Trade liberalization through asset markets

Political-economy expositions of trade policy have traditionally described asset or factor ownership as not subject to change. Asset markets, however, allow individuals to change the composition of income sources. We consider an economy with stochastic productivity to show how the equilibrium composition of asset portfolios influences individual attitudes toward free trade. The model links financial market completeness and trade liberalization in the second half of the 20th century and provides a contributing answer to why governments in poorer countries without well-developed financial markets have failed to liberalize trade.     

Reevaluating the role of trade agreements: Does investment globalization make the WTO obsolete?

International ownership alters the role of multilateral trade institutions by redefining pecuniary externalities among countries. Regardless of the underlying cause - whether foreign direct investment, international portfolio diversification, cross-country mergers, or multinational firms — international ownership can mitigate incentives that lead large countries to set inefficiently high tariffs. At the same time, however, foreign ownership introduces the potential for expropriation by investment-host countries, which can extract rent from foreign owners by manipulating local prices. The basic principle of reciprocity continues to serve as an important guide to efficiency, though its application must account for the pattern of international ownership in addition to traditional measures of market access.     

STOLPER–SAMUELSON REVISITED: TRADE AND DISTRIBUTION WITH OLIGOPOLISTIC PROFITS

This paper investigates the distributional impact of international trade when goods markets are oligopolistic and firms partially pass‐through changes in tariffs into prices and factor costs for differentiated products. Trade liberalization raises mark‐ups and profit shares in the export industry and lowers them in the import‐competing industry, while Stolper–Samuelson effects on real prices of primary factors are attenuated or possibly reversed. An extended model shows how ‘offshoring’ (trade in intermediate goods) can potentially increase mark‐ups for oligopolistic producers of final goods. The analysis illuminates why business interests generally support trade liberalization policies today, regardless of their countries' factor abundance.     

A theory of the currency denomination of international trade

The currency denomination of international trade has significant macroeconomic and policy implications. In this paper we solve for the optimal invoicing choice by integrating this microeconomic decision at the level of the firm into a general equilibrium open economy model. Strategic interactions between firms play a critical role. We find that the less competition firms face in foreign markets, as reflected in market share and product differentiation, the more likely they will price in their own currency. We also show that when a set of countries forms a monetary union, the new currency is likely to be used more extensively in trade than the sum of the currencies it replaces.     

Product quality,firm heterogeneity and trade liberalization

This paper develops a framework for studying the general equilibrium effects of endogenous quality upgrading, a new margin of trade, on the welfare impact of trade liberalization. The theoretical model introduces product quality differentiation amongst heterogeneous firms and focuses on supply-side determinants of international trade. Among other results, in general equilibrium, trade liberalization decreases the share of high-quality varieties in exports and the average productivity of exporters. These changes affect average export price in opposite ways. Nevertheless, trade liberalization in the quality-extended model increases consumers’ welfare by more than in the benchmark model.     

Trade liberalization and the allocation of labor between households and markets in a poor country

We consider the relationship between relative price changes and the allocation of labor between households and the formal wage labor market in the context of Vietnam's liberalization of its rice trade in the 1990s. Many individuals in poor economies work within their own household rather than in formal labor markets. We find that larger rice price increases in a community are associated with declines in hours adults devote to work within the household and increases in time spent in the wage labor market. We also observe increased specialization in household economic activities accompanying these shifts in hours towards wage work. Our results are consistent with the idea that a growth in the extent of the market shifts production and labor from households to markets during development, thereby inducing gains from specialization. Thus, the reallocation of labor between households and markets in response to a trade liberalization might be an important component in understanding the link between trade and growth in very poor economies, currently the focus of the Doha WTO negotiation round.     

Corporate hierarchies and international trade: Theory and evidence

Corporate organization varies within countries and between countries. We develop a theory which explains the variation in levels of decentralization across firms and links it to the trade environment that firms face. We introduce firms with internal hierarchies in a Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) model of international trade. We show that international trade increases the conflict of interest between CEO/owners and middle managers within firms and these eventually lead to decentralized corporate hierarchies. We test the theory with original data on the internal organizations of 2200 Austrian and German firms and find that the empirical evidence is consistent with the model's predictions.     

Trade Intermediaries and the Tariff Pass-through

This paper aims at improving our understanding of the price effects of trade policies following two perspectives. First, we wish to study how the role of intermediaries in international trade affects the transmission of tariff changes to domestic prices. Second, we explore how our results are influenced by the degree of competition in the distribution-service market. In a Cournot oligopoly-oligopsony model, we show how the pass-through of tariff cuts to domestic prices is limited by the market power of intermediaries producing distribution services. Our long-run equilibrium is characterized by a larger number of firms selling at a higher mark-up. Market access barriers in distribution services determine to what extent tariff cuts are transferred to domestic consumers and foreign producers, affecting the size of their welfare effects. The benefits of trade liberalization policies can be better achieved if they are complemented by competition enhancing measures in the intermediation sector.     

Exchange Rates and FDI: Goods versus Capital Market Frictions

Changes in exchange rates affect countries through their impact on cross‐border activities such as trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). With increasing activities of multinational firms, the FDI channel is likely to gain in importance. Economic theory provides two main explanations why changes in exchange rates can affect FDI. According to the first explanation, FDI reacts to exchange rate changes if there are information frictions on capital markets and if investment depends on firms’ net worth (capital market friction hypothesis). According to the second explanation, FDI reacts to exchange rate changes if output and factor markets are segmented, and if firm‐specific assets are important (goods market friction hypothesis). We provide a unified theoretical framework of these two explanations. We analyse the implications of the model empirically using a dataset based on detailed German firm‐level data. We find greater support for the goods market than for the capital market friction hypothesis.     

Ownership structure and earnings management in emerging markets—An institutionalized agency perspective

Previous earnings management research has largely focused on firm-level governance mechanisms in single countries or on macro-level variables in multiple countries. Building on this research, we incorporate firm ownership predictors along with national institutional dimensions to explore why firm decision makers in emerging markets vary in their earnings management behavior. Our theoretical framework integrates agency and institutional theories proposing that firm-level ownership mechanisms do not function in isolation, but are reinforced or attenuated by elements of the institutional governance environment. The multilevel empirical analysis of 1200 firms in 24 emerging markets indicates that controlling ownership is positively related to earnings management. We find that the level of minority shareholder protection in a country weakens this positive relationship. We also find that regulatory quality strengthens the negative relationship between institutional ownership and earnings management activity. It is hoped that awareness of how firm ownership structures interact with national-level institutions in affecting firm-level behavior will help managers and investors develop skills and practices to better cope with business norms in emerging economies.     

Welfare implications of trade liberalization and fiscal reform: A quantitative experiment

This paper studies the welfare implications of revenue-neutral trade liberalization and fiscal reform programs for developing economies using a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy. We analyze how different combinations of tariffs – on imported consumption goods, intermediate inputs, and capital goods – and taxes – on consumption, labor income and capital income – affect the transitional and long-run welfare. We report three main findings. First, trade liberalization programs financed by consumption and labor income taxes tend to result in substantial welfare gains, but financing the lost tariff revenue through capital income taxes can have an adverse impact on welfare. Second, a significant fraction of welfare changes is due to transitional effects stemming from the allocation of resources in response to changes in tariffs and taxes. Third, trade liberalization and fiscal reform programs often translate into much larger welfare gains in countries that are more open to international financial markets.     

Import Churning and Export Performance of Multi‐product Firms

This paper analyses the impact of churning in the imported varieties of capital and intermediate inputs on firm export scope and productivity. Using detailed data on imports and exports at the firm‐product‐market level, we document substantial churning in both imports and exports for Slovenian manufacturing firms in the period 1994–2008. On average, a firm changes about one‐quarter of imported and exported product‐markets every year, while gross churning in terms of added and dropped product‐markets is almost three times higher. A substantial share of this product churning is due to simultaneous imports and exports of firms in identical varieties within the same CN‐8 product code (so called pass‐on‐trade). We find that churning in imported varieties is far more important than reduction in tariffs or declines in import prices for firms’ productivity growth and increased export product scope. We also find gross churning has a bigger impact on firm productivity improvements by a factor of more than 10 in comparison with net churning. Both adding and dropping of imported input varieties thus seem to be of utmost importance for firms aiming to optimise their input mix towards their most valuable inputs. These effects are further enhanced when excluding simultaneous trade in identical varieties, suggesting that pass‐on‐trade has less favourable effects on firms’ long‐run performance than regular trade.     

Modelling Competition in the Textbook Market: Some Lessons still to Learn

Many European governments still advocate a so-called ‘cultural exception’, intended to protect consumers and smaller bookshops, to keep their book markets isolated from competition. Other countries, with similar aims in mind, have chosen liberalization schemes instead. To reconcile these opposing views, this paper provides a theoretical framework to study the textbook market, depicting it as dominated by two simultaneous forces: horizontal differentiation among booksellers and a vertical relationship between publishers and bookshops. Using this model, we analyse the effects of alternative price schemes on the market structure and how potential benefits from price liberalization are influenced by the number (and size of) booksellers.     

Exclusive dealing and common agency in international markets

This paper investigates the contractual choice between exclusive dealing and common agency in a simple international oligopoly model where products are sold through intermediaries. We find that when trade barriers are high, domestic firms tend to adopt exclusive dealing contracts whereas trade liberalization may lead firms to choose common agency. Social welfare can be raised be prohibiting exclusive dealing (common agency) when trade barriers are high (low) and products are close substitutes.     

A cross-cultural analysis of price responses to environmental changes

In planning the marketing mix for a product, managers implicitly respond to changes in both their internal and external environments. This paper studies managers' judgments of how they would respond to changes in their own product costs asnd competitor's prices. A manager could react to these by focusing on new products, new markets, or the marketing mix for the current product market. We concentrate on the third. We focus on a set of potential reactions that could include a change in price. Data from managers in both the United States and Europe are used to study pricing reactions to hypothetical scenarios of environmental changes. We estimate relationships between the managerial response and changes in the environment for different types of businesses in different countries.     

Exchange Rate Effects on Domestic Prices in Bulgaria and Poland: Progress in Making Markets?

The economic liberalization which has occurred in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the past 15 years generally has involved establishing domestic markets and privatizing state‐owned firms, both with the intention of integrating the CEE economies into the global economy and allowing the benefits of competition to be realized. We explore how well this has been accomplished in two countries, Poland and Bulgaria, and the domestic conditions that contribute to its accomplishment. The sensitivity of domestic markets to international shocks, as reflected in exchange rate effects on domestic prices, may be viewed as an indicator of how integrated a country’s markets are into the global economy, and a proxy for competition in those markets. In explaining variation in exchange‐rate pass‐through, we examine the impact of market structure, economic liberalization and infrastructure as factors contributing to the development of competitive markets. We find that although integration into global markets can significantly increase market competitiveness, domestic factors also play a significant role.     

Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context

Product pricing has been one of the central issues in the field of marketing and consumer services for managers and researchers alike. However, pricing of information goods has not been paid much attention in literature. For information goods the marginal costs of production and transportation of information goods (online movies, video games, etc.) is almost zero. Hence, the pricing decisions need to be thought of purely in competitive profit maximizing terms. This paper proposes mechanisms for managers to evaluate and base their pricing decisions on rational frameworks that takes into account various situations when they enter a new market and when they are incumbent in a new market. This paper addresses the research gap of spatially differentiated pricing strategy for information goods that has not been studied in literature so far. We create stylized theoretical models under both, sequential and simultaneous decision-making conditions. We determine the equilibrium price and the equilibrium profit for the two firms for each of the four possible scenarios based on their pricing strategies. Our analysis reveals that the dominance of one pricing strategy over the other depends on product differentiation factor capturing joint effect of the product substitutability and consumer's price sensitivity under sequential decision making and the market size along with consumer's price sensitivity for simultaneous decision making. As an extension, we propose a generalized model demonstrating the uniform and spatially differentiated pricing strategies of the firms under simultaneous and sequential selection for multiple domestic and international markets.     

Foreign acquisition and post-privatization exit of state-owned firms

This paper analyzes the impact of foreign and domestic ownership on the exit rates of privatized state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in transitional countries. The exit of privatized SOEs can have a profound impact on employment and on the development of local economies of transitional countries. An oligopoly model that incorporates country-level trade costs and individual SOE's productivity is developed to assess the exit of SOEs under either foreign or domestic ownership. The model shows that market competition between firms can lead to liquidation of the SOE by a domestic firm when trade costs increase. When the productivity of SOE is high, neither foreign nor domestic firm will liquidate. The predictions of the model are tested using firm-level privatization data from Central and Eastern Europe. By controlling for productivity, trade costs, and other attributes of SOEs after privatization, it is found that foreign ownership significantly reduces the probability of SOE's exit as compared to domestic ownership. Furthermore, there is evidence that as trade costs increase, the exit probability of domestically owned SOEs increases and the exit probability of foreign-owned SOEs declines.     

Markets for risk and openness to trade: how are they related?

If protectionist trade policies aim to insure domestic industries against swings in world market prices, the development of financial markets could lead to trade liberalization. Likewise, trade liberalization could lead to the development of financial markets that help agents diversify the added risks. In this paper, we empirically address the hypothesis that there is a positive interdependence between financial development and liberal trade policies. We find a positive and economically significant relationship between the two, with causation running in both directions. The results are, however, somewhat dependent on the measure of trade policy being used.     

The Social Clause in Trade Treaties: Implications for International Firms

Various advocacy groups and primarily domestic-focused firms in developed countries have been pushing governments to include a "social clause" in trade treaties with less developed countries. Such a clause is designed to link trading access to markets in developed countries with improvements in working conditions in poor nations. The implications of such a clause for internationally-focused firms and how managers can effectively deal with human rights issues in their foreign operations are examined. Various constituencies in this debate are identified and an integrated response system on the part of firms is presented. It is suggested that the best policy for firms to adopt would be to acknowledge the relevance of the social clause in today's global economy and work closely with the various advocacy groups to ensure continuing public support while avoiding overly restrictive clauses in international trading agreements.