Trade Liberalization in Agriculture in Developed Nations and Incidence of Child Labour in a Developing Economy

This paper is an attempt to analyse the consequence of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed countries on the incidence of child labour in a developing economy in terms of a three‐sector general equilibrium model with informal sectors. Adult labour and child labour are substitutes for each other in the two informal sectors of the economy and are used together apart from capital in producing two exportable commodities. The interesting result that appears from the analysis is that agricultural trade liberalization in the developed countries may be effective in bringing down the incidence of child labour in the system. The paper substantiates the desirability of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed nations from the perspective of the developing economies for reasons other than welfare improvement.     

Revenue Motives and Trade Liberalization

Governments in more-developed economies partially compensate import-competing industries when world prices fall, i.e., they lean against the wind. Less-developed economies often liberalize in response to the same shock. We use a political-support maximization model with revenue motives to derive conditions under which a rational policymaker would respond to lower woild prices by reducing tariff protection for an import-competing industry. An initial tariff that exceeds the maximum revenue level proves necessary but not sufficient for politically optimal liberalization following a fall in the world price of the importable good.     

Trade Liberalization and Technology Choice

This paper considers the links between trade liberalization and technology choice in the nonliberalizing country. Trade‐liberalization‐induced changes in relative product prices have direct effects on equilibrium relative factor returns. The consequent changes in relative input costs may also lead producers to switch to alternative technologies, which will in turn induce a further indirect change in relative factor returns. Will this indirect affect exacerbate or ameliorate the direct effect on relative factor returns? It is found that this depends on the relative cost savings across sectors and factor cost shares.     

Trade Liberalization and Technology Diffusion

The paper considers the role of technology diffusion and trade liberalization for the catching‐up of structurally backward countries. A New Economic Geography model is presented that accounts for firm entry/exit and international mobility of skilled labor employed in public R&D sectors. This raises the traditional agglomeration effects in a core–periphery setting as firms and mobile factors usually cluster within spatial agglomerations. With international technology diffusion, however, there is a counteracting effect on the traditional agglomeration effects as firms in the periphery also benefit from increasing R&D expenditures in the core lowering entry costs for firms. It is found that the catching‐up of structurally backward countries is spurred not only as a result of trade integration but also because of technology diffusion.     

Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth

This paper presents a trade model with firm‐level productivity differences and R&D‐driven growth. Trade liberalization causes the least productive firms to exit but also slows the development of new products. The overall effect on productivity growth depends on the size of intertemporal knowledge spillovers in R&D. When these spillovers are relatively weak, then trade liberalization promotes productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers better off in the long run. However, when these spillovers are relatively strong, then trade liberalization retards productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers worse off in the long run.     

Endogenous Growth and Trade Liberalization

We develop an endogenous growth model in which trade liberalization has a positive effect on growth. This effect does not depend on marginal re-allocations nor on knowledge-spillovers. Rather, it is due solely to the increase in market size following the integration of product markets. Our result contradicts a widely-help view that trade on physical goodsper sehas no consequences for long-run growth.[F15]     

Trade Liberalization and Cartel Stability

Can reduced trade barriers promote a collusive understanding about not exporting into each others domestic markets? Reduced trade costs increase the short‐run gains from starting exporting, but can also make the long‐run punishment of such a strategy harsher. If collusion on prices is supported by a trigger strategy, a reduction in trade costs weakens competition in the sense that collusion is easier to sustain. In a corresponding model with collusion on quantities, this conclusion is reversed. The authors also discuss how results change if grim trigger strategies are replaced by stick‐and‐carrot punishments.     

Trade Liberalization in Egypt

A computable general equilibrium model of Egypt is developed to analyze proposed reforms in its trade policies, including a partnership agreement with the European Union. The model has multiple trading regions and allows for administrative trade barriers and tariffs. The paper reports computations of the revenue impacts of trade liberalization and the required changes in distortionary commodity taxes to maintain a fixed real government budget. Egypt's greatest potential gains come from removing its administrative trade barriers while adopting globally free trade. The partnership agreement with the EU could lower or raise Egypt's welfare, depending on prior trade reform.     

Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Technology Investments

We propose a trade model where heterogeneous firms decide on a productivity‐enhancing technology investment. The model analyzes the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on firm‐ and industry‐level productivity. Freer trade increases the incentives to invest in technology by raising export profits. It also dampens these incentives, however, as profits stemming from domestic sales are reduced. Only exporters benefit from the former positive effect. The shape of the distribution of efficiency draws, the level of trade costs and the technology intensity of the industry are key elements removing the ambiguities regarding the net impact of trade liberalization.     

论异质性厂商下的贸易自由化

1．引言近十年的经验研究表明,标准的新贸易理论对于同质厂商的假设忽略了许多现实的重要因素。例如,并非所有的厂商都在贸易部门进行贸易,而且同一部门内的出口厂商的生产力一般要高于该部门的非出口厂商(A．W,Chung和Roberts 2000,Bernard和Jensen 1995,1999a,b,2001；Clerides,Lach和Tybout 1998；Eaton,Kortum和Kramarz 2004；参见Tybout 2003 for a survey)。     

Why Environmentalists Resist Trade Liberalization

We build a two-country differential game model of polluting oligopoly to consider the effects of trade liberalization. As in static models, the opening of trade promotes competition but expands global pollution. Characterizing open-loop and feedback strategies, we derive a sufficient condition for losses from trade. This losses-from-trade proposition could provide a rationale for persistent resistance to globalization by environmentalists.     

Trade Liberalization with Heterogeneous Firms

This paper examines the various aspects of trade liberalization with heterogeneous firms using the Melitz (2003 ) model. We find a number of novel results and effects including a Stolper–Samuelson‐like result and several results related to the volume of trade, which are empirically testable. We also analyze what might be called an anti‐variety effect as the result of trade liberalization. We show that this effect is most pronounced for small countries. This resonates with the often voiced criticism from antiglobalists that globalization leads the world to become more homogeneous by eliminating local specialties. Nevertheless, we find that trade liberalization always leads to welfare gains in the model.     

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.     

中间品贸易自由化与制造业就业变动——来自中国加入WTO的微观证据

本文基于2001年中国加入WTO的准自然实验,采用倍差法研究了中间品贸易自由化对中国制造业就业变动的影响效应。研究发现:(1)中间品贸易自由化通过"提高就业创造"与"降低就业破坏"两个渠道显著促进了企业的就业净增长;(2)中间品贸易自由化对不同生产率企业的就业变动具有异质性影响,它促进了高生产率企业的就业创造,但会促进低生产率企业的就业破坏,同时提高了低生产率企业退出市场的概率;(3)良好的地区制度环境有利于强化中间品贸易自由化对制造业就业集约边际变动与广延边际变动的影响;(4)就业再配置效率的改善是中间品贸易自由化促进制造业生产率增长的重要渠道。上述结论意味着,将外部贸易自由化改革与内部市场化改革双管齐下,对培育就业和实现产业转型升级至关重要。     

Preferential Trade Liberalization Under Cournot Competition

Suppose a country imports a homogeneous good from n foreign countries/producers and wants to eliminate tariffs on imports from m < n of them. If foreign producers differ in their marginal costs, which ones will be among the m that are granted free trade? This paper shows, among other things, that under constant marginal cost and fairly general assumptions about demand it will be the least efficient producers.     

市场结构，贸易自由化和GATS

原载:European Journal0f Political Economy Vol.595(2001)[《欧洲政治经济学杂志》2001年第595卷]一、概述自建立以来,多边贸易体系一直只关注货物贸易。因此,从1947到东京回合,服务在历次的贸易谈判中都未曾提及。乌拉圭回合及其后世界贸易组织的成立,改变了这种状况。通过服务贸易总协定(GATS),他们将服务引进并纳入到多边贸易体系中。然而,实际的自由化程度一直相对较低,GATS的许多减让表还只是简单地停留在承诺上(或者连承诺都谈不上)。所以人们普遍认为服务部门的自由化仍有很大的发展空间。本文关心的是服务部门自由化的解析…     

Tariff Liberalization and Trade Integration of Emerging Countries

This paper investigates how tariff liberalization has affected exporting at the product‐destination level in emerging countries. We use a highly disaggregated (six‐digit level of the harmonized system—HS—classification) bilateral measure of market access to compare tariffs applied in 1996 and 2006, which includes the timing of the Uruguay Round and episodes of bilateral liberalization. Our econometric estimations consider impacts of tariff cuts on three components of the trade margins: extensive margin of entry (new trade relationships at the product‐destination level), extensive margin of exit (disappearance of existing relationships) and intensive margin of trade (deepening existing relationships). Our main estimates indicate that a reduction of bilateral applied tariffs of 1 percentage point increases the extensive margin of entry by 0.1% and the intensive one by 2.09%, while it reduces the extensive margin of exit by 0.25%.     

企业异质性、贸易自由化与市场扭曲

即使没有任何政策干预,市场本身的不完全也可能导致扭曲。本文在企业异质性框架下,构建包含Behrens类型需求结构的垄断竞争一般均衡模型,研究贸易自由化对市场扭曲程度的影响。通过比较静态分析,发现贸易自由化(市场规模扩张或者贸易成本下降)并没有减缓市场扭曲,这是因为,贸易自由化导致市场均衡福利和社会最优福利上升幅度相同。此外,随着一个经济体平均生产率的上升,会出现市场均衡福利上升和市场扭曲程度加剧并存的局面。进一步研究发现,理论模型得到的一般性结论同样适用于中国。本文的政策含义是,产业政策和贸易政策应该协调使用;随着一个经济体平均生产率的上升,产业政策的重要性加强。     

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Regulation on International Transportation

Incorporating pollution emissions from international transportation into a model of strategic trade and environmental policies, we investigate the effect of trade liberalization and environmental regulation on national welfare and the environment. Our model includes imperfectly competitive markets for international transportation and final products. We find that trade liberalization may reduce each country's welfare unless some level of environmental regulation on international transportation is in place. When international trade is liberalized initially, a mutual increase in the common emission tax rates may improve each country's welfare. However, when international trade is highly protected initially, imposing an emission tax may reduce welfare.