合约实施制度与国际贸易文献综述

本文围绕制度和贸易主题,从新制度经济学的视角,对非正式合约实施制度与国际贸易;正式合约实施制度与贸易流量;合约制度与比较优势三个层面的相关最新文献做了梳理,突出了合约实施问题对于一国贸易规模和内生比较优势形成的重要性。     

Social distancing and store choice in times of a pandemic

Public health officials enforced several measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic that affected grocery stores, such as limits on store capacities and enforcement of masks and physical distancing among customers. Nevertheless, these measures can provoke queues, which could drive customers away from stores. In this study, we investigate how customers trade off between social distancing measures and increased waiting times during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our data comes from an online survey applied in New York City in May 2020. This survey included a set of discrete choice experiments framed in virtual stores, as well as a set of psychometric indicators regarding the pandemic. With this data, we estimated a latent class conditional logit model where assignment to classes is correlated with COVID-19 latent variables. We identified three latent classes with preference structures that valued social distancing to varying degrees. In spite of this heterogeneity in preferences, we found that customers were willing to wait longer to access stores with better social distancing measures. This result suggests that stores could increase, rather than decrease, their sales if they enforce public health measures at the expense of longer waiting times.     

Standards and Institutional Capacity: An Examination of Trade in Food and Agricultural Products

The ability of developing countries to cope with emerging standards in food and agricultural products is influenced by their institutional capacity. This paper develops original measures of four dimensions of standards-related, institutional capacity: information, conformity, enforcement, and international standard-setting. These measures are incorporated into a gravity model to investigate whether these capacities offset the negative effects of Aflatoxin B1 standards on food and agricultural product trade. The results indicate that informational capacity and conformity capacity do indeed have such offsetting effects. The evidence with regard to enforcement and international standard-setting is less clear.     

Trade liberalization, outsourcing, and the hold-up problem

This paper shows that, in a bilateral relationship where a foreign supplier has to make a relationship-specific investment but cannot enforce a complete contract, the standard hold-up problem of underinvestment is aggravated when trade incurs a tariff. In this context, we identify two new channels through which trade liberalization enhances international trade. First, lower tariffs increase the incentives of foreign suppliers to undertake cost-reducing investments. Second, lower tariffs may prompt vertical multinational integration. These indirect effects imply that responses of trade volumes to trade liberalization are greater than standard trade models suggest and help explain current trends toward foreign outsourcing and intra-firm trade.     

How do country regulations and business environment impact foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows?

How do multinationals choose which countries to invest in? This study addresses the essential question of the impact of regulatory variables in attracting or deterring foreign direct investment (FDI). We separate regulatory variables based on different stages of a firm’s life-cycle. Using World Bank data for 189 economies, we examine which host country regulatory factors influence inward FDI. We find that countries with stronger contract enforcement and more efficient international trade regulations attract more FDI. The interaction terms suggest that multinational companies are willing to trade-off a country's poorer institutional variable in return for another where the institutional variable is stronger. For example, multinationals are willing to invest in countries with less efficient entry and exit regulations in exchange for stronger contract enforcement. These results also have important implications for government policy reform.     

《反假冒贸易协定》(ACTA):制度评价及其国际影响

欧盟、美国、日本等11个缔约方完成了《反假冒贸易协定》(ACTA)的文本讨论,但是,ACTA的谈判过程和文本内容一直充满了争议和批评。总体上看,ACTA具有以下主要特点:发达国家主导性、谈判场所的独立性、谈判过程的秘密性、制定时间的迅速性、协定属性的诸边性、执法体系的强化性等。ACTA弱化了现有的知识产权多边保护体系,并把关注重点从实体权利完全转移到执法实践,将对知识产权国际体制产生重要影响。虽然ACTA谈判故意回避了发展中国家,但可以预见ACTA将会以各种方式被输送给发展中国家。随着ACTA的生效和实施,国际贸易将受到较大影响,并有可能构成新的贸易壁垒。在此背景下,中国应当开展专门研究,积极采取应对之策,避免ACTA的不利影响。     

India's Informal Trade with Bangladesh: A Qualitative Assessment

The large and vibrant informal trade between India, and Bangladesh continues to thrive despite unilateral/regional/multilateral trade liberalisation in these two countries. This calls for an in-depth analysis of India's informal trade with Bangladesh. Using insights from the New Institutional Economics informal and formal institutions engaged in cross-border trade are contrasted to examine whether informal trading arrangements provide better institutional solutions. The analysis, carried out on the basis of an extensive survey conducted in India and Bangladesh reveals that informal traders in India and Bangladesh have developed efficient mechanisms for contract enforcement, information flows, risk sharing and risk mitigation. Further, informal traders prefer to trade through the informal channel because the transaction costs of trading in the informal channel are significantly lower than the formal channel implying that informal trade takes place due to the inefficient institutional set up in the formal channel. The principal policy implication from the study is that unless the transacting environment of formal traders improves, informal trade will continue to coexist with formal trade, even if free trade is established in the SAARC region.     

Towards a theory of trade finance

Shipping goods internationally is risky and takes time. To allocate risk and to finance the time gap between production and sale, a range of payment contracts is utilized. I study the optimal choice between these payment contracts and their implications for trade. The equilibrium contract is determined by financial market characteristics and contracting environments in both the source and the destination country. Trade increases in enforcement probabilities and decreases in financing costs proportional to the time needed for trade. Empirical results from gravity regressions are in line with the model, highly significant and economically relevant. They suggest that importer finance is as important for trade as exporter finance.     

合约不完全实施的两种分析框架比较研究

本文比较不完全合约和完全合约理论处理合约实施的方法.不完全合约理论认为资产专用性和合约实施制度质量同时决定效率扭曲程度,只要是不完全实施,效率必然扭曲.而完全合约理论强调合约不完全实施是代理人信息类型和合约实施制度质量共同作用的产物,合约实施制度质量本身未必造成效率扭曲.事前合约的期望社会剩余比较表明,合约实施制度质量改善对社会福利提高具有积极意义.尽管这两类分析框架选择的参照系和关注的角度有所不同,但基本结论是一致的,即随着制度质量的提高,潜在的效率扭曲在下降.     

Promotion and Prevention Contracts in Distributor–Supplier Relationship Using Matched Dyadic Data

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This article aims to introduce and distinguish two features of contract design – prevention and promotion contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism within the distributor–supplier relationship. It also examines the moderating role of ex post contract enforcement strategies.

Methodology/approach: The authors test the proposed theoretical model by collecting matched data from distributors and suppliers in China. Moreover, partial least squares regression is used to analyze the data and test the hypothesis model.

Findings: The results show that a prevention contract leads the distributor to vigilantly avoid mistakes and punishments, thereby deterring him from behaving opportunistically. Alternatively, a promotion contract motivates the distributor to make an effort to attain potential long-run payoffs instead of short-term profits, subsequently restraining his opportunism. Overall, the promotion contract is more effective in curbing distributor opportunism than the prevention contract. In addition, the inhibitory effect of a prevention contract on opportunism is reinforced along with a severe contract enforcement strategy. By contrast, a promotion contract effectively mitigates opportunism with a swift contract enforcement strategy.

Originality/value/contribution: This study untangles two distinctive features of contract design – prevention-framed and promotion-framed contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism management. This study also provides a profound understanding of contract effectiveness by revealing the interaction effect between ex ante contract design and ex post contract enforcement.

Research implications: Researchers are encouraged to explore contract effectiveness from a framing perspective. In particular, ex post contract enforcement strategies should be included in research frameworks related to contract governance. Suggestions for further research on the effects of prevention and promotion contracts on different forms of opportunism are also proposed.

Practical implications: This article provides several insightful implications for managers in designing and enforcing contract in business-to-business marketing. Managers can strategically achieve control and motivation effects by consciously making framing decisions in the contract design, further curbing opportunistic behaviors. Moreover, managers can select a contract enforcement strategy in accordance with the contract type to maximize the effects of the specific contract.     

Traders’ Subjective Appraisals: Comparison of Negotiations and Auctions

ABSTRACT

The assessments of business trade often involve economic and relational concerns. They may become more challenging when our understanding of the impacts of trading mechanisms is still limited. The current experimental study compares two generic trading mechanisms, namely, multibilateral multi-issue negotiations and multicriteria auctions. By examining economic measures and subjective appraisals in controlled exchange episodes, the study shows some subtle relationships between mechanism use, substantive outcomes, and subjective appraisals. While use of negotiations versus auctions did not reveal significant differences on economic measures, traders are strongly influenced by the gain-or-loss contingency. When they win a contract, their subjective appraisals are heavily influenced by their achieved substantive outcomes. When they do not win a contract, they feel auctions are better than negotiations. The results confirm the assessments of business trade that rely solely on substantive measures are not sufficient.     

合约实施效率与中国地区产业比较优势

文章讨论了中国合约实施效率的地区差异对地区产业比较优势的作用机制。文章研究表明,由于中间品合约的不完全实施导致事前专用性投资扭曲和最终产品价格上升,因此,相对于合约实施效率较低的地区而言,地区合约实施效率较高地区,专用性中间品密集使用产品的相对价格较低,从而在专用性中间品密度使用产业上具有比较优势。本文利用中国2006年各地区分产业数据所做的经验研究支持了这一观点,即合约实施实施效率是显著导致地区比较优势的重要因素。认为合约实施效率的改进是地区产业经济结构调整和地区之间经济协调发展的前提,它有助于促进地区贸易结构的改善。     

Fending off waste from the west: The impact of China's Operation Green Fence on the international waste trade

China launched the first Operation Green Fence (OGF) on 1 February 2013 to fend off inflows of illegal waste. The main objective of OGF was to enforce waste trade policies already adopted by China and thereby restrict illegal waste imports. We use a gravity model of international trade with annual bilateral waste trade data at the 6-digit HS code level to assess the impact of OGF on the international waste trade. First, we study the direct impact of OGF and find that the intervention resulted in a 26% drop in low-quality waste exports to China from developed countries. Second, we assess the impact of OGF on exports from developed countries to developing countries, excluding China. We do not find a statistically significant effect of OGF on low-quality waste exports from developed countries to developing countries (excluding China). We also test the waste haven hypothesis and do not find evidence that waste exports were disproportionately diverted to countries with lax environmental regulation.     

Temporary Migration and Bilateral Trade Flows

Empirical evidence on migration and trade has established that permanent migration promotes trade. This finding has been interpreted as proof for the role of migrants in reducing trade‐related transaction costs such as contract enforcement costs or information costs. This paper contributes to improving our understanding of trade‐related transaction costs by analysing empirically whether temporary migrants, like permanent migrants, have an impact on bilateral trade flows. Temporary migrants can be expected to be less integrated in the host country than permanent migrants. At the same time, their knowledge of the home country can, on average, be expected to be more up‐to‐date. Our findings therefore give insights as to the relative importance of knowledge on the host and the home country for trade‐related transaction costs. Using a gravity approach in our empirical analysis, we find that temporary migration has a positive and significant effect on trade and that temporary migration tends to have a stronger and more significant effect on both imports and exports than permanent migration. Interestingly, the role of temporary migrants in reducing trade costs does not appear to be associated with their skills.     

WTO视角下中国(上海)自由贸易试验区知识产权保护问题探析

中国(上海)自由贸易试验区(简称"上海自贸区")不是世界贸易组织体制下的国际自由贸易区,而是根据《中国加入世界贸易组织议定书》所建立的国内特殊经济区。知识产权保护是世界贸易组织密切关注的重要议题,上海自贸区知识产权保护也是不可回避的焦点问题。"一线监管放开"的上海自贸区不是知识产权侵权的避风港,上海自贸区应当加强知识产权保护政策体系建设,严格知识产权海关执法;利用"先行先试"的优惠政策,在知识产权管理和执法体制方面为促进和完善国家知识产权政策体系提供示范效应,并为知识产权规则的国际协调提供实证支持。     

外贸经营权完全放开的意义和问题探讨

修订后的《中华人民共和国对外贸易法》和《对外贸易经营备案登记办法》的颁布和实施标志着我国对外贸易经营权的完全放开。我国外贸体制改革的这一重大突破对我国对外贸易的发展有着重要意义。但也有一些问题值得进一步探讨。     

EXW贸易术语与专业市场出口贸易风险规避

近几年来,我国一些专业市场国际化发展迅速,外贸出口不断增加,外贸经营风险也时常发生。本文认为专业市场外贸出口交易具有EXW贸易术语的特征,客观认识EXW合同的性质,规范专业市场出口合同,采取特定化的措施是规避专业市场外贸出口风险的关键。     

从农产品补贴政策看我国农业的发展

虽然农业补贴违背了WTO的平等竞争原则,但在国际农产品市场上,农业补贴却始终存在。发达国家对农业的补贴不仅技术娴熟,方式多样,且补贴计划周密,应变性强,对发展中国家的农业发展造成了巨大的影响。我国加入WTO后,农业政策不断与国际接轨,但我国对农业补贴方面政策的运用程度还不够,为适应这种变化,我国应转变补贴形式,变间接补贴为直接补贴,加大生态农业补贴、农业基础设施建设补贴和农产品市场建设补贴,并规范农业补贴制度,借鉴发达国家农业补贴政策的经验,完善相关配套措施,同时加强与发展中国家合作,积极进行反补贴谈判,更好地促进我国农业的发展。     

Trade and the enforcement of environmental property rights

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between trade and the regulation of what are otherwise open-access resources when enforcement of property rights is costly. When enforcement costs are significant, environmental property rights are only adopted and enforced when the potential resource rents exceed the regulatory cost. Since trade affects the magnitude of these rents, trade can affect the willingness to regulate. One of the most striking consequences of the presence of an enforcement cost is that the decision to liberalize trade, even at autarkic prices, can result in a switch in the regulatory regime and potentially reduce economic welfare.     

TRIPs约束下的国际技术转移

《与贸易相关的知识产权协议》的签订一定程度上强化了发展中国家的知识产权保护，使技术的国际转移更多地通过贸易而非FDI的形式进行，同时，也使发展中国家的短期静态收益受损，充分利用TRIPs中的一些条款是发展中国家发展本国技术能力的重要条件。