Gains from trade with overlapping generations

Summary This paper examines the welfare effects of international trade in a context of overlapping generations. It shows that, for a single trading country, uncompensated free trade may be Pareto inferior to autarky. However, for each government there are compensation schemes which guarantee welfare improvements for all local individuals when free trade is allowed, or when for a small open economy the terms of trade improve or the number of tradable goods increases, or when a customs union is formed.We acknowledge with gratitude the probing comments of Henry Y. Wan, Jr. and two anonymous referees.     

Inside and outside fiat money, gains to trade, and IS-LM

Summary. We build a one-period general equilibrium model with money. Equilibrium exists, and fiat money has positive value, as long as the ratio of outside money to inside money is less than the gains to trade available at autarky. We show that the nominal effects of government fiscal and monetary policy can be completely described by a diagram identical in form to the IS-LM curves introduced by Hicks to describe Keynes' general theory. IS-LM analysis is thus not incompatible with full market clearing, multiple commodities, and heterogeneous households. We show that as the government deficit approaches a finite threshold, hyperinflation sets in (prices converge to infinity and real trade collapses). At the other extreme, if the government surplus is too large, the economy enters a liquidity trap in which nominal GNP sinks and monetary policy is ineffectual. Received: January 2, 2002; revised version: April 8, 2002 Correspondence to: P. Dubey     

Firm heterogeneity and Ricardian comparative advantage within and across sectors

This paper incorporates Melitz’s Econometrica (71:1695–1725, 2003) heterogeneous-firm trade model in the Ricardian model of comparative advantage with a continuum of sectors introduced by Dornbusch et al. (Am Econ Rev 67(5), 823–839, 1977). In particular, we characterise the equilibrium outcomes when neither sectors nor countries are symmetric. We find that trade patterns can follow Ricardian comparative advantage, while wage rates are proportional to market size due to a home market effect. Interestingly, trade liberalisation hurts the large country but benefits the small one by reducing the number of sectors with two-way trade and expanding those with specialised (one-way) trade. I would like to thank Mike Artis, Richard Baldwin, Frederic Robert-Nicoud, Matthias Helble, Giovanni Facchini, Thierry Verdier and a referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. Also I would like to thank Mike Artis for his excellent proof reading.     

微观基础的李嘉图模型及其比较利益分配——兼论中美贸易摩擦

本文将消费者偏好和国家规模引入李嘉图模型,通过一般均衡的方法分析了均衡的产量和价格,并探讨了国际贸易发生的条件及各种因素变化对参加贸易的各国国民福利的影响.在微观模型的基础上,通过一个博弈、谈判模型具体分析了国际比较利益的分割及其各国贸易模式的选择,较好的解释了国际贸易得益的分配问题.政策涵义是中美贸易争端不能采取报复性的关税或人为设置贸易壁垒来解决,而应当通过协商与对话来获得互利双赢.     

Economic gains from technology-intensive trade: an empirical assessment

National investment in technological activity is commonly justifiedin terms of the positive impacts upon productivity, internationalcompetitiveness and related aspects of national economic performance.This premise has found a supportive theoretical framework inthe new technology and growth models. Based on extended technology-gapmodels, this study examines cross-country empirical evidenceon the relationship between technology-intensive trade performance(as a proxy for technological output) and per capita economicperformance, utilising 1978 to 1992 data for around 45 nations.The results provide some support for a positive relationshipbetween trade performance and economic returns. However, theweak and often inconsistent results suggest that the unconditionalpursuit of technology-intensive trade improvements may not necessarilyhave the expected net benefits.     

Trade liberalization in a differentiated duopoly reconsidered

Constructing a model of differentiated Cournot duopoly, we consider welfare effects of trade liberalization (i.e. reductions in transport costs). We examine both multilateral trade (i.e. the firms in both countries export bilaterally) and unilateral trade, under which foreign entry is possible but the home firm cannot export. Some new results on trade gains under differentiated oligopoly are proved and their implications are discussed.     

Product quality and the theory of comparative advantage

We develop a simple model to investigate the possibility that two countries that differ significantly in income levels may be unable to gain from trading with each other. We consider two countries with identical preferences and different technologies. There are two types of goods: one homogeneous, and one quality-differentiated. We show that if one country has an absolute advantage in both types of goods, then no trade may be possible between the two countries, despite differences in relative autarky prices.     

Renewable resources and the gains from trade

The Brander-Taylor small, open-economy model of trade in a renewable resource and other goods is modified to allow for diminishing returns in the other goods sector. It is shown that opening up for trade may result in steady-state gains from trade, even when there is open access to the resource and the country does not specialize fully in resource extraction. It is also shown that transition to optimal management, with price-taking behaviour, may result in a welfare loss.
Resources renouvelables et gains en provenance du commerce international. L'auteur modifie le modèle Brander-Taylor de commerce international d'une ressource renouvelable et d'autres biens dans le cas d'une petite économie ouverte afin de tenir compte des rendements décroissants dans le secteur des autres biens. On montre que I'ouverture au commerce international peut entraîner des gains en provenance de l'échange international en régime permanent, et ce même quand l'accès à la ressource est ouvert et que le pays ne se spécialise pas dans l'extraction de la ressource. On montre que dans la période de transition vers un management optimal, quand il y a ajustement aux prix de marché, il peut y avoir perte de bien-être.     

Mineral endowment, labor productivity, and comparative advantage in mining

Labor productivity in the U.S. copper mining industry tripled between 1975 and 1995, allowing the industry to recover its comparative advantage. Mine level data on output and labor input indicate that over three-quarters of this increase came from labor productivity growth at individual mines, and less than a quarter from shifts in output from low- to high-productivity mines. This finding supports the hypothesis that new technology and innovation are as important or more important than mineral endowment in shaping labor productivity trends and comparative advantage in mining.     

Entry regulation and international trade

We use cross-country, cross-industry data to analyse the relationship between entry regulation and international trade. We find robust evidence that entry regulation discourages exports of industries with low natural barriers to entry. This implies that, in international markets, countries with heavy entry regulation have a comparative disadvantage in industries that are technologically easy to enter. Further analysis shows that the result is partly due to the negative impact of entry regulation on productivity.     

我国纺织品贸易可持续发展的路径分析

本文通过对我国纺织品贸易的优、劣势的系统分析，提出我国纺织品贸易要走可持续发展道路就必须将比较优势上升为竞争优势，并就国际市场竞争激烈和我国纺织品贸易可持续发展提出了相关的对策和建议。     

生产者服务贸易国外研究进展与述评

生产者服务业Producer Services）概念的提出是基@Browning ＆ Singelmann（1975）将服务业从功能角度划分而来,这类服务业包含了资本密集型行业（例如金融、保险等）,也包括知识和技术密集型产业（例如通信业、信息数据处理、计算机软件编程等）,还将很多专业性较强的服务业（例如会计、法律等）囊括其中。虽然这些行业的种类繁杂,但其统归于生产者服务业的原因在于这些行业都对一国制造业的发展起到重要作用,同时也是经济及产业结构升级的主要驱动力。在全球经济一体化背景下,西方主要发达国家在此领域的研究已趋于成熟,尤其是对生产者服务贸易方面的研究,国外学者已形成了较为完善的体系。基于生产者服务贸易理论和经验研究的发展过程,本文对国外相关代表性文献进行了详细梳理,这将对我国经济结构优化发展具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Measuring patterns of specialization using trade in value added: the case of manufacturing in Italy

This article aims to contribute to the long-standing debate on the ‘anomaly’ of Italy’s specialization in manufacturing by providing fresh analysis based on new data. It offers: 1) a comprehensive survey of Italian comparative advantages measured in value-added terms and their evolution over time; 2) an international comparison of these advantages with Italy’s main competitors. Results show that the country’s traditional comparative advantages are substantially confirmed, a genuine capacity of the Italian domestic production factors to maintain added value in production with comparative advantage can be observed and new trends in terms of specialization and competitors are also highlighted, showing the influence of the international fragmentation of production on trade and specialization.     

Indivisibilities in the Ricardian model of trade

The idea that goods or factors of production may not be perfectly divisible has important implications for many areas of economics. This paper introduces both types of indivisibilities into the standard Ricardian model of international trade. Indivisibilities give rise to new results compared to the standard model with perfectly divisible goods and factors of production. Both types of indivisibility may result in complete specialisation even in autarky, while goods indivisibility may result in (ex ante) identical consumers consuming different bundles of goods, and hence enjoying different levels of welfare. Both types of indivisibilities lead to efficiency losses relative to the perfectly divisible case. International trade may eliminate efficiency losses resulting from indivisibility in the factors of production, but not those resulting from goods indivisibility. This suggests that the presence of indivisibilities leads to a second-best world, with the consequent implications for policy. The results of the paper are consistent with existing empirical evidence.     

Institutionalism and New Trade Theory: Rethinking Comparative Advantage and Trade Policy

Gomory and Baumol (2000), and Samuelson (2004) have raised concerns about international trade’s future impact on U.S. national income. The focus is how globalization may affect the size and distribution across countries of gains from trade. Though their analysis is developed using a pure trade theoretical framework, it has strands in common with institutionalist thinking. Their findings spotlight the need for a new U.S. trade policy agenda aimed at maximizing the U.S. share of gains from trade, and complementing conventional Keynesian open economy macroeconomic analysis.     

Measuring the gains from trade under monopolistic competition

Abstract .  Three sources of gains from trade under monopolistic competition are (i) new import varieties available to consumers; (ii) enhanced efficiency as more productive firms begin exporting and less productive firms exit; (iii) reduced markups charged by firms due to import competition. The first source of gains can be measured as new goods in a CES utility function for consumers. We argue that the second source is formally analogous to the producer gain from new goods, with a constant-elasticity transformation curve for the economy. We suggest that the third source of gain can be measured using a translog expenditure function for consumers, which, in contrast to the CES case, allows for finite reservation prices for new goods and endogenous markups.     

Motivation for bilateral aid allocation: Altruism or trade benefits

This paper argues that OECD countries allocate more aid to recipient nations who import goods in which donor nations have a comparative advantage in production. The estimates indicate that a substantially larger amount of aid is provided to recipients who import capital goods, while imports by other category groups have no significant effects. Given that developed donor nations are major producers and exporters of capital goods, this result at least partially supports their trade benefits motive. Donors also appear to be more concerned about alleviating physical miseries (infant mortality) and rewarding good human rights conditions, but less towards reducing economic hardships (poverty). Moreover, the usual political and strategic considerations of donors continue to be the major determinants of aid allocation even in the Post Cold War era.     

Credit constraints,inequality and the growth gains from trade

This paper tests the hypothesis that, in the presence of credit constraints, higher wealth inequality affects negatively the growth gains from trade liberalisation. Variations in the growth rate of value added–decomposed in the growth rate of the number of establishments and the growth rate in average size–of manufacturing industries in 34 developing countries before and after trade liberalisation are used to study the effects of inequality on the difference in growth under liberalised and nonliberalised regimes. The results show that the number of firms in industries with high dependence on external finance in countries with higher inequality grow significantly slower, in both statistical and economic terms, than in industries with low dependence on external finance in countries with lower inequality following a trade liberalisation relative to the closed-economy period.     

中美贸易背后的利益分析

文章首先介绍了中美贸易的不平衡发展，然后重点分析了在中美贸易中的贸易利益流向和对双方的经济影响，进而找到解决此问题的积极可行的对策。