Globalization and domestic conflict

When a resource like oil is domestically contested, trade patters and welfare can be very different than when property rights are costlessly enforced. Whereas (small-country) importers of the contested resource gain unambiguously relative to autarky, exporters of the contested resource lose under free trade, unless the world price of the resource is sufficiently high. Regardless of what price obtains in world markets, countries tend to over-export the contested resource compared to the absence of conflict. For a wide range of prices, higher international prices of the contested resource reduce welfare, an instance of the “natural resource curse.”     

Globalization and domestic conflict

When a resource like oil is domestically contested, trade patters and welfare can be very different than when property rights are costlessly enforced. Whereas (small-country) importers of the contested resource gain unambiguously relative to autarky, exporters of the contested resource lose under free trade, unless the world price of the resource is sufficiently high. Regardless of what price obtains in world markets, countries tend to over-export the contested resource compared to the absence of conflict. For a wide range of prices, higher international prices of the contested resource reduce welfare, an instance of the “natural resource curse.”     

Market integration,environmental policy,and transboundry pollution from consumption

Recent empirics report that transport cost reductions significantly contribute to rapidly growing world trade. This article develops a reciprocal market model of intra-industry trade with transboundary pollution from consumption to consider how market integration in the form of transport cost reductions affects the noncooperative choice of an environmental policy and the equilibrium welfare. I show that market integration can improve welfare locally, but that welfare under any non-prohibitive trade cost can not be higher than welfare under autarky. This possibility of trade losses exhibits a sharp contrast to the case of production-generated pollution.     

Portfolio autarky: A welfare analysis

A variant of the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model, a model of a two-country world economy populated by Samuelsonian overlapping generations, is presented and then used in a welfare analysis of two international economic policy regimes: A laissez-faire regime, characterized by free trade in goods and complete freedom of portfolio choice; and a portfolio autarky regime, characterized by free trade in goods and a prohibition, applicable world-wide, on the ownership of foreign assets (land). Using a ‘growth model’ version of the traditional welfare criterion, it is shown that the laissez-faire regime is optimal and that the portfolio autarky regime is not.     

Regional Trade Agreements and the Pattern of Trade: A Networks Approach

This paper uses a complex network approach for the analysis trade effects from regional trade agreements on world trade flows. We use bilateral trade data to compute the network community structure for every year between 1970 and 2000. We compare this to null community structures that emerge from various models based on regional and geographical classifications, the implementation of RTA's and gravity models of trade. Our results show that RTA formation appears to have a cyclical pattern on the world trade network community structure. We document periods where bilateral trade flows and the structure of the world trade network are consistent with those predicted by formation of RTAs. These cycles occur in 1980–86 and 1990–96. At the same time, we document periods in which the pattern in the world trade network is not explained by RTA formation. Two periods, 1986–90 and 1997–2000, show a pattern of bilateral trade flows that moves away from the prediction that results from assuming RTA formation as the driving force in the determination of the world trade network structure. Factors contributing to the latter parts of the cycle during our sample period include formation of regional trade networks in East Asia that account for a significant portion of world trade but are not formalised by RTAs in force.     

Trade and the distribution of human capital

We develop a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between the two countries is their distribution of human capital endowments. We show that even if the two countries have identical aggregate human capital endowments the pattern of trade depends on the properties of the two human capital distributions. We also show that the two distributions of endowments also completely determine the effects of trade on income inequality. We also look at a simple majority voting model. It turns out autarky and free trade with and without compensation may be the voting outcome.     

Trade and the distribution of human capital

We develop a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between the two countries is their distribution of human capital endowments. We show that even if the two countries have identical aggregate human capital endowments the pattern of trade depends on the properties of the two human capital distributions. We also show that the two distributions of endowments also completely determine the effects of trade on income inequality. We also look at a simple majority voting model. It turns out autarky and free trade with and without compensation may be the voting outcome.     

“寡头”市场结构、贸易媒介与贸易商品定价——分析框架及基于棉花贸易史的案例研究

中国在贸易中面临"寡头"地位确立与定价权缺失共存的困境,通过提出一个引入贸易媒介环节的三分法贸易商品定价框架对此进行解释。贸易商品定价受到"寡头"国家/政府政策作用于贸易媒介市场结构程度的影响,还依赖于出口国/进口国的微观市场结构状况。贸易媒介通过与生产者和消费者的定价博弈选择使其利润最大化的买卖价格,政府政策/私人保护通过影响贸易媒介市场结构间接影响贸易商品定价。利用典型的英美棉花贸易"双寡头"案例,通过价格变动的相对弹性、转嫁系数和Granger因果检验三种方法定量分析了英美棉花贸易的定价博弈,计量结果与三分法分析结果完全符合,为论文提出的分析框架提供了例证支持。     

Trade preferences and political equilibrium associated with trade liberalization

This paper, motivated by the so-called North–South problem in trade, analyzes ex ante trade preferences and the source of potential political conflicts regarding trade liberalization. Developing a dynamic extension of the traditional Heckscher–Ohlin model with imperfect labor mobility and tracking overall dynamic paths from the autarky to free-trade steady states, we demonstrate that in the presence of inter-sectoral migration barrier, bilateral free-trade agreements can be welcomed (opposed) by the majority of workers in a capital-abundant (labor-abundant) country, which is inconsistent with the welfare prediction by Stolper and Samuelson. This paper also proposes a numerical algorithm to solve for the entire transition path of the model under rational expectation. Our simulation experiments further reveal that preannounced and delayed implementation can facilitate a bilateral free-trade agreement by partially neutralizing short-run transitional gains and losses so as to persuade the losers to support the reform without affecting the beneficiaries’ trade preferences.     

The impact of trade on aggregate productivity and welfare with heterogeneous firms and business cycle uncertainty

This paper presents a model with monopolistic competition, productively heterogeneous firms, and business cycle aggregate shocks. With firm-specific productive heterogeneity, weaker firms quit when faced with a negative aggregate shock. Consequently, trade does not always increase firm-level aggregate productivity as negative shocks on the home market can be compensated for by positive shocks elsewhere. Weaker firms, which would otherwise quit in autarky, can continue to operate by exporting. Despite this, trade can still improve welfare for the risk-averse consumer by reducing aggregate price fluctuations.     

Mainland China and western trade credits

The author discusses the question whether autarky will remain a central national policy goal in Peking after the present ruling group relinquishes power. He comes to the conclusion that, although China’s foreign trade particularly with the Western world will expand rapidly, Peking will continue its abstinence from foreign trade credits.     

International trade agreements between countries of asymmetric size

This paper analyzes how changes in the structure and environment of trade agreements between a small and a large country affect the efficient frontier of those self-enforcing agreements and hence, negotiation outcomes. Using the autarky punishment instead of the interior Nash punishment may provide the small country with greater bargaining power. Negotiating direct transfers under free trade instead of reciprocal tariff reductions improves the worst possible negotiation outcome for the small country. The existence of irreversible investment may strengthen (weaken) the small country’s bargaining power under the interior Nash (autarky) punishment scheme.     

Immiserizing deindustrialization: A dynamic trade model with credit constraints

The paper develops an open economy dynamic model with bequests and credit constraints. The agricultural sector uses only labor, the industrial sector needs an indivisible investment. Under autarky, productive agriculture provides the funds needed for investment in industry and in equilibrium credit constraints are not binding. If agriculture is not sufficiently productive, the price of the industrial good must be high enough to make the industrial sector sustainable. In an open economy, if the country has the comparative advantage in agriculture, deindustrialization may occur over time. Deindustrialization is welfare-reducing when the negative wealth distributional effects swamp the gains from trade.     

Globalization and the dynamics of cultural identity

This paper presents a simple model where micro-founded dynamics of cultural identity are endogenous and interact with an international trade equilibrium. This process generates a strong home bias under autarky. We then show that goods market integration causes a phenomenon of cultural divergence, whereby the distributions of cultures become more dissimilar across countries and one of the cultures that existed under autarky ultimately disappears. By way of contrast, we show that social integration causes cultural convergence and can counterbalance the effects of goods market integration.     

Immiserizing deindustrialization: A dynamic trade model with credit constraints

The paper develops an open economy dynamic model with bequests and credit constraints. The agricultural sector uses only labor, the industrial sector needs an indivisible investment. Under autarky, productive agriculture provides the funds needed for investment in industry and in equilibrium credit constraints are not binding. If agriculture is not sufficiently productive, the price of the industrial good must be high enough to make the industrial sector sustainable. In an open economy, if the country has the comparative advantage in agriculture, deindustrialization may occur over time. Deindustrialization is welfare-reducing when the negative wealth distributional effects swamp the gains from trade.     

Trade,growth and consumption in alternative models of capital accumulation

This paper shows that some of the most interesting effects of international trade on capital accumulation are essentially the same in a range of different technologies: input-output models, vintage models, and the standard two-sector model. Trade and autarky equilibria are compared on the assumption that the rate of profit is the same in both cases. The effect of trade on intertemporal choice is analysed, with emphasis on the case where steady state consumption falls as a result of trade. Alternative saving assumptions are discussed.     

Trade barriers and the relative price of tradables

In this paper I quantitatively address the role of trade barriers in explaining why prices of services relative to tradables are positively correlated with levels of development across countries. I argue that trade barriers play a crucial role in shaping the cross-country pattern of specialization across many tradable goods. I construct a multi-country, general equilibrium model of trade and derive tractable predictions that show how specialization affects relative prices. I calibrate the model to match the patterns of prices, levels of development, and bilateral trade across 103 countries. Through counterfactuals I find that removing trade barriers eliminates more than half of the gap in the relative price of services between rich and poor countries with only a minimal systematic effect on the absolute price of tradables.     

Multilateralising Regionalism: Spaghetti Bowls as Building Blocs on the Path to Global Free Trade

This paper addresses the final steps to global free trade – what they might look like, what sort of political economy forces might drive them, and what the WTO might do to help. Two facts form the point of departure: (1) Regionalism is here to stay; world trade is regulated by a motley assortment of unilateral, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements; (2) this motley assortment is not the best way to organise world trade. Moving to global duty‐free trade will require a multilateralisation of regionalism. This paper presents the political economy logic of trade liberalisation and uses it to structure a narrative of world trade liberalisation since 1947. The logic is then used to project the world tariff map in 2010, arguing that the pattern will be marked by fractals – fuzzy, leaky trade blocs made up of fuzzy, leaky sub‐blocs (fuzzy since the proliferation of FTAs makes it impossible to draw sharp lines around the Big‐3 trade blocs, and leaky since some FTAs create free trade ‘canals’ linking the Big‐3 blocs). The paper then presents a novel political economy mechanism – spaghetti bowls as building blocs – whereby offshoring creates a force that encourages the multilateralisation of regionalism. Finally, the paper suggests three things the WTO might do to help multilateralise regionalism.     

Intra-industry trade and heterogeneity in pollution emission

This paper develops a model of intermediate goods firms heterogeneity with respect to a pollution parameter to analyze the effects of intra-industry trade on final good output, pollution and welfare. By focusing on intra-industry trade we consider trade between similar countries. We analyze both trade between developed countries, and trade between developing countries. In our model, final good producers pay an environmental tax on the total pollution emitted in their country. Therefore, final good producers determine the overall level of pollution by demanding ‘cleaner’ or ‘dirtier’ intermediate goods. To focus on intra-industry trade we consider only intermediate goods firms trade. We analyze three scenarios: closed economy; open economy with no impediments to trade; and open economy with transportation cost. Our main findings are: i. a developing country closed to trade faces lower final good output and higher total pollution and is thus worse off than a developed country; ii. countries are better off under trade than under autarky, regardless of their development level; and iii. an open economy with low transportation costs are better off than an open economy with no impediments to trade.     

我国开发浓缩苹果汁期货的必要性和可行性分析

我国是世界第一大苹果和苹果汁生产国,苹果汁出口占据世界贸易量一半以上。分析我国推出浓缩苹果汁期货在抵御价格风险、提高果农收入、赢得反倾销诉讼、促进产业发展等方面的必要性。同时进一步从苹果汁现货市场发育程度、产业规模、厂商数量、交割标准制定等方面进行可行性分析。浓缩苹果汁期货的上市,可以使我国牢牢掌握苹果汁的定价权,促进整个苹果产业链的健康发展。