Trade Costs and Intra-Industry Trade

Formal economic modeling of intra-industry trade ignores transportation or, more broadly, trade costs. Yet, as Anderson and van Wincoop (2004) suggest, trade costs are quite large. This paper extends work by Bergstrand (1990) that addressed intra-industry trade in the explicit presence of trade costs. In the context of a Helpman–Krugman-cum-trade-costs model, we derive four empirically testable hypotheses regarding intra-industry trade and trade costs. These hypotheses are investigated empirically using a cross-section of bilateral OECD Grubel–Lloyd indexes. The results are strongly in accordance with the hypotheses, indicating the importance of a more rigorous and systematic treatment of trade costs in the intra-industry trade literature. JEL no. F14, F15     

贸易协定之于出口增长:是激励还是阻力?

贸易协定已经成为区域贸易合作的重要方式,逐渐被各国所重视。文章从贸易协定异质性视角,构建贸易协定异质性指数,同时运用主成分分析法提取的新变量,共同探究其对2000-2014年中国出口三元边际的影响。研究发现,强制性指数对三元边际促进作用显著,说明贸易条款总体上能够降低贸易成本、促进出口。非强制性指数和制度质量指数对三元边际抑制作用显著,表明其所具有的灵活性和隐蔽性,成为抑制贸易增长的主要原因。主成分提取的新变量对三元边际的影响显著且差异各半,进一步说明贸易协定异质性的存在。明确贸易协定异质性,能够根据贸易条款执行力的不同,有重点地签订贸易协定,使其更好地服务于中国对外贸易发展。     

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。     

跨境数据流动规则对服务贸易成本的影响

数据流动已成为贸易规则谈判的重要议题。通过构建RTA(区域贸易协定)跨境数据流动规则深度指数和测算双边服务贸易成本,实证分析跨境数据流动规则对服务贸易成本的影响。研究发现,在理论机制上,跨境数据流动规则通过减少监管分歧和促进服务贸易数字化降低服务贸易成本。实证结果表明,缔结跨境数据流动规则和跨境数据流动规则深度的增加均会显著降低服务贸易成本。分规则类型来看,数据便利类条款、数据保护类条款、数据流动类条款和数据例外类条款深度的增加均能降低服务贸易成本;从不同经济发展水平匹配的国家对来看,发展中国家之间、发达国家与发展中国家之间跨境数据流动规则的缔结和规则深度的增加均能降低服务贸易成本。     

On the measurement of trade-induced adjustment

Globalisation and closer regional integration have led to significant increases in trade between nations that in turn impacts on existing long-standing trade partnerships. A consequence of changing trade patterns is an increase in the pressure for resources to reallocate between industries and sectors. This paper provides an integrated approach to the analysis of trade-induced adjustment that complements the existing literature. Adjustment pressures are documented in accordance with the theoretical underpinnings of the smooth adjustment hypothesis and satisfy a number of desirable criteria, monotonicity, consistency and country specificity. The applicability of the authors' approach is examined using UK manufacturing data. JEL no. F19     

How important is intra-industry trade in trade growth?

Empirical work on intra-industry trade (IIT) is almost 30 years old. Initial research sought to identify if IIT was a significant share of total trade (TT). The Grubel-Lloyd (GL) index was widely used for this purpose. Interest has since shifted to the changing importance of IITover time. Using movements in the GL index to infer the importance of IIT over time is not only vague, but can be misleading. In this article, we measure the contributions of growth in net trade (NT) and IIT to the growth in TT. To understand changes in IIT over time, we also derive the contributions of imports and exports to the growth in TT, NT, and IIT. All our formulas are illustrated with data for 205 Australian manufacturing industries.     

优先发展现代服务业

改革开放以来,我国服务业有了很大发展,但也存在许多问题。文章分析了我国服务业的现状、差距,并提出了相应的对策。     

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%.     

Land Transport for Export: The Effects of Cost, Time, and Uncertainty in Sub-Saharan Africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), inland export transport costs and time delays are much higher for landlocked countries, vary substantially between different geographic corridors, and exhibit substantial uncertainty. Unit costs and costs of time for land transport of exports are high for many agricultural products relative to metals and other high-value products. We illustrate systemic uncertainty in land and maritime transport for exporting by use of simulation. Relationships among uncertainty, infrastructure quality, and other features of logistics systems are highly non-linear, and can be potentially used to identify priorities for trade facilitation.     

浅谈国外技术性贸易壁垒

文章介绍了技术性贸易壁垒的概念和国外技术性贸易壁垒的分类,并分析了国外技术性贸易壁垒对我国相关出口产品可能造成的负面影响。     

The new goods margin in Japanese–Chinese trade

This paper uses the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013) to measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Japan and China after China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The new goods account for 15.9% of Japanese exports to China and 22% of Chinese exports to Japan after trade liberalization. For the case of Chinese exports to Japan, a time series measure shows the growth in new goods coincides with the timing of the trade liberalization.     

解析贸易技术壁垒的影响及对策

当前,全球经济不景气,在经济全球化不断发展的同时,贸易保护主义再度抬头,贸易技术壁垒逐步代替关税壁垒成为国际贸易纷争的主要内容。本文首先分析了贸易技术壁垒对发展中国家、特别是对我国外贸的影响情况,再结合我国实际情况提出了相应的策略建议。     

技术性贸易壁垒理性化的路径分析

随着国际贸易的发展以及技术性贸易壁垒的广泛使用,技术性贸易壁垒对生产和贸易所产生的正、负效应在不断地上升。因此,规范与加强技术性贸易壁垒的合理使用,实现技术性贸易壁垒的理性化已经成为当前多边贸易体制的重要议题。     

Real Versus Tariff Liberalization: A Welfare Comparison Under Monopolistic Competition

A distinction between real trade costs (e.g., administration, border formalities, transport costs) and tariff costs is introduced into a standard monopolistic competition trade model. Driven by the number of firms, welfare under real trade barriers turns out to be lower than under an equivalent tariff barrier. Based on this finding, the paper shows that integration or rather liberalization measures (generating a certain increase in world trade) that reduce real trade barriers generate a larger welfare gain than integration consisting of a reduction in tariffs.     

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     

US Safeguards on Steel and the Markups of European Producers

This paper is among the first to explore the microeconomic impacts of a trade policy on foreign firms. We empirically investigate the effects of the US safeguard protection of steel imports in 2002 on the markups of EU steel firms. Using a large panel of affected EU steel firms between 1995 and 2005, we find that the protection they faced abroad significantly reduced their markups. Our results indicate smaller adverse effects on multi-product EU firms. Our study has wider implications as it quantifies the cost that trade protection imposes on trading partners, an externality currently not considered in any trade regulation. The US safeguard protection also resulted in some diversion of EU steel especially towards China, aggravating the situation on the Chinese steel market and ultimately resulting in the Chinese trade protection of steel imports. JEL no.  F13, L13, L61