Financial constraints on export market exit of domestic firms versus foreign multinational corporation subsidiaries in South Korea

Using a Korean manufacturing firm-level data set covering a range of years from 2006 to 2013, this study investigates how the financial condition of firms, such as liquidity, leverage, and cash flow ratio, affects exit from export markets. It also analyses whether the financial status of foreign multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries differs from that of domestic firms with respect to the hazard of export market exit, especially during a global financial crisis. The empirical results confirm that, for domestic firms, the hazard of export market exit is affected by the firms’ financial condition only during a financial crisis. In other words, the financial vulnerability of domestic firms increases during the crisis, resulting in the hazard of export market exit. However, financial situations for foreign MNC subsidiaries do not affect exits from export markets, indicating a ‘finance-factor comparative advantage’.     

Export–Oriented Foreign Direct Investment and Local Content Requirement

We develop a model in which foreign firms locate in a host country and export their produce to another (consuming) country. We consider both exogenous and endogenous numbers of foreign firms. These firms compete with domestic firms in the consuming country under oligopoly. Unemployment exists in both countries. We analyse the conflict of interest between the two countries on the level of local content for the foreign firms. Under free entry of foreign firms, the consuming country may want a less severe restriction on local contents than the host country, but not so when the number of foreign firms is exogenous.     

Effects of financial constraints on export performance of firms during the global financial crisis: microeconomic evidence from Korea

This study uses a manufacturing firm-level panel data set of South Korea for 2006–2013 to investigate the effect of financial constraints on the export performance of firms, with particular emphasis on the corporate ownership structure. The empirical results show that foreign multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries are not affected by financial constraint during both crisis and noncrisis periods, implying advantages of foreign ownership. However, domestic firms suffer more from financial constraints on exports during crisis years. In particular, domestic firms without parent firms are financially constrained during both crisis and noncrisis periods. However, those with parent firms do not experience financial constraints during noncrisis periods, although they too suffer from them during crisis periods. Thus, parent–subsidiary linkage among domestic firms plays an important role in alleviating financial constraints on export activity in noncrisis years but not as much during crisis years. Therefore, domestic parent firms exhibit less resilience to the global financial crisis, in comparison to foreign MNC parent firms.     

Cross-Country Externalities of Trade and FDI Liberalization

We develop a three-country heterogeneous-firm model and show that FDI liberalization in one foreign country (F1) results in the following: (i) some firms from the home country switch from export to FDI in F1; (ii) skilled labor’s wage rate drops in the home country; (iii) wage inequality between the skilled and unskilled labor decreases; and (iv) some firms from the home country switch from FDI to export to another foreign country (F2). The effects from trade liberalization are just the opposite, but the effects from education improvement are qualitatively the same as FDI liberalization. The cross-country externalities work through the domestic labor market.     

THE NUMBER OF FIRMS AND THE POLITICS OF STRATEGIC TRADE POLICY

Incorporating home firms' lobbying in a country into a third market model of oligopoly, this paper studies how such lobbying affects the government's strategic export policy scheme. We pay special attention to the home firms' lobby formation and its effect on domestic welfare. The home firms can organize a lobby more easily when the number of their rival foreign firms is larger than that of them, and/or when the government is overly concerned with political contribution relative to domestic welfare. The strategic export policy under lobbying cannot improve the domestic welfare, which depends on the number of firms, the government's concern about political donation and the level of socially wasted lobbying costs.     

基于成本信息缺失的VER政策与社会福利分析

文章在贸易主体间成本信息缺失的基础上,重新探讨了VER的政策含义。研究结果发现,在本国对外国厂商成本信息缺失的情境下,若产品市场为Cournot竞争,则VER将对两国产生实质的影响:对出口国而言,不论其厂商为何种类型,此时的VER政策都是非自愿的;本国的福利变化则需视出口厂商的类型而定。而在Bertrand竞争下,VER只在出口厂商为高成本类型时方对出口国有利,且不论外国厂商为何种类型,VER皆无法使两国同时获利。     

Strategic Policy Towards Multinationals for Oligopolistic Industries

The author considers an environment with two firms, one domestically owned and one a foreign-owned multinational corporation (MNC), both producing in the host (domestic) country. It is found that there are three distinct dimensions that affect a country's strategic policy towards domestically-owned firms and foreign-owned firms: the number of policy instruments available to the host government (whether or not it can tax/subsidize both types of firms), the location of the market (in the host country or a third country), and the extent of spillover of the foreign-owned firms' production.     

Foreign direct investment,international trade,and firm heterogeneity

We present an asymmetric model with firm heterogeneity and foreign direct investment (FDI) from a developed country to a developing country. We found that the successful entry firms could be sorted from highest to lowest according to productivity as reimport firms, FDI firms, export firms, and domestic firms. We also found that FDI decreases (increases) the gross national income of the developed (developing) country, but it can either increase or decrease the world income according to the level of the relative propensity to spend. In addition, we demonstrated that FDI influences welfare through variations in average price, national income, and the number of types of goods.     

Strategic Environmental Policies in the Presence of Foreign Direct Investment

We analyze strategic environmental standards in the presence of foreign direct investment. A number of foreign firms located in a host country compete with a domestic firm in another country to export a homogeneous good to a third country. When the number of foreign firms is exogenous, the host country applies a stricter environmental regulation than the other producing country. However, under free entry and exit of foreign firms, the host country may apply a less severe standard under both non-cooperative and cooperative equilibrium. We also find that the nature market structure does not affect the equilibrium values of total pollution if export subsidies are also used.JEL Classification: F2, H2     

Local financial development and constraints on domestic private-firm exports: Evidence from city commercial banks in China

We show that the development of city commercial banks (CCBs) across China has alleviated the constraints from China’s domestic financial-market inefficiency on the export activity of domestic private firms. Considering the export behavior of 260 cities between 1997 and 2012, we confirm the well-established under-performance of domestic private firms in financially more vulnerable sectors compared to foreign affiliates in China. We show that a greater number of CCB branches raises domestic private-firm exports disproportionately more in financially-dependent sectors, which is in line with improved financing conditions for these companies. This improvement in export performance appears to result from both an increase in the number of destination countries and a decline in prices. CCB development is moreover associated with a reduction in the systematic disadvantage of domestic private firms relative to foreign-owned firms in export markets resulting from their greater financial exclusion. We, however, also find that private-firm export performance has deteriorated relative to that of state-owned firms, casting doubt on the ability of CCBs to end the systematic bias of lending in favor of the state sector.     

不完全信息、反倾销威胁与最优出口贸易政策

通过扩展Brander和Spencer(1985)的基本模型,本文首先证明了,在反倾销威胁下,基于完全信息假设的最优出口贸易政策要求出口国政府给予低成本企业更高的出口补贴或更低的出口征税,在无效激励机制下必然导致出口企业隐匿自己的真实成本类型,基于完全信息假设的最优出口贸易政策失效。在此基础上,本文进一步论证了不完全信息和反倾销威胁下激励相容的最优出口贸易政策,该政策要求出口国政府依据进口国国内要求保护压力的大小,采用不同的出口征税和一次性转移支付政策组合,激励出口企业如实报告成本类型,并使国家整体福利最大化。     

Export Destination,Product Quality and Wages in a Middle‐Income Country. The Case of South Africa

A robust finding in the firm‐level literature is that exporting firms pay higher wages. Using South African data this paper investigates the relationship between export destination and wages at a worker level. South Africa, a middle‐income country, has two distinct main export markets—a regional market where per capita incomes are lower than at home, and an international market with higher per capita incomes. Our estimates show that workers in firms that export to the region earn less than those that produce for the domestic market. Those in firms that export outside the region earn more than either domestic producers or region‐only exporters. Much of this difference in wages can be explained by the premium the different types of exporters pay for skills. These results support previous studies which suggest that export destination is related to product quality which in turn is related to worker quality and therefore wages.     

The Impact of Exporting and Export Destination on Manufacturing Wages: Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates wage effects of trade status of African firms. Using data for manufacturing firms, we find a positive overall association between individual earnings and export status. Moreover, the skill wage premium in exporting firms is significantly higher. These results are consistent with either trade inducing higher wages in the exporting country, or with more productive (higher wage) firms self‐selecting into exporting. The results are not robust, however, to disaggregation by export destination. Exporting to outside Africa generates a negative wage premium whereas exporting to African markets yields a positive premium in export firms of the exporting country. This suggests that there is a disciplining effect on the wages of exporting firms only when exporting is to more competitive markets.     

Local export spillovers in France

This paper investigates the presence of local export spillovers on both the extensive (the decision to start exporting) and the intensive (the export volume) margins of trade, using data on French individual export flows, at the product-level and by destination country, between 1998 and 2003. We investigate whether the individual decision to start exporting and exported volume are influenced by the presence of nearby product and/or destination specific exporters, using a gravity-type equation estimated at the firm-level. Spillovers are considered at a fine geographical level corresponding to employment areas (348 in France). We control for the new economic geography-type selection of firms into agglomerated areas, and for the local price effects of firms agglomeration. Results show evidence of the presence of export spillovers on the export decision but not on the exported volume. We interpret this as a first evidence of export spillovers acting through the fixed rather than the variable cost. Spillovers on the decision to start exporting are stronger when specific, by product and destination, and are not significant when considered on all products-all destinations. Moreover, export spillovers exhibit a spatial decay within France: the effect of other exporting firms on the export decision is stronger within employment areas and declines with distance.     

International trade agreements, environmental policy, and relocation of production

This paper studies the influence of free trade agreements on national environmental policies and location strategies of polluting firms. It is shown that banning export subsidies makes relocation of production more attractive for firms. When export subsidies are banned relocation is profitable because: (1) the rival firm reduces output due to more stringent emission regulation in the host country of the investment and (2) relocation leads to lower emission tax rate in the original home country of the investing firm. When export subsidies are used, the first effect is absent because the host government is able to use the export subsidy to compensate the negative effect of more stringent emission taxation on domestic shareholders.     

Brotherhood of competition: Foreign Direct Investment and domestic mergers

We examine the effects of mergers on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and on shaping national policies regarding FDI. In this work we develop a partial equilibrium model of an oligopolistic industry in which a number of domestic and foreign firms compete in the market for a homogeneous good in a host country. It is assumed that the number of foreign firms is endogenous and can be affected by the government policy in the host country. The government sets the policy (subsidies) to maximise social welfare. We allow domestic mergers. Our main results suggest that when the host country government imposes discriminatory lump-sum subsidy in favor of foreign firms, a merger of domestic firms will increase the number of FDI if the subsidy level is exogenous. With an endogenous level of subsidy, a merger of domestic firms will decrease (increase) the welfare if the domestic firms are more (less) efficient.     

The impact of domestic regulations on international trade in services: Evidence from firm-level data

In order to promote international trade in services, most bilateral and multilateral trade agreements aim at eliminating the discriminatory barriers. However, domestic regulations, which apply to all firms alike and do not intend to exclude foreign sellers, are often seen as serious obstacles to cross-border trade in services. This paper proposes an assessment of the impact of these regulations on international trade of professional services. Our empirical analysis combines OECD measures of domestic regulation and detailed French data on firm-level bilateral export of professional services. Results show a robust and a sizeable negative impact of domestic regulations on both the decision to export and the values exported by each firm. This impact does not vary with firms’ productivity, and remains significant when we focus on the European Union market, where French exporters do not face discriminatory barriers. We conduct a quantification exercise based on our estimates and find an average ad-valorem tariff equivalent of domestic regulations of 60% in 2007. The ad-valorem tariff equivalent ranges from 26% to 88%, depending on the country.     

Why don't firms export more? Product quality and Colombian plants

Exporting firms around the world ship only a small fraction of their output overseas. For firms in a large country, such as the United States, this behavior can be explained by the existence of a large domestic market. For firms in a small lower income country, such as Colombia, the lower share of exports remains a puzzle. This paper begins by illustrating the failure of current models to explain plant export patterns in Colombia. Even models that do well in describing the US export distribution fail when confronted with the Colombian data. In response to this puzzle, this paper suggests that Colombia's export distribution can be explained with a two-dimensional productivity space where output productivity is considered separately from quality productivity. Predictions of this theory are tested on Colombian plant level data from 1981–1991. Overall, product quality is shown to be a significant factor in explaining the tendency for Colombian plants to under-export manufactured goods to the United States.     

Uncertainty Resolution and Strategic Trade Policy in Oligopolistic Industries

This paper investigates a government's choice of strategic trade policy when the domestic firm observes a private noisy signal about the stochastic market demand while in competition with a rival firm. The government chooses between quantity controls and subsidies to maximize profits of the domestic firm. Assuming that firms compete à la Cournot in a third country, it is shown that the optimal trade policy depends not only on demand uncertainty but also on the predictability of the true market demand by the firms.     

Reaching up and reaching out: The impact of competition on firms’ productivity and export decisions

Using firm‐level data from 139 countries, this paper investigates the effect of competition in both the domestic and foreign markets on firm productivity and export decisions. Applying a sample selection endogenous treatment (SSET) Poisson model that tackles both the issue of endogenous sample selection and endogenous treatment at the same time, we document robust evidence that strong competition in the domestic market propels firms to be more productive, and decreasing domestic competition increases firms’ propensity to export. However, firms’ export intensity (i.e. how much they export) is not directly influenced by competition in the domestic market. Moreover, lower competition in the foreign market increases the propensity of domestic firms to export, enlarging the set of exporting firms to include firms with relatively smaller export amounts.