Competition Policy as Strategic Trade with Differentiated Products

The paper analyzes how countries use competition policy as a tool for strategic trade. In the model, two countries export to a third country. Each exporting country is endowed with a set of differentiated products. Each government chooses the number of exporters for its country and the products that each exporter sells in the first period, and a tax policy in the second period. Firms choose prices or quantities independently in the third period. In the unique subgame‐perfect equilibrium, both countries group all their products within a single firm—the “national champion policy.” We study the implication of different assumptions about the timing of the game.     

Understanding the Welfare Implications of Preferential Trade Agreements

This paper examines various implications of preferential trade agreements, namely customs unions and free trade areas, in the context of a multicountry general equilibrium model. The model is calibrated to represent countries with symmetric endowments, and aggregate and disaggregate welfare change measures are used to quantify the welfare effects of preferential trade agreements. It is found that free trade areas are better than customs unions on welfare grounds for the world as a whole. Welfare decompositions suggest that a significant fraction of the welfare changes is explained by the volume-of-trade effect for both types of preferential trade agreements.     

Differentiated Products,Divided Industries: Firm Preferences over Trade Liberalization

The recent focus on firms in international trade suggests two conjectures about preferences over trade policy – only the most productive firms should support freer trade, and industries can be internally divided over reciprocal liberalization. This paper clarifies the content and scope of these claims. The most productive firms are generally not the greatest beneficiaries from trade liberalization and may oppose further liberalization due to increased competition in export markets from compatriot firms. Exporting industries will feature no support for trade if foreign competition is too strong or barriers too unequal. The key analytic factor generating intra‐industry division is product differentiation, both directly, by increasing export opportunities for less efficient firms, and by inducing home market effects wherein larger countries are more competitive. The implications of these findings for the distributional effects of liberalization and the study of trade politics are discussed.     

European Integration, Intra-industry Trade in Vertically Differentiated Products and the Balkan Countries

The aim of this paper is to examine the relation between the integration process and the intensity of intra-industry trade between two countries of different levels of development. Our theoretical model and results indicate that trade liberalization and the establishment of the Free Trade Areas between the Balkan countries and the EC have led to the growth of the intra-industry trade between Greece—EC member state—and those countries. The main instruments of this process have been the Europe Agreements and the Stabilization and Association Agreements between the Balkan countries and the EC. The paper presents a model in vertically differentiated products in a Free Trade Area context and proceeds to depict the intensity of intra-industry trade between Greece and the Balkan countries.      

动物福利壁垒对我国畜产品贸易的影响及对策

目前在关税大幅度降低和传统非关税壁垒不断被消除并逐步规范的情况下，动物福利正成为新一轮的贸易壁垒。动物福利壁垒将对我国畜产品出口产生一系列的不良影响，如增加企业的出口成本、影响农产品出口等，因此，我们应通过倡导健康的消费理念、制定并完善动物福利立法等措施应对动物福利壁垒。     

以和谐发展观再议动物福利与中国农产品贸易

“动物福利”理念的起源,是建立在环境和谐才能造就人类可持续发展前提下,对动物本身也具有的情感与行为的一种关注。但部分发达国家利用“动物福利”对进口所作的人为限制,极大地影响了我国农产品,尤其是畜产品贸易的发展。中国应在和谐社会发展理念下寻求因应之策,关注农业和农民利益在贸易中的体现,最终促进和谐社会的发展。     

Tariffs and Welfare In A Dynamic Differentiated Oligopoly*

Using a dynamic general-equilibrium environment with strategically interacting oligopolists, this paper demonstrates that dynamic elements will significantly alter the equilibrium effects of tariff policy. In particular, the tariff rate which maximizes aggregate steady state welfare is decreasing in the level of adjustment costs. Furthermore, when tariff rates change, there are short-run welfare losses along the dynamic transition path to the new steady state. Gradual implementation of policy can avoid these losses. This provides a justification for the gradual implementation of tariff reductions in the GATT rounds or in the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States.     

Communication Costs and Trade of Differentiated Goods

This paper investigates how the decline of communication costs affects the pattern of trade in differentiated goods. It is found that the development of information technology (IT) has significantly increased US imports of differentiated goods after the 1970s. In addition, the modern communication technology has assisted small economies from exporting homogeneous goods to exporting more and more differentiated goods in recent years.     

中国区域间的制度性贸易成本与贸易福利

降低中国国内区域间的贸易成本,对于充分发挥国内市场潜力,推动构建以国内大循环为主体,国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局具有重要意义,而降低国内区域间的制度性贸易成本,更是促进国内大循环有效畅通的重要举措。本文通过构建一个多部门的一般均衡模型,发现中国国内贸易中的制度性贸易成本在国内总贸易成本中占比为21.7%,且制度性贸易成本的降低对贸易福利的改善来说效益十分明显,平均来看制度性贸易成本降低50%,会使中国整体福利水平提升5.9%,欠发达区域从制度性贸易成本的下降中获益最多。进一步地,各区域生产率差异化程度越高,即贸易弹性值越小,则制度性贸易成本的下降所带来的潜在收益也就越大;分部门来看,降低石油加工及炼焦业、农业、钢铁及有色金属加工冶炼业以及食品加工业部门的制度性贸易成本,将对中国的整体福利水平带来可观的效益。     

Preferential Trade Liberalization Under Cournot Competition

Suppose a country imports a homogeneous good from n foreign countries/producers and wants to eliminate tariffs on imports from m < n of them. If foreign producers differ in their marginal costs, which ones will be among the m that are granted free trade? This paper shows, among other things, that under constant marginal cost and fairly general assumptions about demand it will be the least efficient producers.     

The Value of Biodiversity in Pharmaceutical Research with Differentiated Products

Biologists and conservation advocates have expressed grave concern over perceived threats to biological diversity. ``Biodiversity prospecting' – the search among naturally occurring organisms for new products of agricultural, industrial, and, particularly, pharmaceutical value – has been advanced as both a mechanism and a motive for conserving biological diversity. Economists and others have attempted to estimate the value of biodiversity for use in new pharmaceutical project research. In this paper we apply a new approach to estimating values: we employ two models of competition among differentiated products. Each model confirms previous findings that the value to private researchers of the ``marginal species' is likely to be small. The models can have very different implications with respect to social values, however. These findings underscore the need for a better understanding of the true meaning of diversity.Resources for the Future     

Welfare Effect of Mergers and Multilateral Trade Liberalization

In a two‐country model where firms behave à la Cournot, we show that trade liberalization increases (decreases) the social desirability of those mergers that generate sufficiently large (small) reductions in marginal cost. There exists a range of intermediate levels of marginal cost savings such that marginal tariff reductions increase (decrease) the desirability of merger at sufficiently low (high) tariff levels. Moreover, in the neighborhood of free trade, we show that if trade liberalization increases the profitability of a merger, it necessarily also increases its desirability.     

Market, Trade and Welfare in General Equilibrium

This paper develops a tractable general equilibrium model of an economy with an arbitrary number of industries under increasing returns to scale and imperfect competition. The market structure of the model economy is expressed by two basic sets of parameters: the degree of competition, and the markup ratio prevailing in each industry. The government is supposed to control the degree of competition through antitrust policy and the markup ratio through entry policy. Using this model, I re-examine the results of traditional competitive equilibrium analysis and explore the effects of competition policies on economic welfare and international trade.
JEL Classification Numbers: D43, D50, F11, F12, L13, L41.     

Oligopsony Distortions and Welfare Implications of Trade*

While imperfect competition in the output market has garnered extensive focus in the new trade theory literature, input market imperfection has received considerably less attention. Since market power in input purchase has been growing in recent years, it is worth examining the welfare implications of trade arising from oligopsony power. We develop a model consisting of two final goods, one intermediate good, and two primary factors (capital and labor). One final good and the intermediate good employ primary factors, whereas the other final good uses labor and the intermediate input. All markets operate under perfect competition except for the intermediate input, which is oligopsonistic. Using this model, we show that oligopsony can lead to some anomalies such as an increase in the oligopsony output, reward to the intensive‐factor in the oligopsony sector, national welfare, and deterioration of terms of trade, but it always decreases the reward to the intermediate input.     

Quality of Governance and the Formation of Preferential Trade Agreements

This paper investigates economic and political factors which explain the presence or absence of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). A model of three countries with imperfect competition markets is employed for theoretical analysis of political economy. The validity of theoretical results is tested by econometric analysis with a logit model. It is shown that countries with similar incomes are more likely to form PTAs, and that governments with low quality of governance have little incentive to form PTAs.     

Parallel Trade and its Ambiguous Effects on Global Welfare

The regulation of parallel trade is a fiercely debated issue in the global trading system. This paper investigates the welfare effects of parallel trade freedom for different levels of trade costs and market size. It is found that parallel trade freedom has a positive effect on global welfare if countries are sufficiently heterogeneous in terms of market size and trade costs are sufficiently low. Contrary to intuition, this result even holds in a situation where parallel trade freedom implies the closure of the smaller market. If, however, countries are virtually homogenous in terms of market size, parallel trade freedom may be detrimental to global welfare for specific levels of trade costs.     

North–South Trade Liberalization and Economic Welfare

We consider a general equilibrium model of a developing economy (the South) that opens to trade with a developed economy (the North). The southern economy is characterized by open urban unemployment and rural–urban migration, a competitive agricultural sector and a monopolistically competitive manufacturing sector. Hence, there is potential for both inter‐ and intra‐industry trade to arise on liberalization, in addition to distortionary effects of duality. Southern comparative advantage in agriculture may arise from the labor market distortion and the basis for intra‐industry trade is love for variety. We characterize various configurations of the trade pattern, and the resulting welfare consequences of opening to trade in this context. We illustrate a new mechanism under which in some circumstances it may be possible for trade liberalization to lower economic welfare in the South.     

Cross-Border Pollution,Terms of Trade,and Welfare

We construct a two-good general equilibrium model of international trade for two small open economies where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Governments in both countries impose emission taxes non-cooperatively. Within this framework, we examine the effect of changes in the degree of cross-border pollution on Nash emission taxes, emission levels and welfare. We do so under two scenarios: when changes in cross-border pollution do not affect domestic pollution (non-strategic) and when they do (strategic). We also examine the effect of changes in international terms of trade on pollution and welfare when cross-border pollution is non-strategic.      

GATT,Preferential/Regional Trading Blocs and Agricultural Trade*

Agricultural trade impasses have again frustrated the GATT process. Interest in preferential/regional trading blocs is increasing. the paper probes the theoretical and empirical consequences of preferential arrangements instead of multilateral liberalization. It concludes that in a second-best world preferential arrangements could either improve or decrease global welfare. For agricultural trade, previous experience suggests that in regional groupings such as the EC trade diversion exceeded trade creation. This results from trade distorting domestic policies. Prospects for liberalization of agricultural trade under either GATT or preferential arrangements are limited. the consequences for small agricultural exporters are not positive.     

Differentiated Products,Vertical Related Markets,and Optimal Export Policy

This paper studies the optimal export policy in the context of a vertically related industry with differentiated products, and analyzes the effects of the degree of product substitutability and market structure on the determination of such a policy. It is shown that the results obtained in a similar model with homogeneous goods rivalry no longer hold when the goods are differentiated. Indeed, the degree of product substitutability plays an important role in the determination of export policies, and also determines whether a country can be better off under a trade policy war compared to free trade. The use of a differentiated product setting also allows one to compare export policies and countries' welfare levels under both Cournot and Bertrand competition. It is found that the results of the comparison are also sensitive to the degree of product substitutability.