Cointegration Approach to Estimating Bilateral Trade Elasticities Between U.S. and Her Trading Partners

Almost all previous authors who estimated the trade elasticities relied upon aggregate trade data. To avoid the aggregation bias, this paper provides estimates of trade elasticities using bilateral data between the United States and her six largest trading partners. Application of cointegration analysis reveals that in many cases, bilateral trade elasticities are large enough to justify real depreciation of the dollar as a mean of improving U.S. trade balance.[F14]     

Growth, Expansion of Markets, and Income Elasticities in World Trade

The Houthakker–Magee effect implies that a country facing unfavorable income elasticities in trade must either grow at a slower rate than its trading partners or experience a trend worsening of the current account and/or depreciation of the real exchange rate. Krugman (1989 ) first documented the existence of a "45-degree rule" under which income elasticities are systematically related to growth rates. I develop a model which is a generalization of Krugman (1989 ) in several dimensions (including intertemporal). The intertemporal assumption of equal consumption growth for individuals across countries and the assumption of no intertemporal trade can be viewed as two extreme benchmarks. Empirical tests of the various 45-degree rules suggest that it is misleading to treat income elasticities as structural, as is commonly done in forecasts of current account movements. The data also seem to be more consistent with the benchmark of no intertemporal trade than that of complete intertemporal trade.     

Trade Performances, Product Quality Perceptions, and the Estimation of Trade Price Elasticities

Traditional trade models ignoring the dimension of product quality generally lead to excessively low trade price elasticities. This paper estimates import market share equations including a quality image proxy derived from survey data. The estimation results, based on panel data for the four main EU member states, confirm the part played by product quality perceptions in the estimation of trade price elasticities, at least for highly differentiated products. Introducing the quality image proxy into the models leads to a significant increase in the price elasticities, which thus become superior to unity, in conformity with theoretical elasticities of substitution.     

Long-Run Elasticities of the Demand for Money in Korea:Evidence from Cointegration Analysis

Most recent studies have employed the cointegration technique to investigate the long-run stability of the demand for money. This study considers the case of Korea. It is shown that in the long-run while Ml monetary aggregate is cointegrated with income, interest rate, and the exchange rate, M2 is not. However, results from error correction models reveal that both Ml and M2 have short-run relationship with their determinants. [E41]     

Estimation of Price Elasticities for International Telecommunications Demand

This paper examines the effect of price per call minute on international telecommunications demand for calls made from Greece to five destination countries: Australia, the USA, Canada, the UK, and Germany. For this purpose the authors consider two different models, one with constant price elasticity, the log-linear demand function, and another one with time varying price elasticity, log-linear demand where all variables except price are in logarithms. These models were estimated for calls made during peak and off-peak periods, using quarterly data from 1997:I to 2003:IV. The outgoing traffic includes volume of calls in minutes made by the incumbent only and by the incumbent and the mobile providers.     

Trade in Environmental Goods: Evidences from an Analysis Using Elasticities of Trade Costs

Negotiations on the liberalization of environmental goods (EGs) and services within the WTO Doha Round (mandated in November 2001) are facing specific challenges. Conflicting interests and differing perceptions of the benefits of increased trade in EGs were reflected in different approaches proposed for determining EGs. Using import data of 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries and from a sample of 167 countries, from 1995 to 2012, we discuss the trade effect of reducing barriers on EGs. We analyze the lists of EGs proposed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and OECD using a Translog gravity model. We found that removing tariff barriers for EGs will have a modest impact because for the biggest importers and exporters, elasticities of trade costs are very low while for most trading relationships they are very high, making it difficult for exporters to maintain their markets. Overall, our results suggest that, because of their substantial effect on international trade, future negotiations on EGs should also address the issues of standards and nontariff barriers.     

Thirlwall’s Law and the Stability of Export and Import Income Elasticities

The aim of this paper is to examine the stability of income elasticities used in Thirlwall's law to approximate a country's long-term growth and to see empirically how non-constancy will affect these predictions. For this purpose, three countries - Canada, New Zealand and the UK - are analysed, using annual time series data from 1973 to 1995. These three countries were chosen on the basis of their contrasting trade patterns. The results obtained are different for each country but they still suggest the predictive power of one of the two specifications of Thirlwall's law is good.     

The Effect of International Trade on Labor-Demand Elasticities: Intersectoral Matters

This paper studies the impact of trade on the price-elasticity of aggregate labor demand, based on the idea that a variation in the cost of (a given type of) labor has an effect on the sectoral trade specialization of an economy, at the expense of the domestic productions using this factor intensively, even when the trade balance is kept unchanged. As this effect is more important the more open the economy, trade openness induces an increase in the associated labor-demand elasticity, at least if the country has a comparative disadvantage in the industries using intensively the type of labor considered. This argument is illustrated by a simple model, based on an Armington hypothesis, with an empirical assessment for France.     

Trade Agreements and Trade Opportunities: A Flexible Approach for Modeling Australian Export and Import Elasticities

Patterns of trade have changed enormously over the last 30 years, particularly due to the economic emergence of several Asian countries. With the increasing international tendency for bilateral preferential trade agreements, it is important for countries to be aware of trade substitution possibilities. This paper estimates import and export price elasticities for Australia and its major trading partners in Europe and Asia, 1958 to 2002, using a fully flexible version of the Symmetric Normalized Quadratic aggregator function. Imports and exports are disaggregated into six regions, covering 17 countries. Our results illuminate the (changing) substitution and complementarity patterns for Australian foreign trade, highlighting trading opportunities in the face of a changing international environment.     

Long-Period Trade Elasticities for Canada, Japan, and the United States

Most analyses of imports use brief, postwar samples and offer a large range of elasticity estimates suggesting that the role of income and prices in determining imports is not known with any precision. This paper offers an analysis of that role using data since 1890 for Canada, Japan, and the United States. The elasticities of the log–linear model are estimated and found to be inconsistent with the view that income and prices affect imports. Optimization models are considered and found to predict secular changes in income and price elasticities and explain the dispersion of estimates of the literature.     

International Trade as Determined by Income and Income Distribution

Abstract

In standard trade theory, consumption is normally assumed to be homothetic. Consequently, income and its distribution have no role in determining international trade patterns. This paper examines the assumption and its implications. The assumption of homothetic preferences is rejected at the 1% level. It further demonstrates that the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model modified by allowing for non-homothetic taste improves the performance of HOV prediction and explains some of the trade puzzles and paradoxes.     

我国国际技术贸易与企业技术创新的协整分析

随着改革开放的不断深入,我国企业的技术创新能力也在不断增长。就国际技术贸易对企业技术创新的实际影响进行了实证分析。认为技术贸易中技术引进与我国工业企业技术创新存在长期均衡协整关系,是其增长的格兰杰原因;其中在技术引进的具体方式中,技术转让和技术许可、技术咨询与技术服务等纯技术贸易与我国工业企业技术创新存在协整且互为因果,而关键及成套设备、合作生产等技术引进方式则并无促进作用。此外,技术出口对我国工业企业技术创新的影响有待进一步研究。     

International Trade and Income Inequality*

We propose a simple theory that shows a mechanism through which international trade entails wage and job polarization. We consider two countries in which individuals with different abilities work either as knowledge workers, who develop differentiated products, or as production workers, who engage in production. In equilibrium, ex ante symmetric firms attract knowledge workers with different abilities, and this creates firm heterogeneity in product quality. Market integration disproportionately benefits firms that produce high-quality products. This winner-take-all trend of product markets causes a war for talents, which exacerbates income inequality within the countries and leads to labor-market polarization.     

Measuring Price Responsiveness Under a Profit Maximization Framework

The distinguishing feature of the study is in using a globally flexible functional form that permits one to calculate different types of elasticities under both constant and variable output hypotheses. The Symmetric Generalized McFadden cost function alongwith the output supply condition form the basis of the econometric model. To measure inputsubstitutabilities, we used Alien-Uzawa, Morishima, and Shadow elasticities of substitution. Empirical results, based on 300 farm households from West Bengal, India, show that fertilizer is most price sensitive input. It is a gross substitute for manure and human labor but complement to bullock labor. Manure is a gross substitute for all the inputs whereas human labor is gross complement to bullock labor. Using the Morishima measure we find that the fertilizer and bullock labor are complements when the price of the latterchanges. Similar complementary relationship is found between bullock and human labor due to changes in the price of human labor. All other inputs are Morishima substitutes. The Shadow elasticity of substitution estimates indicate that all factors are substitutes. The estimate of returns to scale indicates the presence of diminishing returns to scale.

     

Productive Capacity, Product Varieties, and the Elasticities Approach to the Trade Balance

Most macroeconomic models imply that faster income growth tends either to lower a country’s trade balance by raising its imports with little change to its exports or to reduce its terms of trade in order to maintain balanced trade. Krugman (1989 ) proposed a model in which countries grow by producing new varieties of goods. In his model, faster‐growing countries are able to export these new goods and maintain balanced trade without suffering any deterioration in their terms of trade. This paper analyzes the growth of US imports from different source countries and finds strong support for Krugman’s model.     

Determinants and Forecast of Price Level in India: a VAR Framework

The theoretical association of money supply and exchange rates with prices has been empirically established and shown to be dominant in explaining changes in price levels in India. However, post liberalisation, studies have shown price levels to be impacted by several other factors as also, weakened influence of the traditional factors established by theories. This study aims to find the determinants of price level for the period 1994–2008 using a Vector Autoregression model and test the predictive ability of the model. Our results show shorter and smaller impact of change in money supply and nominal effective exchange rate on price levels. Both money supply and nominal effective exchange rates are found to Granger-cause Consumer Price Index. But, impulse response functions show that the impact of shocks from money supply and nominal effective exchange rates on consumer prices peaks after two lags and is short-lived. Forecast error variance decomposition shows that these demand side factors contribute only 6 % of the forecast error variation in Consumer Price Index.

     

安徽省城乡居民收入与消费关系的协整分析

本文运用协整和误差修正模型,以安徽省1984—2006年的统计资料为样本,构建了城乡居民长短期的收入与消费模型,对城乡居民收入与消费之间的关系进行了分析。结果表明：安徽城乡居民的收入和消费之间各自存在着长期的均衡关系,在人均消费的层面上,城镇居民对于消费增长的支持大于农村居民,农村居民的消费需求还有待提高。     

Global Determinants of the Gold Price: A Multivariate Cointegration Analysis

The present paper follows publications which have investigated the influence of global liquidity developments on commodity prices and asset price indices. It contributes to the literature by analyzing how global developments in money, output, and inflation can be related to developments in gold prices in a long‐run perspective. Applying a multivariate cointegration (CVAR) analysis, this study investigates long‐run relationships between these variables. The results suggest a significant influence of excess global liquidity on real gold prices and a co‐movement of real gold prices and global inflation.     

Consumption,Income, and Wealth: Evidence from Age,Cohort, and Period Elasticities

This paper examines the relationship between non‐durable consumption, income, and wealth (housing and financial) allowing explicitly for generational heterogeneity. A framework is proposed to disentangle cohort, age, and period effects and the empirical analysis is based on the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data. We find that there are significant generational differences and the results highlight the range of elasticities implicit in results presented, thus far, by age groups. Moreover, we find supporting evidence of humped shaped age profiles for the elasticity of consumption with respect to income and the importance of financial wealth for those aged 60+. The framework also allows us to generate cohort profiles which draw attention to the negative role of housing wealth for generation X, and period profiles which reinforce the role of financial wealth for the baby‐boom generation.