence that domestic growth is more affected by foreign growth than by trade openness. To do this, we develop a two‐country model involving a backward economy that exchanges intermediate goods with a faster growing country. We obtain three main results regarding growth and welfare of the backward economy: (i) the growth‐enhancing comparative advantage is facilitated by faster foreign growth; (ii) the growth rate may be negatively affected or unaffected by a domestic tariff, while it is always positively impacted by foreign growth; and (iii) a domestic tariff could be welfare‐improving.     

Institutional Quality and International Trade

Institutions—quality of contract enforcement, property rights, shareholder protection, and the like—have received a great deal of attention in recent years. Yet trade theory has not considered the implications of institutional differences, beyond treating them simply as different technologies or taxes. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we propose a simple model of international trade in which institutional differences are modelled within the framework of incomplete contracts. We show that doing so reverses many of the conclusions obtained by equating institutions with productivity. Institutional differences as a source of comparative advantage imply, among other things, that the less developed country may not gain from trade and factor prices may actually diverge as a result of trade. Second, we test empirically whether institutions act as a source of trade, using data on U.S. imports disaggregated by country and industry. The empirical results provide evidence of "institutional content of trade": institutional differences are an important determinant of trade flows.     

Environmental policy in the two-country-case

Summary The paper analyzes the problem how environmental policy affects sector structure, the allocation of resources, relative price (and comparative advantage) and national income in a two-country case with varying terms of trade. The frame of reference is a two-sector model in which production generates pollutants as a joint product. If a country exports the pollution-intensively produced commodity environmental policy will improve its terms of trade under suitable conditions with respect to demand. Whereas in the political debate the negative effect of environmental policy on the international competiveness of a country is stressed, the terms-of-trade effect gives more leeway to environmental policy. The effects on output, export, imports and the other variables of the system are discussed.Help for calculating the results is acknowledged to J. Eichberger. I acknowledge helpful comments from an anonymous referee. I am also grateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support.     

Marshall's Scissors: The Gains and Losses from Trade

In a Ricardian two‐factor endowment model with Cobb–Douglas tastes and many goods, this paper describesthe interaction of the demand and supply sides to determine the gains and losses from trade. If the abundant factor has a sufficiently rich profile of comparative advantages, trade causesthe proportionate gain to the abundant factor to be smaller than the proportionate loss to the scarce factor. However, if the abundant factor has sufficiently skewed comparative advantages toward the best goods, then the opposite will hold. Some examples suggest that these patterns may have something to do with the selection of trade regimes. In the usual one‐factor Ricardian model the gains from trade to a country are enhanced by higher demand shares for imports, but such gains from trade from imports to a country is not the case in a factor endowment model.     

Communications networks and virtual economic integration: The case of three countries

This paper proposes a three-country model of trade that captures the role of communications networks which enhance trade in business services. The interconnectivity of country-specific networks is found to determine the structure of comparative advantage in the good that requires business services provided via networks. In connected countries, producers of that good benefit from the growing connectivity of business services providers. It is also shown that the third country which is unconnected to the interconnected networks may be worse off from trade.The first author is grateful for the support of the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation.     

Pattern of Trade and Economic Development in a Model of Monopolistic Competition

The paper introduces differences in production and transaction conditions between countries into a model of monopolistic competition. It applies inframarginal analysis to show that, as transaction conditions are improved, the general equilibrium may jump discontinuously across different patterns of trade and economic development. A country may export a good in which it has exogenous comparative disadvantage if its endogenous comparative advantage dominates this disadvantage. Countries will choose a trade and development pattern to utilize their net exogenous and endogenous comparative advantages in production as well as in transactions.