Trade Policies for Exporting Industries under Free Entry

This paper computes optimal export taxes and domestic production subsidies for exporting industries under free entry. We show that domestic welfare is not at maximum, as is typically believed, when the export price is a monopoly price, and the domestic price is a competitive price, because a market structure effect has to be taken into account. Furthermore, we show that the optimal tax/subsidy formulas for an oligopoly coincide with those under perfect competition, if foreign and domestic demand functions are both linear. We also discuss optimal trade policies when only one instrument is available, and we run numerical simulations to determine and compare optimal trade taxes under endogenous and exogenous market structures.     

基于产业结构区际贸易壁垒的实证分析

文章分别利用直接贸易流量和间接产业趋同两种分析方法考察我国三次产业的地方保护程度。一方面,利用中国投入产出表中的贸易及相关数据,运用边界效应模型分别考察了八大区域中的总贸易和三次产业地方保护程度,分析了生产规模、产品价格、区域位置及区间距离等因素对区际产业贸易的影响,测算边界效应值并运用区域贸易依存度进行了验证和区域分析。另一方面,通过计算产业地区集中度,考察1997-2005年期间地区产业结构的分布趋势,以此考察各产业贸易壁垒的趋势变化。研究发现,产业属性差异对区际贸易有一定阻碍作用,因此,根据产业结构特点制定和谐的贸易体制,尊重比较优势的差异化发展,降低区际贸易壁垒,对促进我国区域经济协调发展尤为重要。     

EU-GCC free trade agreement: Adjustments in a factors proportion model for the UAE

The EU-GCC Free Trade Agreement would likely cause price changes across industries with subsequent effect on output and factor price adjustments. With higher levels of trade, the rising income will be redistributed among winner and loser industries and factors of production. This paper simulates the magnitude of these adjustments with a factors proportion model of production and trade for six different labor categories and capital in four sectors of the UAE economy. Results show a large impact on sector specific factors but for mobile factors, the shocks would be smaller suggesting a policy to increase factor mobility in the UAE.     

A Partial Equilibrium Analysis of Trade with Decreasing Transport Costs

Decreasing transport costs are incorporated in the standard partial equilibrium analysis of trade by allowing the divergence—introduced by transport costs—between export and import price to decrease with the volume of trade. When the excess demand (supply) curve is steeper than the long run average cost curve for imports (exports), we observe that an import (export) tariff raises (lowers) the domestic price by an amount exceeding the tariff. Further, when the excess demand (Supply) curve is less steep than the long run average cost curve for imports (exports), the possibility exists that an import (export) tariff may lower (raise) the domestic price. These results lead to the important conclusion that tariffs cannot be used as measures of nominal protection across industries. [F10]     

Real wages,profit margins and inflation in Turkish manufacturing under post-liberalization

This article reports investigations into the behaviour of gross profit margins (mark-ups) in Turkish manufacturing industries for the post-1980 liberalization period in relation to price inflation, trade liberalization (openness) and real wage costs. Panel data econometrics over 29 subsectors of Turkish manufacturing are used over the period 1980–1996. Results suggest that profit margins are positively and significantly related both to price inflation and real wage costs. However, openness is found to have very little impact on profit margins.     

Effects of trade liberalization on domestic prices: Some evidence from Tunisian manufacturing

This paper presents estimates of the competitive effects of trade liberalization on domestic pricing behaviour of Tunisian manufacturing industries. The theoretical framework is based on a dynamic flexible adjustment model of price determination in a small open economy. It investigates the process of adjustment in price level toward a desired level. The adjustment process is both industrial and time-specific. The empirical results show that, in the long run, domestic price responds greatly to import penetration, followed by demand pressure. There was a negative effect from import competition on domestic price. Trade policy is a viable policy option to promote competitiveness. (JEL: C33, E31, F14, L60)     

Inequality and Trade Policy: The Pro‐Poor Bias of Contemporary Trade Restrictions

This paper studies the pro‐poor bias of trade policy in India by estimating the household welfare effects of removing the current protection structure. The elimination of a pro‐poor trade policy is expected to have a negative differential welfare effect at the low end of the distribution. The paper first constructs trade restrictiveness indexes for household consumption items and industries using both tariffs and non‐tariff barriers. The results indicate that Indian trade policy is regressive through the expenditure channel as it disproportionately raises the cost of consumption for poorer households, while it is progressive through the earnings channel. Based on the net welfare effects, the elimination of the current trade protection structure is estimated to reduce inequality. These results indicate that a trade policy that is progressive through the earnings channel may induce a price effect that is regressive through the expenditure channel.     

Factor Endowment,the Choice of Technology,and the Volume of Trade

Abstract

This paper studies impacts of factor endowment on international trade in a general equilibrium model in which firms choose their technologies endogenously. Although countries only differ in factor endowment ex ante, countries may also differ in their chosen technologies. If industries choose different capital-labor intensities in equilibrium, the Heckscher–Ohlin theorem, factor price equalization theorem, the Rybczynski theorem, and the Stolper–Samuelson theorem hold. If industries choose the same capital-labor intensity in equilibrium, the volume of trade is zero. None of the four theorems applies.     

中国金融发展对分类商品贸易竞争力的影响——基于1980年～2009年分类数据的实证研究

笔者基于国际贸易标准分类的一位数分类数据,使用协整方法实证研究了我国金融发展对不同行业外贸竞争力的影响作用.研究结果表明:我国各类商品外贸发展受金融深化的影响程度是不同的;资本、技术密集的商品类别受影响程度较高,而初级产品受价格和世界经济发展水平的影响程度较为显著;在所研究的9类商品中,有6类商品的外贸发展得益于金融深化进程.     

Morocco and the US Free Trade Agreement: A specific factors model with unemployment and energy imports

This paper examines the impact in Morocco of its pending free trade agreement with the US in a specific factors model with unemployment and energy imports. Projected price scenarios across eight industries lead to adjustments in outputs, energy imports, rural wages, urban wages, and the unemployment rate. The model predicts substantial adjustments for reasonable price scenarios. Rural wages fall unless agriculture is subsidized. Unemployment, assumed inversely related to output, is sensitive to price changes. Factor substitution only affects the degree of output adjustments. Adjustments in capital returns lead to industrial investment and subsequent long run output adjustments.     

Declining Industries and Persistent Tariff Protection

The paper uses a political economy framework to explain the empirical observation that trade protection is persistent. The assumptions that are shown to generate endogenous tariff persistence in the model are quite plausible: agents are uncertain about future prices, tariffs are affected by political pressure, and producers of the import–competing good own sector–specific human capital that may be lost if they exit the industry. The model also reveals that, under the conditions listed above, industries decline gradually in response to a price shock even when producers do not face increasing costs of adjustment.     

The effects of the Uruguay round: empirical evidence from U.S. industry

This article uses an event study to evaluate the anticipated results of the Uruguay Round on U.S. industry. Economists commonly use computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to predict the net economic efficiency effects of trade agreements. The event study method represents a complementary approach that relies on stock price movements to assess how investors predict that an event, in this case the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, will affect industry profitability. The empirical estimates indicate that U.S. industries with comparative advantage (disadvantage) experience positive (negative) stock price reactions, reflecting an increase (a decrease) in the industry trade and investment opportunities as well as an increased (decreased) return to existing tangible and intangible assets. For the market as a whole, the variation in stock prices does not differ significantly from zero, and the economic magnitude of industry gains and losses is small. These results are consistent with most CGE assessments and with the skeptical attitude that the real impact of the Uruguay Round Agreement remains uncertain.     

Trade,Wages, and Specific Factors*

In this paper, we use a multisector specific‐factors model with sector‐specific capital and two mobile factors, skilled and unskilled labor, to examine the effects of trade, technology, and factor endowments on the skill premium in US manufacturing industries. Based on this model and data for the US manufacturing sector from 1958–96, we calculate changes in the skill premium and then carry out a decomposition to identify the changes caused by product price changes (trade), technological progress, labor, and capital endowment changes. The decomposition reveals that trade effects, working through product price changes, caused the skill premium to increase moderately. Changes in capital endowments (new investments) had a positive effect on the skill premium, with the strongest impact during the 1980s, while the effect of technological change on the skill premium varied over time. Finally, changes in relative labor endowments had a negative effect on the skill premium.     

Malaysia-Japan Commodity Trade and Asymmetric Effects of Exchange Rate Changes

Asymmetry analysis is a new norm in applied research and the link between the trade balance and the exchange rate is no exception. In this paper we investigate the asymmetric response of the trade balance of each of the 60 industries that trade between Malaysia and Japan. We find short-run asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes on the trade balance of 50 industries (including the two largest industries), short-run adjustment asymmetry in 47 industries, and short-run impact asymmetry in 30 industries. However, short-run asymmetric effects lasted into the long run only in limited number of industries. Results are industry-specific at best.     

The Impact of Exchange Rate Uncertainty on the Level of Investment

Conventional wisdom has it that increasing price or exchange rate uncertainty will depress investment. Using the Dixit–Pindyck model, we find that there are situations where this will happen; and situations where it does not. There are threshold effects which allows us to identify when rising volatility would increase or decrease investment; and also to identify which types of industries would gain, and which would suffer, from a move to fixed exchange rates. This is important for monetary union in Europe since it is likely that, even if trade is insensitive to exchange rate volatility, investment with its longer horizon will be affected.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR: THE CASE OF THE SMALL DEVELOPING COUNTRY

Historically, the lack of competition in developing countries has resulted in highly concentrated domestic industries that suffer from diseconomies of scale but prosper behind high walls of protection. Liberalization is expected to reverse this trend but at what cost? This article utilizes an import demand framework to examine the potential impact of trade liberalization on the manufacturing sector in the Caribbean using the case of Barbados. The results indicate that the manufacturing industry could encounter tremendous price competition, which could compromise the future survival of these industries. The study recommends that industries reorganize production processes to increase efficiency, which will allow them to compete effectively in the new global trading environment. These results may also be applicable to the wider Caribbean.     

Economic Implications of Alternative Allocation Schemes for Emission Allowances*

For reasons of political feasibility, emission trading systems may have to rely on free initial allocation of emission allowances in order to ameliorate adverse production and employment effects in dirty industries. Against the background of an emerging European‐wide emission trading system, we examine the trade‐off between such compensation and economic efficiency under output‐based and emissions‐based allocation rules. We show that the emissions‐based allocation rule is more costly than the output‐based rule in terms of maintaining output and employment in energy‐intensive industries. When the international allowance price increases, the inferiority of emissions‐based allocation vis‐à‐vis output‐based allocation becomes more pronounced, as emission subsidies drastically restrict efficiency gains from international trade in emission allowances.     

反倾销措施的贸易救济效果评估

本文利用1997—2004年中国反倾销案例8位数税则号的涉案产品数据,考察了反倾销措施引起的指控对象国和非指控对象国的贸易模式的变化,在此基础上提出了反倾销行为贸易救济效果的证据。检验结果表明,中国反倾销措施对指控对象国的进口有明显的“贸易限制效应”;不仅征税案例,即使是无损害结案的反倾销指控仍然对指控对象国的进口贸易有重要影响,即反倾销具有“调查效应”;但是涉案产品可能在指控对象国和非指控对象国之间转移,这种“贸易转移效应”部分削弱了反倾销措施的保护效果;总体上看,反倾销仍然起到了救济本国产业的作用,因为无论是指控对象国还是非对象国的进口价格都会上升,从而控制了中国涉案产品的进口总量。     

QUANTITY AND PRICE INDEXES FOR CONSTRUCTION

Construction has traditionally constituted one of the problem areas in the preparation of industry price and quantity statistm with in the system of national accounts of most countries. The difficulty stems from what is considered to be the unique character of construction projects. This has unnecessarily impeded the calculation of output price indexes and has resulted in the use of various input-based prices as proxies for output prices. One of the objectives of the development of the system of construction price statistics described in this paper is to permit deflation of the outputs of construction industries in order to produce industry output data in constant prices in a manner consistent with measures for the rest of the economy. This is a more promising approach to improving constant price industry and expenditure measures within the SNA framework than attempting such improvements through the collection of a vast array of quantity data. Construction industries sell specified configurations of materials-in-place which are, to borrow the jargon of other fields, sub-assemblies of some total system. As in other areas of industrial pricing, some of these products are simple and some are complex. Trade contractors sell these sub-assemblies or commodities mainly to an owner-builder or to a general contractor who, in turn, resells the trade contractors’ commodities along with whatever sub-assemblies the general contractor has produced. These sub-assemblies, when combined with, for example, the relevant outputs (or sub-assemblies) of manufacturers, the design services of service industries and the purchasers’ own contributions, yield the wide variety of plant and structures which constitute the various classes of gross fixed capital formation, which are not typically solely the outputs of the construction industries. The resulting contractors’ selling price indexes will provide deflators for the whole range of outputs of the various construction industries. These will become part of the system of industry selling price indexes from which relevant indexes for the various goods and services can be selected and combined with appropriate weights to yield arrays of deflators for the highly complex capital expenditures of business, institutions and government. Ultimately this integrated system of construction industry statistics will permit the preparation of gross output and value added measures, in both current and constant prices, to be calculated for the construction industries as an integral part of the Canadian System of National Accounts, as well as provide a key element for improving the deflation of fixed capital formation.     

China wage inequality: the role of trade and technology

This article empirically investigates the impact of international trade and technical change on skill premia for a panel of 28 manufacturing sectors in China over the period 2002–2011. The results find that the effect of changes of the share of SOEs is twofold. First, the contraction of SOEs promoted productivity growth, and the promoting effect was skill-biased, which tended to increase the skill premia in China. Second, the drop of product prices resulting from falling SOEs share was more magnificent in skill-intensive industries, which helped to mitigate wage inequality through product prices. The accounted-for portion of price changes by productivity growth was skill-biased, significantly raising skill premia through product prices. However, the portion of price changes accounted for by foreign price was unskill-biased, and world price competition diminished the growing income disparity in China.