Fragmentation and parts and components trade: Comparison between East Asia and Europe

This paper argues that fragmentation theory is well suited for explaining the mechanics of international production/distribution networks in East Asia, in contrast with the traditional horizontal product differentiation model fitted for intra-industry trade in core Europe. Using finely disaggregated international trade data, patterns of international trade in East Asia and Europe, particularly trade in machinery parts and components, are carefully examined, and the gravity equation approach is applied to check the validity of the theoretical framework.     

Fragmentation and agglomeration matter: Japanese multinationals in Latin America and East Asia

This paper analyzes micro data of Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) to investigate differences between Latin America and East Asia from various viewpoints of their corporate activities. One of the crucial factors to make a sharp contrast is the development of international production/distribution networks utilizing the benefit of fragmentation and agglomeration. Japanese firms have played an important role in developing international production/distribution networks in East Asia while they have not yet either constructed a critical mass of industrial clusters or formulated efficient vertical chains of production in Latin America, where proper international commercial policies are the key for success.     

Production fragmentation and trade integration: East Asia in a global context

This paper examines the implications of international production fragmentation for global and regional trade patterns, with special emphasis on countries in East Asia. It is found that, while trade in parts and components (fragmentation trade) has generally grown faster than total world manufacturing trade, the degree of dependence of East Asia on this new form of international specialization is proportionately larger than in North America and Europe. International production fragmentation has certainly played a pivotal role in the continuing dynamism of the East Asian economies and increasing intra-regional economic interdependence. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that this new form of international exchange has contributed to reducing the region's dependence on the global economy. On the contrary, growth dynamism based on vertical specialization depends inexorably on extra-regional trade in final goods, and this dependence has in fact increased over the years.     

Fragmentation in simple trade models

This paper examines the effects of “fragmentation,” defined as the splitting of a production process into two or more steps that can be undertaken in different locations but that lead to the same final product. Introducing the possibility of fragmentation into simple theoretical models of international trade, the paper finds the effects of fragmentation on national welfare, on patterns of specialization and trade, and on factor prices. Models examined include the Ricardian Model and the Heckscher-Ohlin Model, both for small open economies and for a two-country world. Results are as follows: 1. If fragmentation does not change the prices of goods, then it must increase the value of output of any country where it occurs and that of the world. 2. If fragmentation does change prices, then fragmentation can lower the welfare of a country by turning its terms of trade against it. 3. Even in a country that gains from fragmentation, it is possible (but not necessary) that some factor owners within that country will lose. 4. To the extent that factor prices are not equalized internationally in the absence of fragmentation, fragmentation may be a force toward factor price equalization.     

Does regionalism lead to more global trade integration in East Asia?

Since early 1999, global trade liberalization has been sidelined as regional trade agreements (RTA) have become the preferred choice in East Asia. Does this shift suggest that global trade and welfare levels will be raised? In contrast to unilateral trade liberalization, RTAs may well cause both ‘trade creation’ and ‘trade diversion,’ so that their net effect on global trade and welfare becomes ambiguous. It is conjectured that RTAs among “natural trading partners” are more likely to be trade-creating, and less likely to divert trade from non-member countries, in which case welfare will improve. We find that if an RTA involves geographically proximate countries (measured either by distance or border), trade significantly increases among them. At the same time, geographical proximity also contributes to increasing trade between members and the rest of the world. We examine how existing or proposed East Asian trading blocs affect intra-bloc and extra-bloc trade and thereby global trade. We find that the East Asian RTAs are likely to create more trade among members without diverting trade from non-members.     

The rise of environmentalism, pollution taxes and intra-industry trade

This paper develops a political-economy model to investigate to what extent a rise of environmentalism can successfully encourage higher pollution taxes and reduce pollution. The model focuses on special-interest group politics, intra-industry trade and a transnational environmental externality. The main finding is that a rise of environmentalism is not sufficient to protect the environment when pollution is relatively immobile and environmentalists are concerned with pollution in other countries than their own.Received: January 2004, Accepted: November 2004, JEL Classification: D72, Q28, F12I am grateful to Rolf Bommer, Jan Rose Skaksen, Per Fredriksson and Torsten Persson for comments and suggestions.     

Managing Human Resources in East Asia

This article reports on the management of international assignments (IAs) in fifteen UK companies who have expanded their operations into the international arena over the last three to twelve years.¹The results show that very few of these companies currently follow examples of ‘good practice’ as espoused by most management theorists and other commentators on the management of expatriate assignments. However, at this moment in time, they do not have any significant problems with either high expatriate failure rates (HEFRs) or with staff performing under par on IAs. However, many are experiencing considerable problems with returning expatriate staff. The implications of these findings for expatriate management are discussed in detail.     

Endogenous vertical structure and trade policy in an import-competing market

We examine the endogenous determination of a vertical market in an import-competing market with import tariff. We show that if firms commit to vertical organization before the government's commitment to trade policy, the home and foreign firms choose vertical separation and vertical integration, respectively, at equilibrium under Bertrand competition. Under Cournot competition, the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium entails both firms separating their retailers. Comparing profits between Bertrand competition to Cournot competition, we find that upstream manufacturer's profit can be higher under Bertrand competition with integration than under Cournot competition with separation when comparing foreign upstream manufacturer's profit.     

东亚自由贸易区强势启动

在风光旖旎的东亚地区,一个拥有20亿人口,经济规模达2.4万亿美元的"东亚自由贸易区"即将浮出水面.而在这一过程中,中国将处于领跑的地位.     

Explaining trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper examines the evolution of trade policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MNA) countries since the 1960s. It shows that contrary to the current popular perception, until the 1980s MNA countries were generally more open than the rest of the developing world. That situation changed in the 1980s and especially the 1990s as most MNA countries maintained their trade policies, while many other developing countries proceeded with liberalization. The paper develops and estimates a political economy model of trade policy to search for the factors behind the initial relative openness of the region and its reversal. The results show that the pattern is related to the rise and decline of the region's resource rents, which affected the political weight of domestic producers versus consumers. Other factors are also considered, but they all seem to have secondary effects.     

东亚经济周期同步性与区域经济一体化

利用经济周期同步性对于区域经济一体化的理论涵义,采用经济周期距离衡量经济周期同步性程度,结合多维标度技术,分析了包含中国在内9个东亚经济体和多种经济体组合的经济周期距离及其阶段性变化。在此基础上,构建包括双边贸易强度、专业化差异、金融联系等变量的影响因素集合对经济周期距离加以解释。实证结果不仅对东亚经济一体化进程以及中国在区域经济中的角色演化进行了评价与展望,还讨论了中国参与未来区域合作的策略选择。     

Global and regional financial integration in East Asia and the ASEAN

Financial integration is East Asia and the ASEAN nations is investigated using a new approach based on entropy theory. An important advantage of the proposed framework is that it takes into account changes in integration arising from higher order moments including coskewness and cokurtosis as well as more traditional measures based on second order moments. The analysis focusses on the role of the U.S. in understanding changes in global integration over time, as well as changes in regional integration arising from China. Using daily stock returns from 1997 to 2016, the empirical results show an overall trend to improvements in financial integration over time with deviations from the trend occurring during periods of financial crises in Asia in 1997–98, the U.S. in 2007–10 and the recent European debt crisis. The influence of the Chinese economy mainly through its trading linkages is found to be an important determinant of financial integration over time both regionally as well as globally.     

The relationship between bank performance and intellectual capital in East Asia

In this paper, we develop a performance efficiency value by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) to integrate five perspectives of CAMEL (Capital Adequacy, Asset Quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity), which is used by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to evaluate banking performance. In addition, we utilize a tiered DEA to categorize banks into four groups. One-way ANOVA is used to analyze differences in CAMEL and intellectual capital (IC) variables across the four groups. CAMEL variables are manifested more strongly in highly efficient groups when compared with inefficient groups. The findings also reveal the importance of IC in achieving high levels of bank efficiency.     

World trade forecasts upgraded,but headwinds from Asia

• ? Most leading indicators of world trade point to growth remaining robust in the next few months, but there are some headwinds, especially from Asia. Overall, we expect trade growth to decelerate this year, yet the outlook has improved since August. We see world trade rising by 6.1% in 2017 and by 4.8% this year, up from our previous forecasts of 5.7% and 3.8%, respectively .
• ? The latest trade volume data for the major economies support our forecasts, as does our survey‐based export indicator, which leads trade by around three months. This indicator and the main measure of global freight volumes are consistent with world trade continuing to grow by around 6% y/y in the near term.
• ? World trade growth is likely to be supported by emerging markets (EMs), which made a large contribution to the trade recovery last year. Another factor that may be supportive – especially for EMs – is the slippage in the US dollar last year, as there is some evidence of a negative correlation between dollar strength and world trade.
• ? The recovery of demand in the Eurozone and expected fiscal stimulus in the US add to the positive constellation of factors supporting world trade growth. Business sentiment indicators remain positive and imply upside risks to our forecasts. Yet it is not obvious that they have a strong leading relationship with trade – and the statistical relationship has become weaker since 2007–2009. This reinforces our view that there has been a structural change in the relationship between world trade and world GDP.
• ? The main near‐term downside risks to world trade come from Asia. Freight indicators for Shanghai and Hong Kong have slowed markedly, as have semiconductor billings. Although Chinese activity indicators have also moderated, China's trade volume growth remains surprisingly strong.

     

欧洲一体化对东亚经济一体化的启示

区域经济一体化是当前世界发展中的一个重要趋势。在探讨东亚经济一体化这一问题上,回顾欧洲一体化走过的道路无疑会给我们带来很多启示。针对东亚经济合作目前所呈现出来的多元化模式,我们不难看出,东亚经济一体化的发展瓶颈在于各国关系的有效处理和各国利益的合理分配。总之,从欧洲一体化的历程看东亚经济一体化,更应该确立合作的理念。同时,东亚经济一体化也可以借鉴欧洲经济一体化的经验,用具有约束力的条约机制去巩固每一个一体化成果。     

Explaining the East Asia miracle: The role of urbanization

Defying the law of diminishing marginal returns, many countries experienced high rates of investment for a prolonged period of time during their take-offs. This paper represents a first attempt to explain this contradiction from the perspective of urbanization. Urbanization provides opportunities for investment and helps moderate the capital/labor ratio in the urban sector. In particular, it promotes knowledge accumulation through “learning by doing”. This can explain why the law of diminishing marginal returns to capital is not applicable to economies in the early period of their catching-up. More specifically, we construct a two-sector general equilibrium model incorporating urbanization and “learning by doing”, predicting that in the presence of urbanization, as long as the “learning by doing” effect is sufficiently large, capital return will depict an inverted U-shape as capital accumulates or urbanization proceeds. Empirical evidence from China confirms the theoretical prediction.     

东亚区域内贸易扩张的影响因素分析——来自中国的经验数据

本文首先运用贸易矩阵和广义经济分类(BEC)考察了东亚区域内贸易扩张的演进和特征,发现中间产品是东亚区域内贸易的第一大类产品.继而,用贸易流量分析模型按国别探讨了需求因素、竞争因素和区位因素分别对区域内贸易增长的贡献程度,并计算出中国对东亚区域内贸易增长的贡献度最大.最后,运用中国1992-2006年的数据验证了外部需求是东亚区域内贸易扩张的首要推动力.本文的实证分析结果对解释东亚区域内贸易扩张提供了新的证据,对未来的区域经济合作具有重要的参考价值.     

The long-term volume of East Europe's foreign trade: An estimate

The transformation process of East European (EE) countries led to the disappearance of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the former Soviet-bloc economic integration scheme, as well as to other changes in the foreign trade sector of those economies. This study seeks to identify the potential long run modifications in the volume of trade of EE countries by using a well-established model employed in the foreign trade literature, the gravity equation. Quantitative results suggest that in the next decades trade between East and West European countries could double from its present level.