Task trade and employment patterns: The offshoring and onshoring of Brazilian firms

The present paper tackles the question whether firms in a middle-wage country offshore production to save labor costs or if they onshore tasks that were offshored from high-wage countries. To distinguish which is the empirically more relevant case, I analyze the effect of importing intermediate inputs on the labor composition using matched employer–employee data and information on trade transactions from the universe of Brazilian firms. Propensity score matching indicates that an intermediate import expansion at the extensive margin leads to employment growth, higher intensities in routine and non-routine manual tasks and an increased share of intermediates exports. These findings thus point out that Brazil's intermediate imports predominantly represent onshored tasks. This result holds regardless of whether intermediate imports from high- or low-wage countries are considered. In line with theoretical considerations, the data show that Brazil's comparative advantage is in medium-complex and routine manual intensive production stages.     

The role of trade and offshoring in the determination of relative wages and child labour

Incorporating family decisions in a two-period model of the world economy, we predict that trade liberalization raises the skill premium and reduces child labour in developing countries where the adult labour force is sufficiently well educated to attract production activities from abroad that will increase the demand for skilled relative to unskilled labour. Elsewhere, liberalization will reduce the skill premium, but it will not necessarily raise child labour. Our prediction is not rejected by the data, and it explains why child labour is negatively associated with trade openness in those developing countries where the labour force was relatively well educated when the liberalization took place, but not elsewhere.     

The effects of offshoring on employer-provided training

This study examines how offshoring affects employers’ investment in training. Departing from the standard assumption in the literature that low-skilled jobs are transferred to developing countries while high-skilled jobs are still performed in the Home Country, we argue that whether a productive activity is offshored depends on whether its associated occupation is offshorable, regardless of its skill content. Our theoretical model suggests that the offshoring of productive activities involving offshorable occupations raises the wage rate for non-offshorable occupations in the Home Country, and thus reduces the incentive for firms to provide training in non-offshorable occupations. The effects of offshoring on training for offshorable occupations, however, are ambiguous. Based on two new measures of offshoring and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (1989–2004), we empirically investigate the relationship between offshoring and employer-provided training in the United States. For non-offshorable occupations, we find that offshoring has a significant negative relationship with the incidence of training, but does not have much, if any, significant relationship with the intensity of training. For offshorable occupations, offshoring does not have any significant relationship with either the incidence or the intensity of employer-provided training. These findings are in line with our theoretical model.     

Exposure to the new wave of offshoring: An unemployment perspective

This paper examines the impact of increasing service offshoring in a two‐sector economy. We find that it leads to lower domestic unemployment if the marginal task‐specific offshoring cost in the service sector is sufficiently large. Under this condition, the jobs created due to enhanced productivity outweigh the jobs that are destroyed. The reduction in unemployment increases the cost of hiring domestic workers, thus encouraging firms in the manufacturing sector to increase their offshoring scale and productivity. This, in turn, increases their cost savings and may lead to a further decrease in unemployment. Hence, complementarity between two sectors’ offshoring activities may emerge. We calibrate the model using economic parameters from Belgium, and the calibration results predict varied unemployment trends and impacts on manufacturing‐sector offshoring activities with different task‐specific offshoring cost schedules.     

产业内贸易与公司内贸易规模的决定

交易效率对产业内贸易与公司内贸易模式和贸易规模演变具有影响.国际贸易是实现规模报酬递增的重要途径,但其实现要取决于交易效率的水平.产业内贸易中产品种类数增加导致交易成本上升,为了节约交易成本,公司内贸易形成,但公司内贸易规模的扩大又使其自身的规模边界形成.文章还讨论了公司内贸易所具有的成本优势和策略优势,以及研发竞争过程中公司内贸易规模的变化.     

制度质量、制度稳定性与对外贸易:一项实证研究

高质量的制度是贸易促进型的,而制度变迁对贸易的影响却是不确定的。即使是正向制度的变迁,在短期内也可能会因为制度的不稳定性而产生阻碍对外贸易发展的转型成本。文章利用1995～2009年105个国家的样本平均每5年期的面板数据,从法律制度、微观经济制度和宏观经济制度三个维度来综合考察制度质量和制度稳定性对一国对外贸易的影响,结果表明:一国的制度质量越高、稳定性越强,其对外贸易增长就越快。制度质量对国际贸易促进作用的发挥,需要制度的稳定性作保障,制度质量和制度稳定性在促进对外贸易的发展方面具有协同作用。     

论人力资本生产制度

新制度经济学有关的理论提出人力资本生产制度的概念,人力资本生产制度的功能是为经济建设、经济发展服务的,它减少科技费用,促进科技文化的发展。人力资本生产制度的变迁需要政府的推动,人力资本生产制度创新要切实体现为社会的全体公民服务的原则。     

Offshoring and occupational wages: Some empirical evidence

Offshoring has changed the pattern of international competition; labor in specific occupations rather than whole firms and sectors are now facing competition. Accordingly, wages in offshorable occupations are affected in new ways. In this article, we investigate the effects of offshoring on relative occupational wages in 13 countries for 1990–2003. Our findings show that offshoring competiveness is associated with higher relative wages in offshorable occupations, and that export growth of IT-related services leads to higher relative wages in offshorable occupations, whereas import growth of such services reduces them.     

Internationalization of services: The case of intra‐multinational enterprise trade

Increased tradability of services, made possible by the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution, has been at the heart of the internationalization of services. Although rapid growth of the services trade between parents of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their overseas subsidiaries has contributed to the internationalization of services, empirical studies examining the determinants of intra‐MNE trade in services are few. This article, using the ownership, location, and internalization (OLI) framework, attempts to explain intra‐MNE trade in services. The results provide strong support for the OLI perspective, and posit a complementary relationship between manufacturing foreign direct investment and intra‐MNE services trade. The results also suggest the importance of subsidiaries' absorptive capacity and breadth of global connectedness for intra‐MNE 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.     

贸易引力模型的扩展及应用综述

引力模型在双边贸易流量决定因素实证研究中的应用越来越广泛,其理论基础也越来越完善。早期对贸易引力模型的扩展主要体现在研究区域经济合作对双边贸易流量的影响上,近期人们开始通过添加制度质量指标来考察各国国内制度因素以及制度趋同对双边贸易的影响。通过应用引力模型的研究发现,各国制度的优劣对双边贸易有显著的影响,制度相似的国家间贸易量较大。     

Trade-in-goods and trade-in-tasks: An integrating framework

We introduce a simple but flexible analytical framework in which both trade in goods and trade in tasks arise. We use this framework to provide versions of the gains-from-trade and the famous four HO theorems (Heckscher–Ohlin, factor-price-equalisation, Stolper–Samuelson, and Rybczynski) that apply to this environment. We extend our framework to accommodate monopolistic competition and two-way offshoring and to integrate theoretical results of the early offshoring literature.     

商务部主政新贸易时期解读

机构改革是推进政治体制改革的重要内容。商务部进入主政新经贸时期，这是经济形势发展的结果，是世界市场规则统一化的需要，也是市场经济已成气候的结局。     

International Trade and Health Policy: Implications of the GATS for US Healthcare Reform

This paper examines the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the World Trade Organization’s agreement governing trade in health-related services, for health policy and healthcare reform in the United States. The paper describes the nature and scope of US obligations under the GATS, the ways in which the trade agreement intersects with domestic health policy, and the institutional factors that mediate trade-offs between health and trade policy. The analysis suggests that the GATS provisions on market access, national treatment and domestic regulation, which are designed to eliminate ‘regulatory barriers’ to global trade in health services, limit the range of options that state and federal regulators and legislative bodies can employ to regulate the health sector and implement healthcare reforms. As such, the paper identifies the broader social and ethical implications of free trade policy.     

关于准金融机构监管体制的若干思考

我国现对准金融机构采取"多头分层"监管模式,但是,监管主体缺乏专业性且监管力量不足、监管主体不独立、监管权配置不充分等问题突出。准金融机构监管体制的核心问题是监管权的配置。监管权的纵向配置涉及中央和地方之间的关系。监管权的横向配置涉及监管主体的选择。本文建议将准金融机构监管权下放至地方政府,由省级政府成立具有独立性的地方金融监管机构实施统一监管,以完善准金融机构监管体制,实现有效监管。     

合约实施制度与国际贸易文献综述

本文围绕制度和贸易主题,从新制度经济学的视角,对非正式合约实施制度与国际贸易;正式合约实施制度与贸易流量;合约制度与比较优势三个层面的相关最新文献做了梳理,突出了合约实施问题对于一国贸易规模和内生比较优势形成的重要性。     

保险机构股票投资行为实证分析

文章对我国保险机构股票直接投资3年来的实践进行了系统的数据收集和分析,包括网下、网上投资以及二者之间的联系。在翔实分析数据的基础上,总结了保险机构的投资行为特征:侧重网下申购和场外投资机会、随着股指的走高逐步从二级市场转向一级市场、国寿和平安的投资风格差异明显等,并据此提出了相应的政策建议。     

Varieties of CSR: Institutions and Socially Responsible Behaviour

A central concern within contemporary socio-economics has been on the relationship between national institutional configurations and societal outcomes. In this paper, we assess the relationship between legal origin and a range of correlated indicators of social responsibility, focusing on socially responsible investing and voluntary charitable giving. We found that in Common Law contexts, lower levels of social responsibility than in Civil Law contexts, other than in the area of charitable giving, where the converse was the case. We explore the reasons for this distinction, and for the different patterns encountered in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Based on the findings, we identify directions for future research.     

美国的制度霸权与国际经济机制——以国际货币基金组织为例

后冷战时代,美国逐渐从传统的权势霸权转向制度霸权.国际货币基金组织(IMF)作为掌管国际金融体系的重要国际经济机制,被纳入美国的制度霸权战略中.美国通过或正式或隐性的权力对IMF进行渗透,使之成为美国维持和巩固霸权地位的有力工具.     

贸易便利化、国际生产分割与出口价值构成

贸易便利化降低生产分割与贸易成本,促进国家之间的生产分工与贸易,同时改变了出口的价值构成。文章分析了贸易便利化影响国际生产分割和出口价值构成的理论机制,并在双边产业层面实证检验了贸易便利化对出口价值构成的影响,主要结论有:贸易便利化对出口本国附加值率的基本影响为负;当贸易便利化水平提高到一定程度,过度外包的生产环节回流,即贸易便利化对出口附加值率的影响存在"U"型效应;贸易便利化对出口附加值率的影响在不同国家、不同产业贸易中存在明显的异质性;贸易便利化可以通过影响国际生产分割的参与度和参与位置影响出口价值构成。