Impact of oil price changes on Turkey’s exports

Substantial decline in oil prices observed since the second half of 2014 has brought forward discussions on the impact of oil prices on the external balance. This decline is expected to shift real income from oil exporter countries to oil importer countries. In this context, we study the effect of change in oil prices on Turkey’s exports taking into account the fact that Turkey’s export to oil exporting countries has approximately one-third share in total exports, while export to oil importing countries has a share of two-thirds. At the first step, we analyse the effect of oil prices on economic growth of trade partners of Turkey, where countries are grouped according to their net oil export position. We find that the effect of oil prices on different country groups’ growth is asymmetric. In the second stage, for two groups of countries, we estimate growth-export elasticity through Turkey’s export demand function. Finally, we calculate the net effect of oil prices on exports considering different income effects caused by oil price change on each country groups. Results indicate that the net effect of oil prices on the exports is limited given the current export shares.     

External income shocks and Turkish exports: A sectoral analysis

This study assesses how the growth rates of Turkish trading partners affected Turkish exports in various sectors for the period 1996:01 to 2009:12. To determine this, we modeled the destination countries and the export demand for each sector separately. Each model is estimated as a system of equations, where each equation represents a country using a seemingly unrelated regression method. The empirical evidence suggests that Motor Vehicles, Basic Metals, and Radio–Television are the sectors with the highest income elasticities for most of the analyzed countries, whereas the Food Products and Beverages sector has the lowest income elasticity. We also performed simulations for the effect of a 1% increase in the growth rate of each country on Turkish exports.     

A note on quantitative trade restrictions, income effects and wage inequality

This paper examines the effects of conversion of one type of physical trade restrictions into another on the intra-country wage inequality in a standard 2 × 2 × 2 Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson model. It shows that a conversion of an import-quota into an equivalent voluntary export restraint raises wage-inequality in the country importing the unskilled-labor intensive good and lowers the wage-inequality in its trading partner. This result does not depend on whether the unskilled-labor intensive good or the skilled-labor intensive good was initially subject to an import quota. Conversion of the import-quota into an equivalent import tariff, on the other hand, may lead to a rise in wage inequality in both countries. The driving force behind these results is the real income effect that conversion of one type trade restriction instrument into another results in.     

Hidden costs of supply management in a small market

Canada regulates its dairy and poultry industries through supply management. The supply‐management programs use target prices, production quotas and import tariff‐rate quotas to raise domestic prices. Canadian supply‐managed producers cannot export their output to world markets as exports would be considered subsidized under World Trade Organization rules. In this paper, we show that once foregone export opportunities are accounted for, supply management may no longer be beneficial to domestic producers of the supply‐managed commodities. The extent to which foregone profits from exports dominate domestic rents depends on Canada's comparative advantage, domestic market elasticities and the extent of supply management distortion in the domestic market.     

The evidence of strategic pricing policies of Turkish textile exports

This paper examines the strategic pricing behaviour (Pricing to Market; PTM) policies of textile exports in the 1990s for a hyperinflation country, Turkey, whose currency has been depreciating continually for the last two decades. The findings show that Turkish textile export categories exhibit evidence of strategic pricing behaviour when the Turkish textiles export data is analysed for different frequencies. The results show that evidence of strategic pricing behaviour is observed in response to changes in real exchange rates for textile exports for closer lagging periods and strategic pricing behaviour diminishes with further lagging periods. Also, evidence of strategic pricing behaviour is observed in a more recurrent fashion with higher frequency data, three-month periods, than with relatively lower frequency data, six-month and 12-month periods. Another interesting finding is that Turkish textile exporters prefer to increase their prices as a reaction if they had adjusted their prices in an overshooting fashion in response to real exchange changes in the previous period. The most important finding of the paper is that while Turkish textile exporters prefer to adjust their export pricing without fully absorbing the real exchange depreciation and by increasing their relative markups for some textile categories, they prefer to adjust their export prices by lowering their markups in addition to fully absorbing the real exchange depreciation for some other textile categories in order to increase their market share overseas.     

Balance-of-payments constrained growth model for the Turkish economy

Economists have investigated the relationship between output and export in order to explain economic growth for long years. Numerous studies have found very close correspondence between the growth of output and export. It is commonly known that Thirlwall's papers indicate very tight relationship between the growth of output and the ratio of the growth of exports to the income elasticity of demand for imports. This paper aims to apply Thirlwall's balance-of-payments-constrained (BPC) model for the Turkish economy for 1968–2011 period. This research also evaluates the procedures of testing Thirlwall's principle by estimation of the income elasticity of demand for imports using the test of stationarity and cointegration methods. The findings are in accordance with the Harrod–Thirlwall growth model. The test results of Johansen cointegration procedure and the comments on these results are presented as well.     

Does the distinction between gross and value‐added exports matter? An empirical investigation of export elasticities

This study uses bilateral U.S. export data from the OECD’s Trade in Value‐Added database to estimate and compare elasticities for three distinct export measures: conventional measures of gross exports, domestic value added in gross exports, and value‐added exports. It finds little evidence of significant differences in the income elasticities across the three export measures or in the price elasticities of gross exports and domestic value added in gross exports. However it finds a significantly higher price elasticity for value‐added exports, suggesting that conventional price elasticity estimates may underestimate the impact of a real dollar depreciation on U.S. exports of value added.     

Sectoral exports dynamics of Turkey: a panel co-integration analysis

This paper analyzes the role of unit labor costs and individual cost components in determining sectoral export dynamics and the change in the impact of these costs after the sequence of structural reforms in Turkey as of 2001. It employs a multivariate panel co-integration technique across 17 Turkish manufacturing sectors at different time periods. Results suggest that average elasticity changes not only between the time periods but also across the sectors. Cross-sectional elasticity differences are mostly attributable to the sectoral competitiveness and factor intensities.     

影响中国出口贸易的主导因素分析

本文采用自回归分布滞后模型和边限检验方法,利用1997年1季度至2008年4季度的数据估计了中国进出口贸易需求的收入弹性、价格弹性和汇率弹性,结果发现国外收入变化是影响中国出口的主要因素,产品价格对出口的影响较小,而人民币汇率波动对出口的影响不确定。因此,如果采取低价格促进出口的措施,不仅是低效的,而且是得不偿失的。转向以内需驱动为主的经济增长方式,是中国经济发展的必然战略选择。     

人民币升值能解决美国对华贸易赤字吗?——基于1994～2005年间月度数据的贸易弹性分析

文章以1994年1月到2005年3月的月度数据为样本,用ARDL框架下的协整方法,对中美贸易的收入弹性和实际汇率弹性进行了经验分析。分析后发现:第一,我国对美进出口的收入弹性都是显著的,并且我国对美国出口的收入弹性约为我国从美进口的收入弹性的6倍,但是我国对美进口和出口的实际汇率弹性都是不显著的。因此,文章认为人民币汇率对中美贸易没有显著影响,人民币汇率升值将无法改善美国的对华贸易收支。     

加工贸易的本土增值 对人民币升值影响的放大效应

本文基于2001-2010年中国11个制造业的季度进出口贸易数据,利用面板DOLS方法,分析了人民币升值联合出口品本土增值对一般贸易与加工贸易的影响。研究结果表明,随着中国出口品本土增值度的提升,原本缺乏汇率弹性的加工贸易出口将变得敏感,而加工贸易进口由于与出口存在着“一对一”的关系,因而汇率弹性也表现出显著为负。加工贸易的本土增值将放大人民币有效升值对减少中国贸易顺差的作用,因此,加快国内技术进步,生产更加复杂的中间品,将适当缓解人民币“被迫”持续快速升值的压力。     

Tax rebating of exports and the balance of payments

Tax rebating has recently been given heavy emphasis as a means of improving a country's balance of payments and recommendations have been made for the substitution of taxes that are fully rebated on exports for taxes that are only partly rebated or are not rebated at all. This paper gives the conditions under which tax rebating would improve a country's balance of payments. It shows that whether tax rebating of exports improves the balance of payments or not depends upon the size of the price elasticity and of the import component of exports. It then shows that, with the available evidence concerning the size of the price elasticities and of the import components in a number of European countries, export rebating may harm rather than improve their balances of payments.     

中国进出口价格弹性研究

本文通过建立中国进出口弹性模型和行业计量经济模型,测算和研究了中国进出口弹性问题.主要研究结论是:第一,中国中长期出口价格弹性和进口价格弹性分别为-0.8579和-1.0774;第二,中国大部分行业的出口价格弹性小于1,特别是农业、石油及天然气开采业、纺织业、化学工业、仪器仪表及文化办公用机械制造业以及社会服务业价格弹性绝对值都在0.5左右.适当提高价格对增加这些部门的收入是有利的;第三,中国大部分行业进口需求价格弹性小于或接近于1;石油及天然气开采业的进口价格需求弹性为异常值,为 1.3148,说明:对于原油这样的战略性物资应该反市场操作,中东出现安全时价低时吃进以为战略储备,而出现危机时抛出以平抑国内原油市场价格的加速上扬.     

Exchange rate and foreign GDP elasticities of Swiss exports across sectors and destination countries

This article uses a detailed breakdown of Swiss trade flows to identify how the impact of the two main determinants of Switzerland’s exports – foreign demand and the real exchange rate – varies across sectors and export destinations. Our main findings are that (i) both foreign demand and exchange rate elasticities vary substantially across both export sectors and export destinations. (ii) Foreign demand trends are more important for structural considerations than the exchange rate. This is due to the fact that exports of the two largest export sectors are relatively sensitive to long-run foreign demand developments while they are relatively insensitive to changes in the exchange rate. (iii) The sectoral structure of Switzerland’s exports has shifted towards goods that have a lower short-run demand elasticity and a higher long-run demand elasticity. Goods exports are thus less influenced by business cycle fluctuations while they benefit more from long-term growth trends. (iv) The export share of sectors with a relatively low exchange rate elasticity has increased. However, this result is mainly driven by the strong rise in exports of chemicals and pharmaceuticals as well as precision instruments and watches, which are also the two important sectors responsible for the Swiss trade surplus.     

The Impact of Chinese Exports on Global Import Prices*

This paper evaluates the evidence bearing on the question of whether China's buoyant export growth has led to significant changes in the import prices, and thus inflation performance, of its trading partners. This evidence suggests that the impact of Chinese exports on global import prices has been, while non‐ negligible, fairly modest. We identify a statistically significant effect of US imports from China on US import prices, but given the size of this effect and the relatively low share of imports in US GDP, the ultimate impact on US consumer prices has likely been quite small. Moreover, imports from China had little apparent effect on US producer prices. Finally, using a multi‐country database of trade transactions, we estimate that, since 1993, Chinese exports lowered annual import inflation in a large set of economies by 0.25 percentage point or less on average.     

The trade balance and the terms of trade in a two-country two-sector OLG economy

We consider a two-country, two-sector OLG model. It is shown that the trade balance and the relative price of exports are always positively related when exports are labor intensive regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption. A large response of savings to future prices becomes a sufficient condition for an inverse relation between these variables only if exports are capital intensive. In this case, a rise in the terms of trade can be followed by a trade balance decline if consumption goods are capital intensive and the income effect implied on savings is negative and large.     

South African trade policy mattersTrade performance and trade policy*

South African trade policy has exerted a major influence on the composition and aggregate growth of trade. In the Apartheid period, South Africa developed a comparative advantage in capital‐intensive primary and manufactured commodities partly because of its natural resource endowments, but also because the pattern of protection was particularly detrimental to exports of non‐commodity manufactured goods. By contrast, trade liberalization from 1990 not only increased imports, but by reducing both input costs and the relative profitability of domestic sales also boosted exports. This evidence suggests that additional trade liberalization and policies that afford South African firms access to inputs at world prices could well be part of the strategy to enhance export diversification.     

Export- and Import-Specific Habit Formation

By incorporating good-specific habit formation into the consumption of export and import goods, I examine the dynamic adjustment of a small country to a permanent terms-of-trade deterioration. With differences in the strength of habit formation between export and import goods, the shock affects net output through countervailing income and substitution effects. Unlike in the existing literature, adjacent complementarity is neither necessary nor sufficient for the shock to reduce net foreign assets. When consuming export goods is more habit forming than is consuming import goods, the resulting asymmetric inertia of exports and imports leads the current account to exhibit a J-curve.     

Export and import composition as determinants of bilateral trade in goods: evidence from Russia

Conventional theory and several empirical studies state that incomes and exchange rates are the key determinants of the trade balance. Here, we argue that export and import composition are also key explanatory variables because some goods are inelastic and/or with a high added value, directly and indirectly affecting income and price elasticities and trade balance. Thus, if exports and/or imports significantly consist of price inelastic products, then, a positive and a negative effect, respectively, should be expected on the trade balance. Using bilateral trade data and dynamic panel models, we found that the ratio of exports of crude petroleum and natural gas (price inelastic goods) to total exports is significantly and positively associated with the Russian trade balance in goods. For its part, Russian imports of high-tech goods (income elastic and price inelastic with a high added value) show a negative association. The goods balance of Russia also responded to changes in relative income, but there is only weak evidence of reactions to changes in the exchange rate. These findings partially explain the persistent surplus in the Russian trade balance and current account.     

Exchange‐Rate Risk and Japanese–Thai Industry Trade

Over the past decade, many papers have studied the effects of exchange‐rate volatility on international trade, particularly at the bilateral level for large numbers of individual industries. This is necessary because the underlying theory is ambiguous and because earlier papers failed to uncover significant results at a higher degree of aggregation. This paper examines the case of Japan and Thailand over the period from 1970 to 2010. We find that slightly more than half of 117 export industries and 54 import industries are affected by volatility in the short run. In the long run, 6 export and 2 import industries are affected positively, and 22 export and 9 import industries are affected negatively. Small Japanese export industries are more likely to be negatively affected, while imports show no differences regarding industry size. In a sectoral analysis, we find some evidence that Japanese exports of manufactures and certain machinery and transport equipment might be relatively more affected by the exchange‐rate risk. Raw material imports are least affected. These findings therefore suggest which industries might benefit most by a policy promoting a stable yen.