Intra-Industry Trade Expansion and Employment Reallocation between Sectors and Occupations

This paper re-examines the relationship between trade and labour market adjustment costs by explicitly considering the effects of occupational mobility. We investigate the hypothesis that intra-industry trade expansion entails lower adjustment costs than inter-industry trade expansion—the so-called Smooth Adjustment Hypothesis (SAH). This paper makes two new contributions. First, the introduction of a new adjustment variable that considers reallocation between sectors and occupations. Second, a test of the SAH using panel data with relevant trade and non-trade control variables, which overcomes some of the methodological limitations of former studies. The results suggest a confirmation of the SAH and stress the importance of considering the effects of worker moves between occupations in the study of trade-induced adjustment. JEL no. F12, F16, J62     

Estimating the wage costs of inter- and intra- sectoral adjustment

Estimating the Wage Costs of Inter- and Intra-Sectoral Adjustment. — The proposition that labour market adjustments to intra-industry trade are less costly than adjustments to inter-industry trade is a widely-held belief amongst trade economists. If there are significant sector-specific skills, then this ‘smooth adjustment hypothesis’ seems intuitive. Direct evidence relating to this issue remains largely anecdotal. In this paper we estimate the returns to tenure within jobs, industries and occupations in order to predict the costs, in terms of wage losses, of moving jobs between and within sectors. We find no compelling evidence that wage costs of moving between industries are larger than the costs of moving within industries.     

Integration and intra-industry trade adjustment in South Africa

This article analyses intra-industry trade adjustment by the Southern African Customs Union after 1994, and links between trade liberalisation and employment are examined. The traditional Grubel-Lloyd index is complemented by marginal inter- and intra-industry trade measures, and trade expansion of sectors is scaled, related to change in total exports and imports. In three different empirical approaches, large differences are found: in the level of intra-industry trade (IIT) between different sectors (categorised into resource-based, labour-intensive, scale-intensive and differentiated industries); in the level of IIT of individual sectors in trade with the SADC6, the European Union and the rest of the world; and in the economic significance of trade expansion for different industries and with different trading partners. Trade expansion is dominated by differentiated and scale-intensive industries, indicating that the main economic gain of international integration is found in the opportunity to exploit economies of scale in a larger market. IIT and marginal IIT are positively related to increases in labour productivity, and negatively related to employment change. Interindustry trade and both export and import expansions are positively related to employment gain, but only export is positively related to increased labour productivity.     

Catching Up or Pulling Away: Intra-Industry Trade,Productivity Gaps and Heterogeneous Firms

In this paper we develop a heterogeneous firm, intra-industry trade model in which countries are asymmetric in both technology and size. In the trading equilibrium, the industry productivity levels countries are jointly determined by the technology gap and trade barriers. We find that the (exogenous) technological gap is a key determinant of the size and direction of the intra-industry resource reallocation introduced by trade. Most importantly, the effect of trade on the (endogenous) productivity gap could be non monotonic over time. In the short-run, where the number of incumbents cannot adjust to trade, the effect of import competition dominates and the productivity gap between countries is closed as domestic firms in the laggard country face tougher competition from leading country exporters. However, in the long run when entry is possible, the effect of the increased export opportunities in the leading country dominates and the productivity gap is widened as a consequence of entry in the technological leader.     

Russia’s intra-industry trade in international exchange: Major trends and growth potential

The current state and development trends in Russia’s international intra-industry trade with major trade partners are considered in the paper on the whole and by individual industries. The author suggests his approach to assessing the intra-industry development effect on industrial output and foreign trade indicators by individual industries. Forecast estimates are given on the international intra-industry trade development in medium-term prospects for the country as a whole and for processing industries depending on different options in government’s economic policy.     

Labour-market effects of intra-industry trade: Evidence for the United Kingdom

Labor-Market Effects of Intra-Industry Trade: Evidence for the United Kingdom. — According to the “smooth adjustment hypothesis”, the labor-market adjustment costs entailed by trade liberalization are lower if trade expansion is intra-industry rather than inter-industry in nature. In this paper, we study the link between trade and labor market changes in UK manufacturing industries during the 1980s. We use industry-level measures of unemployment duration and wage variability as proxies for adjustment costs, and we relate them to various measures of intra-industry trade. Our evidence offers some support for the smooth adjustment hypothesis.     

Adjustment,employment characteristics and intra-industry trade

Adjustment, Employment Characteristics and Intra-Industry Trade. — In this paper we use data on individual workers to investigate a number of dimensions of adjustment and relate these to trade. Specifically, we estimate the relative incidence of changes in workers’ employment status with regard to sector, firm, occupation and region. We relate the incidence of adjustment to a range of labour market characteristics and indicators of trade exposure. Our findings are not consistent with the notion that there is a systematic relationship between the type of trade expansion (inter- or intra-industry) and the type of employment adjustment (within or between industry adjustment) or that there is less labour market adjustment associated with intra- than inter-industry trade.     

Effect of intra-industry trade on skill premium in manufacturing in China

In making use of the panel data in 27 manufacturing industries, this paper examines the recent increase in skill premium in China's manufacturing. The paper argues that the recent increase in skill premium in Chinese manufacturing can be partly attributed to the decline in intra-industry trade. A reasonable explanation on this is that the decline in intra-industry trade occurred in the period studied is associated with a decrease in output. This led to a reduction in relative demand of low-skilled workers, which supports the hypothesis of the output-skill substitutability, and finally an increase in skill premium. Further, this paper finds that the negative effect of intra-industry trade on skill premium is larger for high-skilled manufacturing than low-skilled manufacturing. One more result in this paper is that the increase in capital input reduced the skill premium in Chinese manufacturing. The empirical evidence is consistent with a modified model of intra-industry trade with differentiated products and three factor inputs: high-skilled labor, low-skilled labor and capital.     

Migration Flows and Intra-Industry Trade Adjustments

In this paper we analyse the link between trade and migration. Focusing on the experience of Spain, we relate a marginal index of intra-industry trade to the stock of foreign workers—classified according to their country of origin and their situation in the Spanish labour market. We focus on the possibility that existing networks of foreign workers and their connections with their countries of origin could stimulate trade with the host country. Our results show a significant impact of the number of immigrants with work permits on intra-industry trade adjustment. However, this impact being positive or negative depends on whether foreign workers are employees or self-employed, the duration of the work permits and the type of job they occupy. JEL no. F10, F14, F15, F22     

中国内地与香港贸易流量的关键影响因素——基于16个省份面板数据的实证分析

2004年以来,中国内地与香港的贸易流量主要受GDP和人均GDP的影响,《泛珠三角区域合作框架协议》对双边贸易的影响并不显著,内地与香港的产业内贸易特征明显.未来,内地应该加快发展区域经济,努力增加居民收入,不断完善基础设施,加快建设统一市场,深化产业内专业化分工,优化区域治理结构,从而提升内地与香港的经贸关系.     

中日双边产业内贸易及影响因素实证研究

本文利用产业内贸易指数对1988～2008年中日贸易数据的分析结果显示:产业内贸易已成为两国贸易的重要组成部分,其中制成品特别是SITC5+7类资本或技术密集型制成品的产业内贸易特征尤为明显。进一步分析表明,中日产业内贸易比重的提升主要得益于垂直型产业内贸易的发展,且中国在中日垂直型产业内贸易中整体居于贸易劣势地位。对中日产业内贸易影响因素的回归结果显示:中日人均GDP差异、市场规模以及日本对华直接投资与中日产业内贸易正相关,而中日市场规模差异与中日产业内贸易负相关。     

The Skill Content of Inter- and Intra-Industry Trade: Evidence for the United Kingdom

In this paper we investigate the relative importance of net exchanges of skills embodied in intra-industry and inter-industry trade for the UK’s trade with some middle income countries. We also separately measure the net exchanges of skills embodied in vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade (IIT). We find that there are substantial factor exchanges involved in IIT, implying that traditional factor content studies may have seriously underestimated the actual factor content of total trade flows. This means that the adjustment effects of IIT may be greater than is often presumed. We also find, in line with theory, that vertical IIT involves similar net exchanges of labour of different skills to that of inter-industry trade, while horizontal IIT involves much smaller net exchanges of skills. JEL no. F11, F14     

中国与东盟产业内贸易分析

近年来,随着中国与东盟各国经济的发展,要素禀赋的差异性正在弱化,规模经济日趋重要,大多数产品为满足国家之间不同购买需求日趋差异化,技术变化也不断向各行业渗透。双方在产业转移、产业结构调整中,逐步从传统产业间贸易走向产业内贸易。本文借助现有统计数据,揭示中国与东盟国家逐步从产业间贸易走向产业内贸易的发展趋势,探讨形成产业内贸易的动因,以及进一步发展产业内贸易的有利弊因素,最后提出相关的建议。     

Intra-industry trade in the 1980s: A panel study

Intra-Industry Trade in the 1980s: A Panel Study. — This paper uses a panel data set to estimate the determinants of intra-industry trade in the 1980s. The data for trade covers 68 ISIC industries for the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK and Italy from 1980 to 1987. UK data is used to measure industry characteristics. The results support, in particular, the positive effects of R&;D intensity and heterogeneity on intra-industry trade and the negative effects of scale and concentration. While fixed effects estimation indicates that industry characteristics explain most of the variation in intra-industry trade, differences in industry characteristics or in their effects vary significantly across countries.     

中国与韩国机电产品产业内贸易分析

本文通过对中国和韩国机电产品产业内贸易的现状分析,揭示出制约中国与韩国机电产品产业内贸易的因素,并提出了促进中国与韩国机电产品产业内贸易进一步发展的措施。     

International intra-industry trade of China

International Intra-Industry Trade of China. — The purpose of this paper is to measure the extent of the international intra-industry trade of China, and to test empirically various country-specific and industry-specific hypotheses concerning the determinants of vertical and horizonal intra-industry trade between China and her major trading partners. It is revealed that China has possessed the prerequisite of intra-industry trade and that China’s intra-industry trade follows similar patterns of those in developed countries as China is moving towards a market-oriented economy. F14, O53     

“金砖四国”产业内贸易的经济效应分析

文章利用加权产业内贸易指标、产业内贸易与贸易额和GDP之间的相关关系对＂金砖四国＂产业内贸易的经济效应进行实证分析。结果显示推动四国贸易的主要是产业间贸易,中国与印度产业内贸易总体水平最高,但中国与巴西的贸易额对加权产业内贸易指数的弹性系数最大,中国与俄罗斯双边产业内贸易对推动两国GDP的作用最为突出。     

论我国农民流动与劳动力配置优化

农民流动实际上是市场机制对劳动力要素的再配置。缓解我国农村目前巨大的人口剩余压力，应加快工业化进程；发展劳动密集型产业；大力推进农业产业化；加强对农村劳动力的教育。     

Measuring marginal intra-industry trade

Measuring Marginal Intra-Industry Trade. — Trade liberalisation and adjustment: how important is intra-industry trade? This paper focuses on the appropriate measurement of intra-industry trade as indicator of structural adjustment costs. It is argued that existing dynamic versions of the Grubel-Lloyd index reflect horizontal trade only and classify vertical intra-industry trade with inter-industry trade. The paper proposes a method to distinguish between horizontal and vertical trade and applies these techniques to emerging trade between the EU and the economies of central and eastern Europe.     

On the Measurement of Product Quality in Intra-Industry Trade

The world has witnessed a dramatic increase in trade over the last forty years. Much of this growth in trade is intra-industry in nature. A relatively recent development in the intra-industry trade (IIT) literature is the measurement of the simultaneous import and export of quality-differentiated products, commonly known as vertical and horizontal IIT. In this paper we compare the Greenaway, Hine and Milner (1994) and Fontagné and Freudenberg (1997) approaches to disentangling vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade and examine some of the implications of employing simple ratios to define the boundary between product quality types. We present a complementary approach based on the traditional Grubel and Lloyd (GL) index and demonstrate with numerical examples its versatility and applicability at the product level. JEL no. F19