Unrestricted Market Access for Sub-Saharan Africa: How Much Is It Worth and Who Pays?

Initiatives to improve market access for the poorest countrieshave recently been announced by the EU, Japan and the USA. Thispaper assesses the impact of these initiatives and others thatmight be taken for a subset of 37 Sub-Saharan African countries(SSA-37). We find that fully unrestricted access to all theQUAD countries (EU, USA, Canada and Japan) would produce substantialgains for SSA-37, leading to a 14% increase in non-oil exports($2.5 billion) and boosting real incomes in SSA-37 by about1%. Most of these gains would come from preferential accessto the highly protected Japanese and European agricultural markets.The smallness of SSA-37 ensures that the costs of trade diversionfor the QUAD, other developing countries and the world as awhole are negligible.     

Exchange rates and the trade balance: the case of Singapore 1970 to 1996

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the real trade balance and the real exchange rate for bilateral trade in merchandise goods between Singapore and the USA on a quarterly basis over the period 1970 to 1996 using the partial reduced form model of Rose and Yellen (1989). We also hope to shed further light on what has become known as the ‘Singapore export puzzle’: the observation that, despite periods of rapid nominal and real appreciation of the Singapore dollar, export growth in aggregate has remained buoyant.Our findings suggest that the real exchange rate does not have a significant impact on the real bilateral trade balance for Singapore and the USA, thus confirming previous work which finds a weak relationship between changes in the exchange rate and changes in export and import prices and volumes for Singapore. We also found little evidence of a J-curve effect. Although positive coefficients linking real exports with lagged values of the real exchange rate might be indicative of ‘small country’ pricing by exporters in U.S. dollars, it is not clear that this is masking J-curve effects from an initial rise in import values as the home currency depreciates.     

Demand patterns and Canada’s trade in services

Canada’s trade in commercial services appears inconsistent with what manufacturing-oriented Heckscher-Ohlin theory predicts. Canada’s services trade is overwhelmingly intra-industry, involving countries whose factor proportions and demand patterns are similar—findings consistent with the ‘new’ trade theory, and the Linder hypothesis: that there is a uni-directional causal relationship flowing from the similarity (convergence) in demand patterns amongst trading partners, to Canada’s exports to those partners. Support for this conjecture is found for the US, the UK, and Japan. We infer that liberalization of trade in commercial services is likely welfare enhancing, with gains greater within trade arrangements and entities such as the NAFTA, the EU, and the OECD.     

Trade Policy in Canada and Australia in the Twentieth Century

The paper provides an analytical comparison of the evolution of trade policy in Canada and Australia and of the two countries' roles in international trade diplomacy. Despite similarities in history and resource endowment, these roles have differed substantially, especially during the third quarter of the twentieth century. The focus is on the reasons why Canadian and Australian attitudes and policies differed so markedly. The importance of the USA as a trading partner, differing economic experiences during the decade of the 1920s, and the more concentrated composition of Australian exports all played a part. Once in train, the position that Australia was different and need not participate in GATT tariff cuts as long as agriculture was excluded became the inertial position, while Canada played an active role in GATT's early development. After 1973 Australia's position as an outlier among high-income countries' trade policies was reversed, and Australian and Canadian trade policies again became similar in the 1980s.     

Bilateral Trade in the Asia-Pacific: A Case Study for Australia, USA, Japan and Singapore

This analysis of bilateral trade involves four Asia-Pacific nations (USA, Japan, Singapore and Australia) on a quarterly data set 1977 to 1994. The reduced-form model applied here derives from a structure which accommodates income, real exchange rate and real-balance effects. We find that bilateral balances between these countries are not cointegrated with some potential determinants, in particular real exchange rates. In the short run, appropriately defined, we find that Singapore’s trade with the USA and Japan is influenced by real exchange rates; Australian-Japanese and Australian-US trade is influenced by real income and real-cash-balance effects but not real exchange rates while USA-Japanese bilateral trade is influenced only by real-cash-balance effects. The general conclusion is that real exchange rates have only limited effects on these selected Asia-Pacific bilateral trading patterns, while real-balance and income effects have a greater impact over the short run.     

The complementarity between U.S. foreign direct investment stock and trade

Within a gravity model framework, this paper will establish that trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) are complementary, using trade and FDI stock data on a bilateral basis between the U.S. and 51 other countries over the period 1982 to 1994. U.S. outward FDI is found to have a larger predicted impact on U.S. exports than does inward FDI. On the other hand, inward FDI is found to have a larger predicted impact on U.S. imports than does U.S. outward FDI. These results are directly linked to patterns of intrafirm trade within the multinational enterprise (MNE), a result consistent with the transactions cost theory of MNEs. In addition, a sectoral analysis indicates that U.S. outward FDI in manufacturing has a large predicted impact on both exports and imports, whereas U.S. outward FDI in services has a large predicted impact on U.S. exports but little or no predicted impact on imports. Detailed comments and suggestions were provided by Joe Daniels, Albert Berry, and seminar participants at the University of Toronto, York University, Industry Canada, and the 1999 annual Canadian Economics Association meeting. Research assistance was provided by George Georgopoulos and Anthony Yao. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors.     

COVID-19 and trade: Simulated asymmetric loss

This paper uses 2018 data as a benchmark to build a numerical 26-country global general equilibrium model with trade cost and an endogenous trade imbalance structure. We assume that COVID-19 will increase the trade cost between countries and decrease labor supply in production. We use China’s trade data from January to April in 2020 to calibrate the influence level parameters and then simulate the trade effects of COVID-19 in China, the EU, the US, and the world. Our simulation results find that all countries’ trade and exports will be significantly hurt by the pandemic. Due to the trade diversion effect and the price growth effect, some countries will see an increase in import trade. Comparatively, the pandemic has the most negative impact on global trade, followed by the EU, the US, and China. As the pandemic deepens, the negative impact on trade will increase. The worldwide pandemic has the most significant impact on US trade, with an effect about 1.5 times that of the average world effect.     

RCEP关税减让对各成员国的经济影响分析

大幅度削减成员国间关税是RCEP协议的核心内容,为了揭示RCEP成员国间关税减让的经济影响,文章首先分析了RCEP成员国间贸易现状、产品结构、进口关税和贸易竞争力,然后,运用GTAP模型模拟RCEP关税减让对各成员国宏观经济和产出的影响,得到结论如下：（1）RCEP关税减让可以缓解中美贸易摩擦对于中国经济的不利影响;（2）就短期而言,RCEP成员国间关税减让可以提高中国、日本、韩国和澳大利亚的GDP、社会福利、居民收入和消费水平等宏观经济效益,同时,还可以提高中国、韩国、澳大利亚、东盟的总产出水平;（3）就长期来说,实施零关税可能显著提升RCEP大多数成员国的宏观经济效益和产出水平。     

The changing geography of world trade: Projections to 2030

Rapid economic growth in Asia (and some other emerging economies) has been shifting the global economic and industrial centres of gravity away from the north Atlantic, raising the importance of Asia in world trade, and boosting South–South trade. This paper examines how trade patterns are likely to change in the course of continuing economic growth and structural changes in Asia and the rest of the world over the next two decades. It does so by projecting a core baseline for the world economy from 2004 to 2030 and comparing it with alternative scenarios, including slower economic growth rates in the ‘North’, slower productivity growth in primary sectors, and prospective trade policy reforms in Developing Asia, without and with policy reforms also in the ‘North’ and in South–South trade. Projected impacts on international trade patterns, sectoral shares of GDP, ‘openness’ to trade, and potential welfare gains from reforms are highlighted, in addition to effects on bilateral trade patterns as summarized by intra- and extra-regional trade intensity and propensity indexes. The paper concludes with implications for regional and multilateral trade policy.     

Regional cooperation and the environment: Do “dirty” industries migrate?

Regional Cooperation and the Environment: Do “Dirty” Industries Migrate? — This article develops an alternative method to investigate trade in embodied environmental factor services (EEFS) and applies it to bilateral trade between APEC economies. The issue of regional cooperation and the environment is addressed by investigating trade in EEFS between APEC economies in the last three decades. We observe a ‘cascading’ pattern in net exports of EEFS between East Asian economies. However, we do not observe a similar pattern in the trade between North American economies. The results should be interpreted with caution since the application of US sectoral pollution intensity data to other countries may lead to biased estimation of trade in EEFS.     

ICT modernization in Central and Eastern Europe: a Schumpeterian catching up perspective

The paper characterizes main trends in ICT implementation and diffusion in the CEE countries in terms of market volume, economic development and ICT trade integration within the EU market. The analysis reveals a gradual closing up of the technology gap in ICT sector between the CEE and the ‘old’ EU countries. The focus is on the relationship between ICT expenditure, NRI index, vs GDP per capita, competitiveness and productivity. The evolution of ICT development trajectory is traced analysing the changing pattern of ICT trade between the CEE countries and the EU. The impact of the current crisis on the structural adjustment of the CEE ICT sector is assessed from the perspective of Schumpeterian technology gap and catching up.     

Understanding China's demand for resource imports

Is China's demand for resources driven predominantly by domestic factors or by global demand for its exports? The answer to this question is of interest given the highly resource-intensive nature of China's growth, and is important for many resource-exporting countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada and India. This paper provides evidence that China's (mainly manufacturing) exports have been a significant driver of its demand for resource commodities over recent decades. First, it employs input–output tables to demonstrate that, historically, manufacturing has been at least as important as construction as a driver of China's demand for resource-intensive metal products. Second, it shows that global trade in non-oil resource commodities can be described by the gravity model of trade. Using this model it is found that, controlling for other determinants of resource trade, exports (and the manufacturing sector more generally) are a sizeable and significant determinant of a country's resource imports, and that this has been true for China as well as for other countries.     

How international outsourcing drives up Eastern European wages

How International Outsourcing Drives Up Eastern European Wages. — This paper analyzes the effects of intermediate goods trade on the development of real wages in Central and Eastern European manufacturing. The empirical findings show that world exports in intermediate goods of the CEEC exhibit a negative impact on wages, and imports a positive one. Since 1993, intermediate goods trade between the EU and the CEEC accounted for an increase in wages being most pronounced in Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic.     

The impact of destination tariffs on China’s exports: Country,firm, and product perspectives

Based on multi-product heterogeneous firm trade theory, we combine China's customs data with the World Integrated Trade Solution’s (WITS) tariff data from 2002 to 2013 and analyze the impact of destination tariffs on China's exports at the country, firm, and product levels. The results reveal that tariffs had a negative effect on country-level exports and their extensive margins. After controlling for the inter-firm composition effect, tariffs had negative effects on firm-level exports and their intensive margins, but positive effects on their extensive margins. After also controlling for the within-firm export composition effect, tariffs had a negative impact on the exports of core products; however, the negative impact diminished as the core grade and technological content of the products increased. Using these elasticities to analyze Sino-U.S. trade frictions, we determine that the additional U.S. tariffs reduced China's exports of high-tech products more than its medium- and low-tech products.     

Potential Economic Effects of TTIP for the Netherlands

The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) is a comprehensive preferential trade agreement that is expected to significantly increase EU–US bilateral trade and investments. Negotiations are ongoing, so we use a scenario analysis to estimate the potential effects of TTIP under likely negotiated outcomes. In our main scenario, we assume a final trade deal where current tariffs are eliminated and non-tariff barriers are significantly reduced. We simulate the potential economic effects of TTIP using a CGE model. We find that US-Dutch bilateral trade doubles and this is translated into a positive but moderate effect on Dutch income of 1.7%.     

Trade Diversion Effects of the New EU Arrangements on ASEAN

paper identifies the product groups of the ASEAN exports to Europe that will experience trade diversion effects from the enlargement of the EU (EU 12) with Austria, Finland and Sweden (EFTA 3) and the European association agreements with the Eastern European countries (EACs) using the methodology of Kreinin and Plummer. This methodology establishes for each sufficiently important ASEAN export product group to the EU 12, the EFTA 3 or the EACs whether or not competition is felt from one of the three groups of European countries, after which the tariff and non-tariff preferences towards European products and against the ASEAN exports are analysed.
The share of the exports in ASEAN's external trade with the EU 12, the EFTA 3 and the EACs that is affected by the trade diversion of these recent European integration initiatives, is calculated. It appears that the ASEAN exports to the EU 12 are affected by the accession of the EFTA3 only to a limited extent, but that the trade diversion effect on the EU 12 and the EFTA 3 markets to be expepected from the European association agreements with the EACs is considerable.     

Rules of origin and exports in developing economies: The case of garment products

Relaxing restrictive rules of origin (ROO) in preferential market access can promote exports in developing economies by improving input sourcing flexibility, but actual ROO impacts remain an empirical question. This paper examines the European Union’s trade preferences, where origin requirements for knit and woven garment products were relaxed for beneficiaries in the Interim Economic Partnership Agreements (IEPA) from 2008 and for those in the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme from 2011, respectively. The results show that ROO liberalization had little aggregate impact on knit and woven garment exports in IEPA beneficiaries, but increased the export values of woven garments in EBA beneficiaries by 36.3% during the post-period. Among EBA beneficiaries, duty-free imports of woven garments from Bangladesh and Cambodia into the EU increased sharply after ROO liberalization. These countries increased imported fabric from China, consistent with the theoretical prediction of ROO impacts. Thus, the impact of ROO on exports is heterogeneous across products and countries.     

Does international trade competition influence candidates and voters? The case of Japanese Lower House elections

In this study, we explore the effects of regional exposure to manufacturing imports and exports on candidates and voters in national elections through panel data analyses, dealing with the possible endogeneity issues. We show that candidates tailor their stances toward trade policy in response to changes in local trade exposure. Increased manufacturing exports drive candidates to support relatively open trade policies; however, increased manufacturing imports do not influence candidates’ stances on trade policy. We also find that changes in local trade exposure influence citizens’ voting behavior. In districts with increased exports of manufacturing products, voters tend to cast ballots for parties that pledge to promote a free trade agreement as opposed to those that adopt a cautious attitude toward it. In districts that experience increased imports of manufacturing products, voters tend to support parties that are clearly opposed to establishing it. The economic issues related to international trade appear to be important to both candidates and voters in elections.     

The impact of EMU on trade flows

The Impact of EMU on Trade Flows. — In this paper we quantify the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade flows within the EU with the help of a gravity trade model. We consider bilateral instead of total exports, and we use panel data. Moreover, we introduce dynamics into the model, taking lagged exports as explanatory variable. The estimation of this model for the period 1962–1995 leads to significant negative coefficients for the proxy of exchange rate variability. We use these estimates to calculate the potential trade-creating effect of a monetary union, setting the exchange rate volatility equal to zero.     

EU enlargement and its impacts on East Asia

Ten countries—most completing their transition from socialist-based economies to market economies—are slated to join the European Union (EU) in 2004 and four additional countries are expected to become members at some future dates. Despite the relatively small economic size of the accession countries, this type of deep integration can have non-negligible effects on countries outside of the preferential zone as the reduction in barriers across partners leads to a re-orientation of trade. In this paper, we evaluate the extent of trade adjustments and the economic impacts it will have on the East Asian economies using a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The overall macroeconomic effects on East Asia are small. There is some trade diversion, but there may be an opportunity to increase market penetration in some sectors of the expanding EU for which East Asia has a marked comparative advantage. The paper also assesses the relative importance of linking trade openness to productivity and lowering trade costs between the accession countries and the EU-15.