Technology, endowments, and the factor content of bilateral trade

We derive testable restrictions relating the factor content of bilateral trade to bilateral differences in technology and endowments. This departs from the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek theorem which compares the factor content of net trade with factor abundance. We test the theoretical restrictions using a unique dataset that covers 41 developed and developing countries with disparate endowments and technology. We find evidence supporting the predictions. In addition: (1) The factor content predictions perform best for country pairs with larger endowment differences, and (2) for trade between capital-abundant countries, Ricardian international technology differences matter more than Heckscher-Ohlin factor endowment differences.     

Investment liberalization and international trade

This paper estimates the cross-price elasticity of exports with respect to investment costs for bilateral relations between 36 countries. We show that the effect of reducing foreign direct investment costs on exports depends on country characteristics and trade costs as predicted by the [Markusen, 1997] and [Markusen, 2002] model. When countries differ in relative factor endowments and trade costs are low, investment liberalization stimulates exports, whereas when countries are similar in terms of relative factor endowments and size, and trade costs are moderate to high, investment liberalization reduces exports.     

Labor versus capital in trade-policy: The role of ideology and inequality

Trade policy depends on the extent to which the government wants to redistribute income as well as on a country's overall factor endowments and their distribution. While the government's desire to redistribute income itself is dependent on asset distribution, it is to a large extent also driven by the partisan nature of the government, i.e., whether it is pro-labor or pro-capital. Using cross-country data on factor endowments, inequality and government orientation, we find that, conditional on inequality, left-wing (pro-labor) governments will adopt more protectionist trade policies in capital-rich countries, but adopt more pro-trade policies in labor-rich economies than right-wing (pro-capital) ones. Also, holding government orientation constant, higher inequality is associated with higher protection in capital-abundant countries while it is associated with lower protection in labor-abundant countries. These results are consistent with the simultaneous presence of both inequality as well as ideology as determinants of protection within a two-factor, two-sector Heckscher-Ohlin framework. Overall, various statistical tests support an umbrella model (that combines both the ideology and inequality models) over each of the individual models.     

Trade Facilitation and Export Diversification

This paper shows that improved trade facilitation can help promote export diversification in developing countries. We find that 10 per cent reductions in the costs of international transport and domestic exporting costs (documentation, inland transport, port and customs charges) are associated with export diversification gains of 4 and 3 per cent, respectively, in a sample of 118 developing countries. Customs costs play a particularly important role in these results. Lower market entry costs can also promote diversification, but the effect is weaker (1 per cent). We also find evidence that trade facilitation has stronger effects on diversification in poorer countries. Our results are highly robust to estimation using alternative dependent and independent variables, different country samples, and alternative econometric techniques. We link these findings to recent advances in trade theory that emphasise firm heterogeneity, and trade growth at the extensive margin.     

Geographical disadvantage: a Heckscher-Ohlin-von Thünen model of international specialisation

We analyse the trade and production patterns of countries located at varying distances from an economic centre. Exports and imports of final and intermediate goods bear transport costs which increase with distance. We show how production and trade depend on factor endowments and factor intensities, and also on countries’ locations and the transport intensities of different goods. Countries divide into zones with different trade patterns, some export oriented and others import substituting. We study the implications of distance for factor prices and real incomes, the effects of changes in transport costs, and the locational choice of new activities.     

Trade Liberalization,Nature of Mergers and Employment

This paper investigates the roles of comparative advantage and market size in the international location of manufacturing production. Building on the conventional Helpman and Krugman (1985) general equilibrium framework, our analysis extends the present literature by incorporating both effects in the same model, while allowing trade costs to vary almost continuously from autarky to free trade. The main result of our exercise is that market size effects offset comparative advantage if countries have similar factor proportions. A large country with a slight comparative disadvantage in manufacturing production may thus be a net exporter of manufactures. A small country with the same comparative disadvantage would be a net importer of manufactures. When countries are very dissimilar in their relative factor endowments, land-abundant countries specialize in the production of food, irrespective of market size, if manufactures are a labour-intensive sector. Labour-rich countries of any size are manufacture cores. However, land-abundant countries with large markets can sustain a domestic manufacturing industry until trade costs are very low, and in some cases only specialize in agriculture at free trade.     

Interacting factor endowments and trade costs: A multi-country,multi-good approach to trade theory

We provide a synthetic analysis of the different ways in which countries participate in the world economy. Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multiple goods or multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. Each country's production specialization, trade and welfare is determined by the interaction between its relative endowment and its trade costs. We consider the effects of allowing one good to ‘fragment’ into component and assembly production. The volume of trade and welfare levels are higher with fragmentation for most countries, although for many countries these variables fall with fragmentation.     

FACTOR REALLOCATION COSTS AND TESTS OF THE HECKSCHER-OHLIN TRADE THEORY

The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) theory of international trade, a basic long-run microeconomic model in which adaptation occurs through the costless reallocation of factors between industries, performs poorly. Most attempts to improve the fit of the model have introduced productivity variations across countries. This article considers another source of error: the assumption of perfect factor mobility. Factors are neither perfectly mobile between industries, but neither are they perfectly industry-specific. Factors can be reallocated between industries, but at a cost. In previous work a measure of adjustment costs due to factor specificity were estimated in a two-period model of a firm's input allocation decision. These estimates are used in this article to test international trade models. Two contributions are made. First, factor reallocation costs explain 2–3% of the “missing trade” noted by Trefler. Second, the estimated country productivity differences vary considerably from the actual differences measured in this paper. In contrast to Trefler's finding that inclusion of estimated productivity differences improved the fit of HOS, when measured productivity differences are used in this paper, HOS performs almost as poorly as in its original specification. My findings highlight the inappropriateness of using HOS as a short-run explanation of trade.     

Interacting factor endowments and trade costs: A multi-country, multi-good approach to trade theory

We provide a synthetic analysis of the different ways in which countries participate in the world economy. Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multiple goods or multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. Each country's production specialization, trade and welfare is determined by the interaction between its relative endowment and its trade costs. We consider the effects of allowing one good to ‘fragment’ into component and assembly production. The volume of trade and welfare levels are higher with fragmentation for most countries, although for many countries these variables fall with fragmentation.     

再论“国际贸易的全成本”

从内涵看,"国际贸易的全成本"是某种物品的产权在跨国转移中,发生于国际贸易过程,进而涉及生产和消费、经济和生态、今人和后人,使用一切资源要素的代价总和;从外延看,"国际贸易的全成本"是以国际贸易中的生产成本、交易成本、环境成本和代际成本等为子系统的动态开放系统。其中,使用劳动、资本、土地等传统要素的机会成本为生产成本;使用制度要素的机会成本为交易成本;使用生态环境要素的机会成本为环境成本;耗费"可持续性"要素的机会成本为代际成本。贸易理论和现实的发展表明,国际贸易的动因是比较优势,比较优势的本质是比较成本优势,它反映了不同国家同种产品的机会成本差异。比较优势理论的"硬核"在于"比较之比较",其"外围保护带"则表现为对资源要素和成本外延的界定。为化解比较优势理论面临的种种冲突和困境,有必要拓展它的成本观,使其成为进步而非退化的研究纲领。因此,使用或耗费广义要素而形成的"全成本"是一国参与国际分工和贸易的比较优势的基础。     

The Factor Content of Heterogeneous Firm Trade

The present paper studies the factor content of heterogenous firm trade in the presence of market imperfections and transaction costs. The conceptual framework builds on a relative factor endowment model, which we extend to account for firm heterogeneity and transaction costs. Using a large panel of firm‐level data for the EU, we are able to examine not only the aggregate factor content of trade but also to identify differences in the factor of trade between heterogenous firms. Our empirical results suggest that because of transaction costs and market imperfections, the factor content of agricultural trade is heavily distorted in the CEE transition economies. To increase the gains of trade and the employed factor rewards, the policy should first address the transaction costs and market imperfections.     

Endogenous trade policy through majority voting: an empirical investigation

The median-voter approach to trade policy determination (within a Heckscher-Ohlin framework) as in Mayer [Am. Econ. Rev. 74(5) (1984) 970] predicts that an increase in inequality, holding constant the economy’s overall relative endowments, raises trade barriers in capital-abundant economies and lowers them in capital-scarce economies. We find support for this prediction using cross-country data on inequality, capital-abundance and diverse measures of protection. We perform certain robustness checks that include controlling for the effects of political rights and schooling as well as using alternative datasets on factor endowments.     

全球价值链分工下区域贸易协定能降低服务贸易成本吗

全球价值链分工下服务的作用愈发凸显,服务贸易的新形式丰富了区域贸易协定影响服务贸易成本的渠道。本文从中间投入和最终需求两个维度分析了区域贸易协定对不同类型服务贸易成本的影响效果和机制。结果表明:单纯签订区域贸易协定对服务贸易成本的抑制作用并不显著,提高区域贸易协定的深度将显著降低服务贸易成本。区域贸易协定可以显著降低中间投入服务贸易成本,对最终需求服务贸易成本的抑制效应不显著。区域贸易协定的服务贸易自由化效果存在非对称性,北北型区域贸易协定对服务贸易成本的抑制效应强于南北型。北北型区域贸易协定可以通过减少监管分歧和货物贸易自由化效果外溢两条途径降低服务贸易成本,南北型区域贸易协定则仅可以通过货物贸易自由化的外溢效应来降低服务贸易成本。因此,中国应积极与发达国家开展高质量区域贸易协定谈判,通过提高区域贸易协定深度充分发挥其服务贸易自由化效果。     

Accounting for quality differences in human capital and foreign direct investment

This paper empirically investigates how cross-country differences in the quality of human capital, as they are captured by the conventional measures of international test score differences, influences the patterns of foreign direct investment. Using panel data covering 32 countries during the period between 1985 and 2004, this paper finds that a host country's quality of educational attainment plays an independent role in attracting foreign direct investment. In particular, the quality of human capital influences horizontal foreign direct investment, even after accounting for the roles of skill and factor endowments, trade costs, investment costs, and country-size and income effects.     

Trade in Services and TFP: The Role of Regulation

What determines total factor productivity (TFP) growth in services: is it services trade or services–trade regulation? To respond to this question, we use four indicators of international trade in services since 1990 to 2005, namely foreign direct investment (FDI) inward stock, services imports, domestic sales of foreign affiliates (FATS) and FDI inflows, to examine what type of services trade forms a direct determinant. Subsequently, we analyse what type of sector‐specific regulation has played an inhibiting effect on services TFP growth. Such analysis contrasts with former studies in which mainly factor inputs and economy‐wide regulation are used to explain services TFP. This paper provides evidence that neither trade nor entry barriers are robust determinants to explain cross‐country differences. Instead, regulations on operational procedures affecting the variables costs structure of the firm seem to play a more important role in explaining TFP growth between countries, particularly in combination with information and communication technology (ICT) capital.     

Developing country growth and developed country response

This paper makes a theoretical argument that growth in developing countries is likely to worsen the income distribution in developed countries and lead to a protectionist response that undermines the incentives for developing country growth. The model for this purpose is the two-cone version of the Heckscher–Ohlin (HO) trade model, in which countries have different factor prices even with free trade, and in which they produce mostly different groups of goods. In this model, unlike the HO model with factor price equalization, growth by the poor country expands the output of its capitalintensive good, which is also the labour-intensive good of the other country. Regardless of whether factors are mobile or immobile across sectors, this reduces the real wages of factors that are either intensive or specific in the labour-intensive sector of the rich country. The paper argues that this will then lead to the rich country restricting trade. This, in turn, will lower the return to capital in the poor country and reduce the incentive for further growth.     

Vertical Specialization Between Developed and Developing Countries: A Modification of the Heckscher-Ohlin Model

This article analyzes the implications for the Heckscher-Ohlin model of a split of the production of a final good into the intermediate good production and the further working of the good. Through this split, the different parts of the production process can be matched to fit the factor endowment of each country. The new and quite central distinction from earlier contributions is that we take into account an exactly defined need of intermediate goods according to a certain kind of specification in every link of the production process. We show that the potential trade pattern thereby becomes much more varied and significantly distinct from the traditional Heckscher-Ohlin model. The input-output ratio of labor increases relatively to the input-output ratio of capital in the capital-abundant country's production of the capital-intensive split product and thereby the Rybczynski theorem is reinforced.     

On the origins of comparative advantage

This paper proposes a simple theory of international trade with endogenous productivity differences across countries. The core of our analysis lies in the determinants of the division of labor. We consider a world economy comprising two large countries, with a continuum of goods and one factor of production, labor. Each good is characterized by its complexity, defined as the number of tasks that must be performed to produce one unit. There are increasing returns to scale in the performance of each task, which creates gains from specialization, and uncertainty in the enforcement of each contract, which create transaction costs. The trade-off between these two forces pins down the size of productive teams across sectors in each country. Under free trade, the country where teams are larger specializes in the more complex goods. In our model, it is the country where the product of institutional quality and human per worker capital is larger. Hence, better institutions and more educated workers are complementary sources of comparative advantage in the more complex industries.     

How Do Differing Standards Increase Trade Costs? The Case of Pallets

The pallet is a platform used for storing, handling and transporting products. There are hundreds of different pallet sizes around the world. The case of pallets is examined to illustrate the impact of multiplicity of standards on trade costs. We select this case because pallets are used all over the world, pallet standards are not too sophisticated, and data on pallet standards and costs are to some extent available. The paper examines why there are so many different pallet standards, the associated trade costs and the reasons why countries have not harmonised pallet sizes to eliminate such costs. It then presents options for exporters to mitigate the adverse effects of standards multiplicity while complying with destination markets’ standard requirements. The range of options is limited for exporters from less developed countries because of the lack of rental and exchange pallet markets. To mitigate the costs of this multiplicity of standards, the international community's strategy should focus on developing awareness of the cost of multiplicity of standards and actively supporting standardisation.     

The Role of Geography in Financial and Economic Integration: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment,Trade and Portfolio Investment Flows

The objective of this paper is to examine the role of geography in explaining the patterns of financial and economic integration among both developed and developing countries. Using a gravity model, we compare North‐North, North‐South and South‐North FDI, trade and portfolio investment flows to examine how geographical factors influence these bilateral flows. The results indicate that the impact of geography variables on FDI and portfolio are similar to their effect on trade. Geography variables have a statistically significant effect both on FDI and portfolio investment, but FDI is more sensitive to distance. We interpret the negative effect of distance as the existence of information costs in financial flows. Also bilateral FDI, trade and portfolio investment flows react to macroeconomic fundamentals in the same way, however, with different degrees of sensitivity. There are significant differences between North‐North and North‐South flows. Our results find support for the argument that most FDI among industrial countries are horizontal, whereas most FDI investment in developing countries is vertical. The fact that the significance of geographical variables on financial flows still remained even after controlling for the macroeconomic fundamentals, is in contrast with the standard capital market model. The results can, however, be reconciled if geographical factors can proxy for information costs, which may in turn explain why country portfolios are still home‐biased. The significant effect of distance on financial flows may also explain how idiosyn cratic shocks are spread (i.e. contagion) to other countries in the same region. Ultimately, the geographical location of a country may determine its economic and financial integration into the world economy.