Trade costs in the first wave of globalization

What factors drove globalization in the late 19th century? We employ a new micro-founded measure of bilateral trade costs based on a standard model of trade in differentiated goods to address this question. These trade costs gauge the difference between observed bilateral trade and frictionless trade. They comprise tariffs, transportation costs, and all other factors that impede international trade but which are inherently difficult to observe. Trade costs fell on average by 10-16 percent between 1870 and 1913. We also use this measure to decompose the growth of trade over that period and find that roughly 44 percent of the rise in trade within our sample can be explained by reductions in trade costs; the remaining 56 percent is attributable to economic expansion.     

Short selling and stock prices with regime switching in the absence of market makers: The case of Japan

This paper investigates the relation between short selling and stock price at an aggregated market level. In order to study the differential impact of market microstructure on short selling, the data from Japanese stock markets are used. Both traditional regression and Markov switching models are used to compare Japanese results to those of U.S. and to admit non-stationary relation between short selling and stock price, respectively. Particularly, relatively long period (1978–2002) of analysis including bullish and bearish periods gives a good testable bed for studying the effect of short selling on stock price according to market condition. The empirical findings reveal that percentage change of short interests has a statistically significant positive relation with stock returns. It gives regulators policy implication that short selling is not a destabilizing activity, but an acceptable form of trading even in the absence of market makers. And short selling information cannot be used as an indicator for predicting future stock markets.     

Comparative analysis of health care costs in Japan and the United States: a simulation of productivity and savings behavior

Japan and the United States, though contrastive in terms of the percentage of the elderly in their population and the ratio of their health care costs to GDP, both face soaring medical expenditures. Sato et al. [Health Care Systems in Japan and the United States: A Simulation Studies and Policy Analysis. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA] developed a model to solve this problem by increasing the productivity of the non-health care sector. This study has applied that model to estimate national savings, and compared these savings with estimated health care costs. The results show that in order for savings to exceed expenditures the US needs to have a higher savings rate and a higher interest rate than Japan.     

Estimating the Impact of Time-Invariant Variables on FDI with Fixed Effects

This paper applies the panel fixed effects with vector decomposition estimator to three FDI data sets to estimate the impact of time-invariant variables on FDI while including fixed effects. We find that the omission of fixed effects significantly biases the results, leading to contradictory predictions regarding the effect of trade costs and culture across data sets. After eliminating these biases, the differences across data sets largely disappear and many time-invariant variables consistently indicate the importance of vertical FDI. This suggests that some controversies in the literature may be driven by the extent to which unaccounted fixed effects biases vary across different data sets. JEL no.  F14, F23     

CEV模型下有交易成本和随机波动率的亚式期权定价问题的文献综述

随着金融衍生品的发展,对其进行定价成为理论和实务操作中的重点。亚式期权作为一种强依赖路径的衍生品,在金融市场中有套期保值作用,在管理中有经理股票期权激励作用。因此,设计出更加切合市场实际的定价模型非常重要。本文选取了相比较B-S模型更加实际的CEV模型作为标底资产的路径过程,加入随机波波动率服从有限Markov链的情况下有交易成本的亚式期权定价公式。在已有的相关文献参考下,可以得出其偏微分方程。并且通过二叉树算法,实现定价计算。     

Greasing the Wheels of Trade: A Profile of the Dutch Transaction Sector***

How many resources does a nation spend on transactions costs to ‘grease the wheels of trade’? To examine this question the Dutch economy is used as a case study. The Netherlands are known as a nation of traders and this image was derived in the seventeenth century from successes in long distance trade, shipping and financial innovations. Despite its historical background the trading sector has never been adequately measured. In this paper, we present a first attempt in measuring and describing the Dutch transaction sector. Measurement by means of occupational data points out that approximately 25% of Dutch workers is employed in transaction jobs, and 29% if one includes transport tasks. We make the case that traditional industrial sector categories overestimate the true transaction character of an economy. Traditional ‘trade’ sectors employed 13% of the workers in 1807 and 39 percent in 1998, but these figures conceal the fact that all organizations employ jobs which have transformation and transaction tasks. A counterfactual exercise suggests that the growth of the transaction sector share in employment over two centuries was not 200% but 42%.     

WTO框架下贸易便利化问题探析

WTO为自由贸易做出了不懈的努力,一旦正式的贸易壁垒降低了,简化贸易手续、推进贸易便利化等问题就变得重要起来。由于贸易便利化措施会给贸易商、政府等贸易参与者带来巨大的经济利益,因而贸易便利化一直是世界各国所追求的目标。鉴于发达国家与发展中国家在贸易便利化问题上利益存在的差异,因此,在WTO的框架下讨论贸易便利化具有很强的指导意义。     

Economic costs of tariffs and quotas on textile and apparel products imported into the united states : A survey of the literature and implications for policies

Zusammenfassung Die ?konomischen Kosten von Z?llen und Kontingenten der Einfuhr von Textilien und Bekleidung in die USA — Ein überblick über die Literatur und Folgerungen für die Wirtschaftspolitik. — Unter den gegenw?rtigen protektionistischen Bestrebungen repr?sentiert das Abkommen über den Handel mit Textilien, das sog. Multifaserabkommen (MFA), das Hauptbeispiel für den langfristigen Protektionismus und für die Verletzung der GATT-Prinzipien der Nichtdiskriminierung und der Kompensation. Das MFA sollte als eine Fortsetzung des langfristigen Baumwolltextilabkommens angesehen werden, welches seinerseits auf dem kurzfristigen Baumwolltextilabkommen basiert. In den vergangenen 25 Jahren erstreckten die USA die Beschr?nkungen, die ursprünglich nur für Baumwollprodukte aus Japan galten, zuerst auf alle wichtigen Lieferl?nder und dann auf alle Fasern, die uns Entwicklungsl?ndern stammen. Tats?chlich entfaltete das MFA ein Eigenleben und ist zu einem Muster protektionistischer Instrumente geworden. In Anbetracht dieser langen Geschichte der Protektion der Textilindustrie und des beachtlichen Gewichts, das dem MFA als Beispiel für eine “effektive” Handelsbeschr?nkung zukommt, hat dieser Aufsatz den Zweck, einen knappen überblick über die verschiedenen empirischen Sch?tzungen der Wohlfahrtskosten zu geben, die sich aus den Restriktionen des Handels mit Textilien und Bekleidung für die USA ergeben.

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Résumé Les co?ts économiques des tarifs douaniers et des quotas sur les produits de textiles et de l’habillement importés par les états-Unis: Un survol de la littérature. — Parmi les mesures actuelles protectionnistes, l’accord regardant le commerce international des textiles, ou plus communément, l’accord multifibres (AM), représente l’exemple essentiel d’une protection à long terme et d’une violation des principes de la non-discrimination et de la compensation du G.A.T.T. L’AM devrait être regardé comme l’extension de l’accord à long terme sur les textiles cotonniers (ALTTC) qui lui-même était l’extension de l’accord à court terme sur les textiles cotonniers. Pendant les 25 années passées les états-Unis étendaient ces restrictions sur le coton, premièrement appliquées seulement au produits japonais, à tous les exportateurs importants, finalement à tous les fibres exportés par les pays en voie de développement. En effet, l’AM menait sa vie propre et devenait le standard des instruments protectionnistes. En vue de cette longue histoire de protection dans l’industrie textile et de l’importance relative de l’AM comme exemple d’un mécanisme effectif des restrictions commerciales, le but de cet article est de donner d’une manière compacte un survol des différentes estimations empiriques des co?ts de bien-être pour les E.U. résultants des restrictions du commerce des textiles et de l’habillement.

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Resumen Costos económicos de tarifas y cuotas sobre productos textiles y del vestuario importados hacia los EEUU: un exámen de la literatura e inferencias para políticas. — En el entorno proteccionista actual, el acuerdo referente al comercio internacional de textiles, conocido comúnmente como Acuerdo Multifibra (MFA), représenta el principal ejemplo de protección de largo plazo y violación de los principios del GATT de no discriminación y compensación. El MFA deberia contemplarse como una extensión del Acuerdo de Largo Plazo sobre Textiles de Algodón (LTA), el que era una extensión del Acuerdo de Corto Plazo sobre Textiles de Algodón (STA). A través de los últimos 25 a?os los EEUU han expandido estas restricciones desde el algodón aplicadas sólo a Japón, a algodón aplicadas a los principales preveedores y fmalmente a todas las fibras aplicadas a todos los países en desarrollo exportadores. En efecto, el MFA adquirió vida propia y se ha constituido en el sello de calidad para todos los instrumentos proteccionistas. Dada esta larga historia de protectión en la industria textil y el peso relativo dado al MFA como un ejemplo de mecanismo ?efectivo? de restricción del comercio, el propósito de este estudio es proporcionar de una manera compacta un exámen de las distintas estimaciones empíricas del costo de bienestar de restricciones al comercio de textiles y vestuario sobre la economía de los EEUU.

     

A Comparison of Menu Costs in Open and Closed Economies with a Mixed Industrial Structure

In this paper we develop Dixon and Hansen (1997) to allow for two-sector small open economy in which the non-traded sector is monopolistic. The closed economy version of the model generalises Dixon/Hansen to allow for diminishing returns on the traded sector. We compare the short-run impact of menu costs on the economy and also the size of menu costs needed to sustain nominal rigidity in both the open and closed economies. We find that whilst the welfare gains from monetary expansion are of a similar magnitude, nominal rigidity can occur for much smaller menu costs than in the closed economy case. Hence we argue that menu costs and the resultant nominal rigidities are more likely to be important in an open economy.     

A note on the CERU-MoA grain farm household survey in China

During the period 1994–1995 the Chinese Economy Research Unit (CERU), University of Adelaide, Australia and the Department of Policy, Reform and Law, Ministry of Agriculture (MoA),¹ the People's Republic of China, jointly designed and conducted an annual sample survey of about 1000 farm households in five Chinese provinces: Guangdong, Jilin, Jiangxi, Sichuan and Shandong. The CERU-MoA survey is a part of the ACIAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) project on China's grain production and marketing during 1994–1996.² Based on this survey a large database has been established which contains cross-household data on population and labour, land, grain production and marketing, food consumption, income and related policy issues.³     

上市公司股权代理成本影响因素研究综述

企业代理成本的存在直接影响企业的价值,对代理成本进行准确计量并找出关键的影响因素进行控制是管理问题之一。文章从影响代理成本的因素入手对已有文献进行总结。     

关于企业投资决策的研究综述与展望

基于国内外研究现状,对关于企业投资决策非效率化问题的理论与经验研究成果进行梳理与分析,剖析了现行企业投资决策理论与实证研究的不足,最后就结合我国制度背景实证研究我国企业投资决策未来可能研究的方向与领域进行了展望。     

我国燃油税的节能减排功能探析

现行燃油税作为＂清费立税＂的改革成果,税率设置对燃油产生的外部成本内部化不足妨碍了其＂节能减排＂功能的发挥。文章通过对四种分别从均衡道路供求以及控制机动车尾气排放的角度还原燃油使用真实成本的税收解决方案的比较分析,论证了将机动车排放温室气体造成的外部成本纳入燃油税的做法不仅拥有上佳的制度效费比,也是应对国内外宏观形势的现实需要。     

创新整体的政策的交易成本范式分析

按照在创新活动中的地位不同,将创新活动的参与者划分为创新整体和创新个体两大类;按照激励目标不同,将创新整体激励创新活动的政策措施划分为事前激励和事后激励两种。在做出了若干理论界定的基础上,引入新制度经济学中的交易成本分析范式,对创新整体的激励创新政策,特别是创新整体在产业化方面的事后激励政策进行分析。     

Narrow Target Zones within Broad Zones: A Non-Speculative Exchange Rate Solution with Limited Resources

A smooth exchange rate target zone solution that internalizes the time inconsistency problem and is completely free from speculation incentives exists where the monetary resources available for an exchange rate defense are limited and the target zone collapses with probability one. In the unique closed form solution, a soft internal narrow target zone slides during a sterilized defense when the reserves change. For a smooth regime collapse the exchange rate is non-smoothpasted to the free-float. A target zone defended at its official borders is inherently speculative and results in a randomized regime collapse for the monetary intervention.