Specialization and Dynamics in a Trade Model*

An economy which can produce two tradeable goods, and an investment good which augments capital stocks, is shown to specialize in an optimal stationary state unless it is in the interior of a continuum from which no change is ever needed. On the traverse to a stationary state, non-specialization occurs if at all for only a finite time. Although the instantaneous production frontier is concave, the long-run frontier is linear, but the long-run rate of product transformation differs from the supply price ratio with positive time-preference. Long-run specialization may differ from that predicted by long-run comparative advantage.     

Diversification and Specialization Paradox in Developing Country Trade

This paper examines and resolves a puzzling issue associated with less developed country (LDC) export compositions. Since the newly industrialized country (NIC) takeoff during the early 1970s, LDC exports have involved an increasingly broader and diversified export base. Yet trade theories, both “old” that focus on classic comparative advantage, and “new” which rely on scale economies, lead to expectations of growing specialization as a concomitant of LDC takeoff. This study examines periods of rapid growth and structural transformation of trade for a representative group of LDCs covering a wide geographic and temporal sample.     

垂直专业化对出口技术复杂度的影响及其机制——基于中国高技术产业的经验证据

垂直专业化分工如何影响出口技术复杂度?本文利用中国高技术产业1998～2015年省级层面数据进行的研究发现:垂直专业化有效地提升了中国高技术产业出口技术复杂度,但在金融危机后垂直专业化的提升效应减弱了。垂直专业化对高技术产业出口技术复杂度的提升效应可以通过研发投入和劳动生产率机制实现,但垂直专业化的研发效应较弱,通过研发投入机制对出口技术复杂度的提升效应较为有限。此外,垂直专业化对出口技术复杂度的影响存在企业异质性,对绩效较好企业的影响效果更显著,而对不同规模企业的影响差异不明显。因此,为提高各地区高技术产业出口技术复杂度水平,政府在制定政策时需要适度考虑地区企业的特征因素,以充分发挥垂直专业化的提升效应。     

汇率、垂直专业化和中美贸易不平衡

人民币的升值并没有导致中国对美国贸易顺差的减少,结合中国参与国际垂直分工,计算整体和行业层面对美国出口的垂直专业指标,并且利用汇改以来的月度数据,检验在垂直专业化条件下的汇率与贸易的关系,结果发现,垂直专业化程度高的行业,汇率的变化对于贸易没有影响;而垂直专业化程度低的行业,人民币的升值对于出口和贸易顺差产生了显著的负面影响。其主要原因是高垂直专业化的行业大量进口中间产品,经过组装以后再出口,其利益主要为跨国企业获得。并且从整体上看中国的出口主要依赖这些行业,所以人民币的升值并没有导致对美国贸易顺差的减少。     

贸易垂直专业化之研究综述

对贸易垂直专业化与国际分工的研究,使标准贸易理论的研究视野由产品问分工扩展到产品内分工。对该领域研究的内容、方法与结论做了归纳,就贸易垂直专业化的发展趋势、理论模型拓展以及经济效应分析三个方面的问题加以系统评述。     

On Gravity,Specialization and Intra‐industry Trade

Contrary to the popular belief, specialization is not necessary for gravity equations. This paper shows that the simple gravity equation holds if and only if the market share of an exporting country is constant across all importing countries. Specialization is just one special case satisfying this condition. The constant‐share condition can hold in a variety of situations where multiple producers compete with a homogeneous good. Further, this paper shows that the ratio of bilateral trade to the product of partner incomes is increasing in the extent of specialization and in the intensity of intra‐industry trade. Since the relationship is not model‐specific, the correlations among these variables do not support any specific model.     

专业化程度与贸易量变动关系的定量研究

通过建立三个不同专业化程度的贸易量模型分析专业化程度与贸易量之间的基本变动关系，表明两国之间的贸易量不仅与国家相对规模成正比，而且专业化程度越高，贸易量越大。扩展后的模型研究发现，一国某一典型产品的出口贸易量不仅取决于本国收入，而且还取决于该产品国内产值占本国收入比例与该产品世界产值占世界收入比例的差别，差别越大贸易量越大，而这种差别可看作是产品专业化生产程度的反映。     

International Asset Trade,Capital Income Taxation,and Specialization Patterns

This paper constructs a small economy version of dynamic Heckscher‐Ohlin models with overlapping generations and analyzes effects of capital income taxation on the specialization pattern of the country. It is shown that once international asset trade is allowed, in the presence of international technological asymmetries, a small country eventually leads to perfect specialization in our overlapping generations model. It is also shown that the residence‐based tax has no effect on the specialization pattern while the source‐based tax has a negative effect on capital accumulation and thereby it can affect the specialization pattern of the small country.     

Industrial Diversity, Trade Patterns, and Productivity Convergence

Recent developments in economic integration show rather diverse patterns of integration in the world economy. Some countries remain predominantly in the low-tech industries whereas other countries succeed in becoming competitive in high-tech industries as well. The authors postulate that a country positioning itself at the lower end of the spectrum of high-tech industries is more favorable to its long-term development than aiming at the upper end of low-tech industries. They argue that countries which specialize in the lower end of the medium–high-tech activities are rewarded by faster productivity increases also in the upper end of the high-tech industries. In contrast, early specialization in medium–low-tech branches yields positive spillovers, mainly in the low-tech sector, which is not conducive to increasing activity in high-tech industries. The authors sketch a theoretical outline of this idea and present econometric results, including four aggregate manufacturing branches across 37 countries.     

Tolerance and Herd Behavior: Sophistication of Ideas under Payoff Complementarity

In this paper, I first show that there may be inefficient herd behavior even with a continuous choice set and a continuous loss function if there is payoff complementarity. Then, I show that the probability of inefficient herd behavior is asymptotically zero and the choice sequence converges to the optimal one almost surely if people have even a small amount of tolerance that they are willing to accept one another as a partner in joint work. This result is closely related to the argument in J. S. Mill’s On Liberty, where he states that tolerance for others’ ideas is essential for sophistication of ideas.     

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1960 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policies' economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides scalar index numbers of trade‐ and welfare‐reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more‐satisfactory indexes that can be generated using no more than the data used to generate PSEs and CSEs. We then exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to provide time‐series estimates of index numbers for 75 developing and high‐income countries over the past half‐century.     

Attitude Sophistication and Effective Teaching in Economics

Little attention has been given to the measurement of changes in attitudes and beliefs resulting from instruction in economics. This deficiency is met by Mann and Fusfeld who relate attitude changes to growth in students' knowledge (cognition) and to characteristics of both students and instructors. The findings from this research suggest a conflict among the goals of instruction. They also imply greater persistence of changes in attitude than of changes in knowledge.     

Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, North-South Trade, and Biological Diversity

In the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of GATT (1 January 1995) it was agreed to harmonise intellectual property rights (IPR) on an international level and to include the option for patent protection for all life forms such as plants and animals (Article 27 (3) b). Patenting, however, leads to considerable conflicts between international trade and protection of biological diversity, which can be illustrated by the example of seed production. We make use of a three-stage game to show the strategic incentives for implementation of two different property rights regimes (patents and farmers' rights) on competition and biodiversity. We show that the Southern government has no incentive to acknowledge international patents, even if farmers' rights do exist. The Northern producer will always dominate in the output market if patents are applied, but without farmers' rights biodiversity will not be maintained by the Southern government. Thus total payoff of the northern firm is maximized, if both IPR regimes are implemented. However, if only farmers' rights are valid, biodiversity will be maximal.     

State‐Society Synergy and Export Sophistication

This paper contributes to the recent research on “export sophistication,” or the composition of a country's export portfolio. The central question of the current study is what determines a country's level of export sophistication. I argue that a synergetic relationship between state and society positively contributes to the level of export sophistication. The logic behind the argument is that the socially optimal level of investment in new products can only be realized if both the firm and the government find it individually profitable to carry out the investment. In cases whereby either or both lacks private incentive to invest, higher synergy between public and private sectors makes such joint investments more likely to occur. This logic is formally illustrated using a simultaneous game with incomplete information. The central hypothesis is tested using time series cross‐sectional data. The key empirical novelty of this paper is the construction of a “synergy index” based on Peter Evans' conceptualization of the term. Overall, the data give good support to the hypothesis. This relationship is particularly robust for the subsample of countries with intermediate levels of synergy. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting that state‐society synergy is subject to diminishing returns as its values get higher.     

Jack of All Trades or a Master of One? Specialization,Trade, and Money*

We consider a model of decentralized exchange where individuals choose the set of goods they produce. Specialization involves producing a smaller set of goods and doing it more proficiently. In doing so, agents reduce production costs, but also reduce the ease of trading their output. We derive the equilibrium degree of specialization and examine how it is affected by underlying fundamentals. Due to the existence of a hold‐up problem, individuals specialize too little relative to the social optimum. Introducing money leads to more specialization relative to barter and increases welfare.     

Judgment: Balancing Principle and Policy

Judgment is an element of decision-making that is of critical importance to both ethics and economics but remains underappreciated in both. In this paper, I describe one conception of moral judgment, drawn from the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the legal philosophy of Ronald Dworkin, in which an agent weighs and balances the various moral duties and principles relevant to a choice situation in a way that maintains the integrity of her moral character. After explaining the foundations and uses of judgment in ethics, I discuss its importance to two areas of economic modeling, individual choice and policy-making, both of which can be enhanced by incorporating judgment alongside more basic ethical motivations and concerns.     

社交媒体、投资者信息获取和解读能力与盈余预期——来自“上证e互动”平台的证据

作为投资决策的基础内容,投资者的信息获取和解读能力是近年来学术界的研究热点和前沿课题。鉴于目前缺少文献直接检验投资者信息获取和解读能力的市场影响,本文利用上交所"上证e互动"平台提供的特有实验环境,研究投资者信息获取和解读能力的提高对市场盈余预期准确性的影响。本文发现,社交媒体背景下投资者信息获取和解读能力的提高能够显著提高市场盈余预期准确性,产生盈余预期修正作用;并且机构投资者持股比例越低,这种盈余预期修正作用越强。本文进一步发现,社交媒体背景下投资者信息获取和解读能力的提高能够显著降低盈余公告期的信息不对称。本文结论表明,利用信息技术提高投资者信息获取和解读能力是优化市场效率的重要手段,能够降低市场信息不对称,这种市场效率的提高方式能够在一定程度上与机构投资者的作用产生互补效果。本文不仅为市场效率研究提供了新的分析视角,同时还为投资者信息获取和解读能力、社交媒体等热点问题提供了新的理论解释和实证证据。     

金融发展对服务贸易出口结构的溢出效应——基于出口复杂度算法的实证研究简

基于服务贸易出口复杂度的算法,选取中国2000-2012年相关数据,分析金融发展对服务贸易出口结构的溢出效应。结果表明：短期内,金融发展对服务贸易出口结构没有影响,不存在溢出效应;长期内,金融发展能显著促进服务贸易出口结构的优化,但其溢出效应具有滞后性;金融发展对服务贸易出口结构存在单向因果关系,服务贸易出口结构不会影响金融发展。基于此,实现中国金融业发展对服务贸易出口结构长期可持续溢出效应,应完善金融体系,做大做强金融业;合理引导金融机构贷款投放,加大信贷支持;推进多层次资金市场,拓宽投融资渠道。