Firm-level export duration: The importance of market-specific ownership linkages

This paper explores the impact of a firm's market-specific ownership linkages and trade complementarities on different dimensions of its exporting longevity. Unlike previous studies that were mostly based on country-product-level data, this paper uses transaction-level trade data on the population of firms in Slovenia in the 2002–11 period, matched with detailed origin/direction of inward/outward FDI information to determine a firm's integration in international production networks. Our results indicate that firm's bilateral inward and outward FDI flows with an export-destination country have a strong positive effect on a firm's export survival in that market. Importance of market-specific ownership linkages for export duration is exclusively driven by intermediate goods which suggests prolonged export duration through production network involvement. However, the perseverance effect of bilateral FDI ties on export spells has been weakened during the crisis period. We find pronounced market- and product-related trade complementarities as either exporting or importing experience with the relevant market/product substantially improves the chances of a product–market export spell continuing. Finally, the risk of exports termination is lower for a firm's core export products.     

Trade and Wage Inequality: Local versus Global Comparative Advantages

This paper shows that disentangling the local and global dimensions of trade can be crucial to get a better understanding of the trade impact on wage inequality. In particular, it allows us to reconcile the empirical evidence with the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson predictions. Our focus here is on Italy. As for local trade – within its own cone of diversification – Italy is specialised in the production of unskill‐intensive goods, while for global trade – with respect to the other cone of diversification – it is mainly specialised in the production of skill‐intensive goods. On the evidence of these specialisation patterns, we point out that the local trade has a strong impact on wage inequality. In particular, in line with the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson predictions, the local export performance reduces wage inequality as it favours blue‐collar workers. As for global trade, it affects and increases wage inequality through the export channel, again consistent with the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson predictions.     

Composition of trade flows and the effectiveness of fiscal devaluation

We empirically explore whether the magnitude of the effects of fiscal devaluation, which consists of reducing the employers’ social security contribution rate and increasing the value‐added tax rate, depends on the composition of trade flows. Our sample comprises data on bilateral balances of trade between 28 European Union (EU) Member States and their main EU trade partners over the 2000–14 period. We use robust ordinary least squares regressions, controlling for the country‐pair and time fixed effects, to test whether there are differences in the sizes of relationships between these taxation forms and bilateral trade balances for different types of goods, by distinguishing between: (i) consumer, intermediate and capital goods; and (ii) labour and capital‐intensive goods. Our results show that the overall effectiveness of fiscal devaluation depends on the composition of trade flows. Value‐added tax is more strongly (positively) associated with (bilateral) balances of trade in consumer goods, compared to balances of trade in capital and intermediate goods. The employers’ contribution rate, in contrast, is more tightly (negatively) related to balances of trade in capital goods. The latter finding also holds true for trade balances of labour‐intensive goods compared to balances of capital‐intensive goods.     

Services Linkages and the Value Added Content of Trade

Working with a set of global social accounting matrices spanning intermittent years from 1992 to 2011, this paper examines the services embodied in trade on a value added basis. Data include not only the direct and indirect contribution of services to value added contained in a given country's exports, but also the extent to which third‐country value added in services, through intermediate linkages of imported goods and services, is also embodied in production and trade. Our data indicate, in line with previous findings, that the ratio of value added to gross trade has been decreasing both for goods and for services, which is consistent with growing vertical production fragmentation. On the other hand, while value added in goods sectors including indirect exports is less than the gross value of exports, in services, it is greater, highlighting the service intensity of trade.     

全球经济失衡与美国服务生产的贸易效应

本文从美国服务生产的贸易效应视角,探讨全球经济失衡中的逆差形成原因。以美国生产结构的变化为切入点,通过构建服务与商品两部门理论模型、统计分析与回归检验,讨论美国服务生产的贸易效应及其与收支失衡的关系。理论研究与模型分析证明,服务生产的非贸易品属性,使得美国经济在偏向于服务生产的产业结构调整中,形成了逆贸易倾向的增长方式。根据统计数据所做的实证分析显示,美国产业划分成生产与服务两部门时,在生产上存在着与理论分析相一致的逆贸易效应。在商品消费上,美国存在着商品边际进口倾向和商品进口需求收入弹性大于1的顺贸易效应。这两种相反的力量,会使出口增长速度低于进口增长速度,形成逆差。回归方程的计量检验发现,美国服务生产与美国商品贸易逆差之间存在因果关系,服务增长速度超过商品增长幅度时,商品贸易逆差增加。     

我国中间产品贸易探析

近年来我国中间产品贸易发展迅速,中间产品贸易已成为我国进出口贸易的重要组成部分.文章从比较优势、垂直专业化、价值链及市场内部化等角度阐述了中间产品贸易产生的理论基础,客观地分析了中间产品贸易产生的现实条件和近年来我国中间产品贸易的发展状况,在此基础上提出中间产品贸易的发展将对我国经济及对外贸易发展所产生的具体影响.     

Competitive pressure,innovation and trade protection: Evidence from US patent data

Recent theoretical models have suggested that the relationship between competition and innovation may best be characterised as an inverted‐U shape: firms in industries with low levels of competition are more likely to innovate in the wake of increased competition as they attempt to escape competition, while those in highly competitive industries will decrease innovation in the wake of increased competition as the profit incentive to innovate dissipates. Results from other studies have found positive as well as negative relationships between innovation and competition. In a parallel literature, trade economists have produced conflicting results regarding the impact of trade liberalisation on innovation. One stream of research has shown that increased access to imported intermediate goods increases productivity, suggesting a positive relationship between imports and innovation. Others have hypothesised that firms may use the technology embodied in intermediate inputs as a substitute for domestic innovation. In this paper, we merge these divergent literatures and investigate whether innovation, as measured by the production of patents by US manufacturers, has been impacted by market competition and tariff reductions. Our empirical findings indicate that insulation from imports in the form of higher tariffs on final goods was associated with innovation until the late 1980s, while falling tariffs on intermediate goods appear to have facilitated innovation during the 1990s. We also find evidence of the inverted U‐shaped relationship between market competition and innovation.     

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.     

Market knowledge: Evidence from importers

Previous firm‐level literature established that there are substantial costs of entry into new export markets. Chaney (The American Economic Review, 104, 2014, 3600) opens the black‐box of entry costs by building a dynamic network model of international trade where firms acquire customers in new destinations through their existing customers in other destinations. Following his conjecture, this paper examines whether firms use their existing suppliers in a destination to find their first clients in those markets. I use a disaggregated data set on Turkish firms' exports and imports for the 2003–08 period, and investigate the effect of import experience on export entry. By identifying import experience using instrumental variables, and shutting down productivity channels with firm‐year fixed effects, I find that having a supplier in the destination country raises the probability of starting to export to that country by 5.5 percentage points on average, revealing a “market knowledge” phenomenon. The paper's main contribution to the literature is finding that firms' country‐specific import experience increases the likelihood of export‐market entry. Digging further to explore heterogeneous effects, I find that this effect does not exist when trading with low‐income countries, but it increases with the destination country's size, proximity, language similarity and the size of its Turkish immigrant community. Moreover, the strength of the firm's relationship with its supplier as proxied by several variables such as the share of imported products that are differentiated increases the probability of export‐market entry.     

Mergers and acquisitions & trade: A global value chain analysis

The present paper deals with how the insertion in international trade and global value chains (GVCs) of countries affects their capacity of attracting foreign mergers and acquisitions (M&As). To this end, we combine data for bilateral M&As and trade in value added for the period 2001–15 and estimate an augmented gravity equation. Results indicate that trade openness per se does not favour M&As. Nevertheless, bilateral free trade agreements, heterogeneity of destinations (sources) for exports (imports) of intermediate and final goods, and position and participation in global value chains are relevant for explaining bilateral M&As. Moreover, their role is significantly different depending on the level of development of the home and host countries.     

GVC视角下中国制造业贸易竞争力研究--基于总贸易与增加值贸易口径的比较

在全球价值链背景下,中国货物贸易的中间产品贸易存在逆差,而最终产品贸易存在顺差。那么中国货物贸易的贸易竞争力究竟如何?研究结论认为:第一,中国制造业整体具有较强的贸易竞争力,并基本呈现不断攀升趋势;制造业分行业之间的贸易竞争力差别很大。第二,总贸易口径下的贸易竞争力在一定程度上低估了大部分制造业的实际情况。第三,造成总贸易口径衡量的贸易竞争力偏离实际情况的原因与该行业参与全球价值链的程度有关。     

Export Performance and Access to Intermediate Inputs: The Case of Rules of Origin Liberalisation

Internationally fragmented production processes have highlighted the need of efficient sourcing from foreign suppliers. This paper aims to investigate how exports of final goods are affected by better access to foreign intermediate inputs. In particular, the paper empirically tests whether expanding the set of available intermediate input suppliers through preferential rules of origin liberalisation affects exports of final goods. We exploit the introduction of the southern Mediterranean countries into the Pan‐Euro‐Med zone of diagonal cumulation which meant that foreign intermediate inputs could be used from more countries than before without jeopardising the preferential access to the EU. Using a fixed effects specification that controls for detailed levels of unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance, we examine the effect of the new diagonal cumulation possibilities on southern Mediterranean exports to EU‐15. We find a positive effect on both export intensity, the value of exports, and export diversification, the number of exported products. Being part of the Pan‐Euro‐Med zone of diagonal cumulation is associated with a 20 per cent increase in export intensity and a 5 per cent increase in export diversification.     

Supply Chains,Global Financial Shocks and Firm Behaviour towards Liquidity Needs

Driven by the increasingly important role of supply chains in global production, this paper studies empirical association between global credit‐market shocks and firm behaviour towards liquidity needs across countries and industries. Focusing on the adjustment of working‐capital financing, we find two pieces of supporting evidence from international firm‐level panel data covering the period 2002:I–2012:IV. First, for industries where specific investment in the input supplier–customer relationship is large, firms are more exposed to credit‐market shocks. We find that measures of global credit‐market shocks are negatively associated with trade receivables, trade payables and inventories, conditional on the level of contract intensity in the industries where firms operate. Second, firms in emerging markets are more vulnerable to credit‐market shocks than are firms in developed countries. We are also able to verify the economic significance of sales growth, operating cash flows, cash stock and firm size in the overall adjustment. Our findings highlight the importance of balance‐sheet contagion along supply chains during the 2007–09 global financial crisis.     

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。     

Time,uncertainty and trade flows

This paper quantifies the impact of international transport time on bilateral trade flows in goods using previously unexploited information drawn from a large data set on international parcel delivery times. In line with previous work, we find that an extra day spent in international transit reduces bilateral trade by just under 1% at the sample median. In addition, and for the first time in the literature, we examine the impact of time-related uncertainty, which requires traders to hold costly inventories or build costly redundancies into supply chains. We find that a one day increase in international transport time uncertainty reduces bilateral trade flows by just over 1%. Splitting the sample into developing and developed countries shows that international transit time matters primarily for south–south trade, whereas uncertainty is relatively more important for north–north trade. Using new data on trade in intermediate versus final goods, we also find some evidence that time and uncertainty both matter more for movements of intermediates of the type that takes place within global value chains.     

东盟在全球产品内分工的地位与跨国公司FDI

跨国公司FDI在全球的生产布局极大地促进了东盟国家产品内分工的发展。本文分析了东盟国家近年来FDI和中间产品贸易的现状,发现随着世界FDI流动的不断恢复,在产品内分工处于价值链中后端位置的东盟国家,虽然位置没有明显提升,但在引入FDI增加的同时其参与产品内国际分工的程度却在不断加深;在理论分析的基础上进一步提出跨国公司FDI与产品内分工的程度可能存在良性互动关系的假设,并建立数量模型对东盟五国十多年来FDI与中间产品贸易的数据进行进一步分析,发现长期内跨国公司FDI与中间产品贸易即产品内分工之间存在着双重的因果关系,而短期内只有中间产品进出口之间具有一定的联系,FDI与中间产品进出口没有必然的因果关系。     

Market‐specific Sunk Export Costs: The Impact of Learning and Spillovers

Firms may face sunk costs when entering an export market. Previous studies have focused on global or country‐specific sunk export costs. This study analyses the importance of market‐specific sunk export costs (defining ‘market’ as a product–country combination). We also study how market‐specific export costs can be affected by various kinds of learning and spillover effects. We use firm‐level panel data for Norwegian seafood exports distributed on products and countries. The results lend support to the hypothesis of market‐specific sunk costs. We also find evidence of learning and spillover effects, particularly within the same product group.     

Does Final Market Demand Elasticity Influence the Location of Export Processing? Evidence from Multinational Decisions in China

Given the importance many developing countries attach to attracting foreign investors engaged in export‐processing activities, surprisingly little is known about the sensitivity of these investors to local wage differences and the role played by final product market conditions. Using data on 2,884 foreign‐invested manufacturing projects in China, we estimate the importance of host province wages to firm’s location choice and investigate how this sensitivity varies with demand conditions facing the industry in China’s largest export market, the United States. We use the profit function to show theoretically that firms’ ability to pass wage costs through to final markets matters for location choice and we test the implications of the theory using a control‐function technique for conditional logit developed by Petrin and Train . As predicted, we find that investors facing more elastic demand in the US market are more sensitive to wages across export‐processing locations. Taking both the factor intensity of the activity and final market demand elasticity into account, we find that investors producing homogenous goods, such as metals, chemicals, and food processing, are more likely to be attracted by relatively low wages than those producing differentiated goods. We also find that while OECD investors are more responsive to wage differences than are investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, they are less likely to choose a location that has received a large share of prior foreign investment.     

中国生产性服务贸易与中间产品贸易关系——基于行业面板数据的考察

文章基于Ngo Van Long等(2005)的分析框架,分析了生产性服务贸易影响中间产品贸易的内在机理。然后,运用中国中间产品贸易1998～2009年的分行业面板数据进行回归,结果显示:生产性服务的进口能促进中间产品的出口,对中间产品进口影响不显著;生产性服务进口对中、低技术密集型中间产品出口的影响较为明显;生产性服务贸易自由化程度的提高使低技术密集型中间产品的出口增加,高技术密集型中间产品的出口减少。