The 1997 Asian Currency Crisis,Financial Linkages,and the Monetary Policy of Japan

The evidence is examined that excessively liberal monetary policy by the Bank of Japan, before and after the financial collapse of Japan in 1992, may have led other East Asian economies into “over‐borrowing” and speculative investments, prior to the currency crisis in 1997–98. The authors test for cointegration and Granger causality between Japanese money supply M1 and the domestic investment of eight East Asian economies and Australia. US and German money supplies are also used as a benchmark. There is strong evidence that there are long‐ and short‐run causal relationships between the Japanese money supply and the domestic investment of the Asian crisis‐inflicted economies prior to 1997.     

THE COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN ENDOGENOUS PROTECTION AND DIRECT FOREIGN INVESTMENT

This paper studies the endogenous relationship between direct foreign investgment (DFI) and trade restriction. A domestic labor union interested in both employment and wages bargains with a foreign firm and lobbies against foreign imports. By endogeneizing the wage rate and incorporating resource-using lobbying, we show that more DFI results in higher lobbying efforts and lower imports under fairly general conditions, i.e. a reversal of quid pro quo DFI. We also conduct comparative statics analysis on wages and lobbying efforts.     

QUID PRO QUO FOREIGN INVESTMENT AND VERS: A NASH BARGAINING APPROACH*

We construct a two-period model of industry-specific quid pro quo direct foreign investment (DFI) which occurs with the view to increasing the level of a future voluntary export restraint (VER). The wage and the VER are determined through Nash bargaining. We identify the conditions which generate quid pro quo DFI and examine its effects on profits, the utility of the union and welfare. In the absence of political-economy considerations, more DFI increases the degree of endogenous protection.     

QUID PRO QUO FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

The paper analyzes the phenomenon of industry-specific direct foreign investment (DFI) which occurs with the view to defusing the threat of future protection by the host country (quid pro quo), under alternative imperfectly competitive market structures. It is established that, even in the absence of government intervention, firms in imperfectly competitive markets change the level of trade and DFI in response to future protectionist threats.     

Trade policy mix: IPR protection and R&D subsidies

Abstract .  This paper analyses strategic R&D policy under circumstances where intellectual property rights protection resulting from firms' R&D investment is not perfect. By examining policy choices wherein a government chooses both R&D subsidies and IPR protection levels simultaneously, we show that it is optimal for a government to adopt sufficiently weak IPR protection and to subsidize R&D investments of domestic firms. Inducing R&D investment of foreign rival firms will increase the profits of domestic firms.     

Trade policy and quality leadership in transition economies

Trade policy and quality leadership in transition economies are analyzed in a duopoly model of trade and vertical product differentiation. We first show that the incidence of trade liberalization is sensitive to whether firms in transition economies are producers of low or high quality. Second, we find that neither free trade nor the absence of a domestic subsidy are optimal: Both a tariff and a subsidy increase price competition and while the former extracts foreign rents the latter results in quality upgrading. Third, there exists a rationale for a government to commit to a socially optimal policy to induce quality leadership by the domestic firm when cost asymmetries are low. Finally, we establish an equivalence result between the effects of long-run exchange rate changes and those of trade policy on price competition (but not on social welfare).     

Infrastructure,Multinational Affiliate Production,and the Pattern of Trade

In a two-country general equilibrium model with endogenously determined domestic and multinational firms, it is shown that public infrastructure development can have diverging implications for horizontal multinational affiliate firm production and trade, depending on the type of infrastructure invested in. Infrastructure investments with strong productive or local transport effects (i.e. schools or local roads) lead to greater domestic firm production and exports, fewer imports, and more foreign multinational affiliate firm production in the country making the investment. On the other hand, infrastructure projects that lower international trade and transaction costs (i.e. shipping ports or airports) lead to more domestic firms in both countries, a greater volume of bilateral exports in both directions, and less multinational affiliate production. Further, the effect of different types of infrastructure investment on income and welfare of the open economies is explored.     

Partnerships, Buy-Out Options and Investment in Emerging Markets

Asymmetric information and fear of acquiring a "lemon" may explain the paucity of foreign investment in emerging market economies. If investors are uncertain about the profitability of investments, intrinsically inefficient, temporary partnerships or joint ventures may serve as mechanisms through which information is transmitted. Temporary partnerships with joint investments by the domestic firm and the investor, together with a buy-out option to the investor, may sometimes separate good and bad investment prospects in equilibrium. However, separating equilibria may fail to exist. Implications for foreign direct investment are traced and briefly related to the experience of transition economies.
JEL classification: D 8; F 2; L 14; O 12     

Some indicators of multinational domination of national economies: analysis for the UK and other developed countries

The paper starts by giving an overview of the foreign direct investment position, relative to the size of the domestic economy, for major developed western economies. It then develops the view that, in assessing the full impact of foreign direct investment on national economies, a global approach should be considered: such approach stresses the relevance of multinational spread of activities and the need to consider the cumulative effect of both outward and inward direct investment. This leads to the introduction of a ‘multinational domination ratio’ for national economies and to estimates of it for some main industrialized western economies over a 20-year period. A first attempt to use this global approach in order to assess the possible impact of UK foreign direct investment (both inward and outward) on trade leads to the computation of elasticities of trade with respect to foreign direct investment.     

Competing to Outsource in the South

This paper analyzes foreign direct investment (FDI) competition in a three‐country framework: two Northern countries and one Southern country. We have in mind the competition of Airbus and Boeing in a developing country. The host‐country government endogenizes tariffs, while Airbus and Boeing choose domestic output and FDI. Wages and employment in the home countries are negotiated. We find that in the unique equilibrium, both Airbus and Boeing compete to undertake FDI in the developing country. This arises because the host country can play off the multinationals, which in turn stems from three factors: (a) oligopolistic rivalry; (b) quid pro quo FDI; (c) strategic outsourcing—FDI drives down the union wages at home if the host‐country wage is sufficiently low. However, if the host‐country wage is sufficiently high, the union wage increases under FDI. In such cases, FDI competition benefits the multinationals, the labor unions, as well as the host country.     

制度因素与东亚双边贸易:贸易引力模型的实证分析

银行与金融、政府干预、黑市活动、资本流动与外国投资、货币政策对东亚经济体出口贸易有重要影响,银行与金融、政府干预、产权、政府负担对东亚经济体进口贸易有重要影响。提高政府干预质量,积极合理地引进国际直接投资,建立并完善公正廉洁高效的司法体系应成为东亚经济体各政府未来重要的政策取向。     

Import Penetration and Domestic Process Innovation

This paper develops a model of R&D competition between domestic and foreign firms that explicitly incorporates the effect of the market structure. We focus on how differences in costs modify the effects of increases in the number of foreign firms on R&D investments of domestic firms. We show that an increase in the number of foreign firms may have a positive effect on a domestic firm's R&D investment and also show that two trade policies, tariffs or quotas, could have different effects on R&D investments of domestic firms. A welfare analysis shows that greater cost advantages increase social welfare.     

Quality-Differentiated Inputs and Trade In Vertically Related Markets*

This paper presents an international trade model of vertically related markets with quality differentiation at the stage of the intermediate good. Domestic input producers are at a disadvantage relative to higher quality foreign suppliers in providing inputs to a domestic final-good producer. the input producer may be driven out of the market unless policies enacted by the domestic government can encourage domestic final-good firms to use the domestic input. Results show that multiple tariffs and direct production subsidies are the most beneficial policy options.     

Privatization and the Political Economy of Strategic Trade Policy

This article considers the interdependence between international financial markets, privatization, and strategic trade policies. We describe an economy where portfolio allocations are chosen by risk-averse agents who rationally forecast future trade policies. Assuming a government responsive to the policy preferences of voters, we show that ownership structure affects trade policy through the incentives for lobbying by private agents. Portfolios and trade policy are thus jointly determined in political-economic equilibrium. Privatization of state-owned industry exerts an important influence over the trade policies chosen by domestic and foreign governments by expanding the scope for individual diversification.     

Monetary Expansion in an Open Economy of Intermediate Size*

This paper introduces a monetary asset, perceived as an addition to wealth, into a two-country neoclassical model of accumulation. As domestic monetary expansion changes, demand for the investment good is shifted. This alters the terms and level of trade as well as production and shifts the balanced growth paths of both economies. For a non-specialized world it is found that an increase in domestic monetary expansion will increase the domestic overall capital intensity, decrease the foreign overall capital intensity, and worsen the terms of trade for the country importing the investment good.     

Foreign determinants of local institutions: Spatial dependence and openness

There are both empirical and theoretical arguments for the thesis that foreign factors have an impact on domestic institutional quality. Yet the literature is divided over whether exposure (openness to the world economy) or the kind of institutions in surrounding countries (relative location) determines the quality of local institutions. This paper confronts these hypotheses empirically, addressing the issues of strong cross-sectional dependence and the endogeneity of openness. In a 107-country cross-section, both trade openness and relative location have a positive impact on local institutions. The institutional quality of neighbouring countries is not found to be statistically significant when considering openness to foreign direct investments instead of trade, but the statistical performance of that model is poorer.     

FDI Policy,Greenfield Investment and Cross‐border Mergers

This paper examines a multinational's choice between greenfield investment and cross‐border merger when it enters another country via foreign direct investment (FDI) and faces the host country's FDI policy. Greenfield investment incurs a fixed plant setup cost, whereas the foreign firm obtains only a share of the joint profit from a cross‐border merger under the restriction of the FDI policy. This trade‐off is affected by market demand, cost differential, and market competition, among other things. The host country's government chooses its FDI policy to affect (or alter) the multinational's entry mode to achieve the maximum social welfare for the domestic country. We characterize the conditions shaping the optimal FDI policy and offer intuitions on FDI patterns in developing and developed countries.     

Time-consistent protection with learning by doing

Can a government induce efficiency gains in his domestic industry by protecting it against foreign competition? Would such trade protection be time consistent? The present paper builds a dynamic equilibrium model that accounts for learning-by-doing effects that link firms’ strategies over time. The model shows that the existence of dynamic economies of scale suffices to overcome the traditional government's lack of commitment of its tariff policy. This paper compares the infinite horizon Markov perfect equilibrium of this game with the dynamic equilibrium under commitment as well as the static Nash equilibrium. Equilibrium strategies are derived in closed form by solving a linear-quadratic differential game. Optimal trade policy involves higher tariff levels than in the static setup in order to account for future gains in efficiency. Under reasonable assumptions, the unique stable MPE is characterized by a domestic price and tariff that decrease as experience accumulates, thus supporting the future liberalization of trade as an equilibrium feature of this dynamic game.     

STAY OR LEAVE? CHOICE OF PLANT LOCATION WITH COST HETEROGENEITY

Using a two-country model, we examine location choices by two domestic firms when they serve only the domestic market and their cost structures differ. The findings indicate that whether the firm that has a greater incentive for foreign direct investment is more or less efficient depends on the differences in domestic and foreign marginal costs, trade costs, and the presence of fixed costs. Plant locations may not be uniquely determined. In particular, a small change in trade costs may reverse plant location. Moreover, a decrease in transport costs in the presence of foreign direct investment may deteriorate domestic welfare.     

提升利用外资质量:理论分析与对策思路

在提升利用外资质量上,现有研究更多地关注本土生产要素,尤其是劳动力素质的提高和外资开放领域的不断扩大对吸引高端FDI的重要作用。但从实践情况来看,现有的努力包括鼓励外资向高端投资的政策导向,似乎并没有如我们预期那样带动FDI向高端领域流入。尽管我国加入世界贸易组织以后,经济已经不是"出口导向型"经济而是开放型经济,但由于体制、机制、外资外贸政策等因素作用,来华投资的外资却表现出明显的"出口导向"特征,实际上把中国作为全球的加工厂,这就严重影响了中国利用外资水平和层次的提升。因此,发挥中国国内市场规模优势,破除各种体制机制等障碍因素,适时调整外资外贸政策,应当成为中国提升外资利用质量的着力点。