An eye for an eye? The trade and price effects of China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports

We analyze the trade and price effects of China's retaliatory tariffs on imports from the United States in the period from January 2017 to May 2019. We apply the difference-in-differences approach to the up-to-date China Customs data on imports disaggregated by eight-digit HS product category and source country. We find large reductions in the value and quantity of imports from the US and an almost complete tariff pass-through onto import prices. These results remain robust to extensive changes in the specification and in data sample and to a variety of placebo tests using processing imports or exempted products that were originally included in the tariff lists but removed before implementation. We also find that the trade and price effects are heterogeneous across products, differing either in the end-use or in the ownership types of the importing firm. Similar to recent findings in the US (Amiti et al., 2019, Amiti et al., 2020), our estimates suggest limited terms-of-trade gain due to China's tariff hikes.     

THE ECONOMICS OF IMPORT PARITY PRICING: A PEDAGOGICAL NOTE

This paper demonstrates that pricing to import parity is not necessarily prima facie evidence of the exercise of market power. It is shown that in the presence of imports both market structures, perfect competition and monopoly, can price to import parity. If markets can be segmented enabling the firm to discriminate between the export and domestic market it is shown that the imperfectly competitive firm can differentially price. Furthermore, as the number of domestic firms is increased, and if these firms are able to segment the market, the differential between domestic and foreign prices is reduced. The import parity price may or may not be charged in the domestic market. A measure of the exercise of market power is therefore the differential between export parity and the domestic price.     

The antebellum U.S. iron industry: Domestic production and foreign competition

This paper presents new annual estimates of U.S. production of pig iron and imports of pig iron products dating back to 1827. These estimates are used to assess the vulnerability of the antebellum iron industry to foreign competition and the role of the tariff in fostering the industry’s early development. Domestic pig iron production is found to be highly sensitive to changes in import prices. Although import price fluctuations had a much greater impact on U.S. production than changes in import duties, our estimates suggest that the tariff permitted domestic output to be about 30-40 percent larger than it would have been without protection.     

How Aid Tying Can Impose Additional Cost on Aid Recipients: Evidence on Ghana

Abstract: This study investigates the prices of tied foreign aid imports by estimating the price differentials between tied aid imports and non‐aid imports from bilateral sources to Ghana. The study finds a significant mark‐up on the prices of tied aid imports relative to non‐aid imports, which translates into substantial cost to Ghana. Several reasons, both in Ghana and in the donor countries, could be found for the estimated price differentials. Ghana needs to take steps to improve its investment climate, as a way of reducing investment risk, which in turn will enhance the confidence of export financiers to reduce the incentive to mark up prices of tied commodities. On the part of donor countries, there may be need to examine the market for the supply of aided commodities towards the liberalization of such markets. It is suggested that although the higher costs on tied imports may be a necessary price Ghana had to pay to obtain aid, the associated cost provides a case for the cancellation of the bilateral aid debt to Ghana.     

Who captures the price rent? The impact of European Union trade preferences on export prices

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) aim at increasing trade flows via the incentives created by preference margins; this is the difference between the preferential tariff and the tariff of the main competitors. However, an additional impact that is often omitted in PTAs evaluations is the possibility that the wedge between preferential and most favoured nation (MFN) tariffs may induce a preference rent that translates into larger prices for preferential exporters. This paper analyses empirically whether preferential exporters capture this preference rent using a unique dataset of imports in the European Union at a highly disaggregated level linked to information on the preferential regime used and the tariff applied. Our main findings suggest that on average an exporter obtains a larger price margin under a preferential regime than under MFN. However, this preference rent is only partially appropriated by exporters with a pass-through coefficient from preference to price margins that oscillates between 0.17 and 0.8, depending on the size of the margin and the type of product.     

Protection versus Free Trade: Lobbying Competition between Domestic and Foreign Firms

This article considers how political interaction between policymakers and domestic and foreign firms endogenously determines tariff rates. We show that because of lobbying competition between foreign and domestic firms, even a less competitive foreign firm can successfully elicit a tariff reduction under reasonable conditions. Moreover, lobbying competition may also increase the level of aggregate domestic welfare when the market powers of the competing firms are sufficiently alike.     

Discriminatory Procurement Policy with Cash Limits

This paper presents a counterexample to the Miyagiwa ((1991) American Economic Review 81, 1320–1328) claim that discriminatory government procurement policy is ineffective as a protectionist device, when the goods are also consumed by the private sector. The procurement sector is a homogeneous product Cournot–Nash duopoly, with a home and a foreign firm. The procurement policy takes the form of an ad valorem premium over the import price. If both the firms play the output game in strategic complements, procurement policy can lower imports. This possibility arises when the product demand is unit elastic, corresponding to cash limits to public expenditure, and providing the home firm is smaller than the foreign firm. By adding a competitive export sector, the paper also derives sufficient conditions for macroeconomic coordination failures to occur.     

Determinants of shrimp importation into the USA: an application of an augmented gravity model

Shrimp farmers in the USA are facing the situation of increased imports resulting in reduced market share, falling prices, and reduced profitability for their farm-raised shrimp. The study examined the determinants of shrimp imports from China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia using an augmented gravity model of international trade. The results reveal that US imports from the four exporting countries are significantly affected by the GDP of exporting countries, GDP of the USA, exchange rate, unit import value (proxy for import price) of shrimp, and tariff. Tariff policy has implications for the US shrimp industry.     

Tariff and Quota Reform with International Capital Mobility

In a small, open economy with a convex production set, international capital mobility raises the cost of tariff protection on one subset of imports if there are irremovable quotas on another. Given irremovable quotas on one subset of imports, free trade is the optimal policy toward all other imports, with or without international capital mobility. Further, in the scalar case, international capital mobility reduces the optimal implicit excess tariff on the quota-constrained import if an irremovable tariff is in place on the other import.     

The choice between a tariff and a quota under uncertainty

Conclusions The results concerning the choice between a tariff and a quota under the assumption of perfect competition and three kinds of uncertainty are summarized in the table. An analysis of the uncertainty, under which a government using a tariff or a quota can determine the value of imports or the quantity domestically supplied (i.e. employment), gives neither the same result for the two instruments (equivalence) nor the same result for the three situations considered. Therefore the choice between a tariff and a quota in case of uncertainty depends on the purpose, and whether the initial uncertainty concerns domestic demand, foreign or domestic supply. This conclusion corresponds to the well-known phenomenon that in case of a disturbance to an open economy the choice between a change in the rate of exchange and a change in the demand policy depends both on the goal and on the kind of disturbance.     

Reverse imports, foreign direct investment and exchange rates

This paper investigates linkages among “reverse imports”, foreign direct investment and exchange rates. As an example, we have in mind the competition in the Japanese market of a Japanese multinational firm and a Chinese domestic firm. Products are differentiated based on Japanese consumers’ brand name recognition. The model shows that yen appreciation leads to an increase in Japanese production in China and “reverse imports” and a decrease in Japanese domestic production. Due to the barriers in brand name, the exports of the Chinese firm could fall, because the increase of reverse imports may erode the market share of the Chinese firm, even though total exports from China increase. Further, we find that yen appreciation may improve the profits of the Japanese firm and welfare in Japan under reverse imports, against conventional wisdom. The predictions of the model fit well with the actual numbers and shed light on the current debate on the Chinese currency.     

The upgrading effect of voluntary export restraints

Summary Given that a volume-defined VER is introduced on two differently priced varieties of a good,(i) the transfer of the VER-rent to the exporting country will cause imports of both varieties to fall,(ii) the relative price change in favour of the high cost variety counteracts this import fall and could in fact outweigh it,(iii) an ad valorem tariff restoring the original relative price of the two varieties would increase welfare and that welfare increase could in fact outweigh the welfare loss due to the VER-transfer to the exporting country.     

The U.S.–China trade war: Tariff data and general equilibrium analysis

The current trade war between the United States and China is unprecedented in modern history. This study introduces a database of tariff increases resulting from the trade war and quantifies the impacts using the canonical GTAPinGAMS model calibrated to the recently released GTAP version 10 accounts. We find that the remaining tariff increases as of March 2020 after the phase one trade deal decrease welfare in China by 1.7% and welfare in the United States by 0.2%. Impacts on sectoral revenue are reported for both countries. China's exports to and imports from the United States are reduced by 52.3% and 49.3%. The trade flow between the United States and China will be diverted to their major trade partners resulting in higher welfare in those countries, including many Asian countries. The estimated impacts are robust to using alternative trade elasticities and are amplified in the absence of the phase one tariff reductions.     

The importance of ‘natural’ barriers to trade among developing countries: Some evidence from the transport cost content in Brazilian imports

The paper applies a cif/fob import value comparison of Brazilian imports in order to check the argument of freight rate advantages for North-South shipping against South-South shipping in competing products and to estimate the relation between freight rates and tariff rates in total nominal protection of Brazil against imports from developing countries.The findings suggest that a freight rate advantage for North-South shipping exists in manufactured products, being significant for three of eight analysed regional trade flows. The second result is that tariff rates hamper Brazillian imports from developing countries much more than do freight rates.     

Natural resources and non-cooperative trade policy

When looking at the conditions of trade in natural resources the world appears upside down: tariff protection in natural resources sectors is generally lower than for overall merchandise trade, while export restrictions are twice as likely as in other sectors. On the other hand, tariff escalation is significant in natural resources sectors, where materials in their raw state face, on average, lower duties than in their processed form. In this paper, we discuss how export taxes and tariff escalation may be the result of an uncooperative trade policy. Specifically, tariff escalation and export taxes can be “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies because governments may be tempted to use them to alter the relative price of exports to their advantage (terms-of-trade effect) or to expand the domestic processing industry at the expenses of foreign production (production relocation effect). In equilibrium, these policies offset each other in a Prisoners’ Dilemma situation, where trade is inefficiently low.     

Exports, imports and firm survival: first evidence for manufacturing enterprises in Germany

This paper investigates the links between firm survival and three types of international trade activities—exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique new representative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actors on the world market for goods. The paper contributes to the literature by providing the first evidence on the role of imports and two-way trading for firm survival in a highly developed country. The result indicate a strong positive link between firm survival on the one hand and imports and two-way trading on the other hand, while exporting alone does not play a role for exiting the market or not.     

Profit-Enhancing Parallel Imports

We investigate competition between a domestic intellectual property right holder and a foreign imitator and consider how parallel imports affect their profits. We consider a two-country model. Country A is a developed country where intellectual property rights are highly protected, and country B is a developing country where protection is weak. The intellectual property right holder can sell the products for both markets while the imitator cannot export the products to country A. We find that permitting parallel imports can be beneficial for both players because it serves as a commitment device to soften price competition.     

反倾销政策与研发竞争

借助异质产品的Bertrand双寡头模型,本文分析了一国反倾销政策对该国企业和外国企业的研发、产品价格及社会福利的影响。研究结论表明:与自由贸易相比,当产品的差异度较小时,受反倾销政策保护的企业会策略性地利用反倾销政策而退出国外市场,减少研发投入,进而提高产品价格,而遭受反倾销政策约束的外国企业由于其研发投入的边际收入增加,因而会增加研发投入,降低产品价格。此外,反倾销政策的存在还有可能促进各国社会福利的提升。     

Openness and trade policy in China: an industrial analysis

This paper analyzes the tariff structure and its determinants in China, with our research conducted under the rubric of endogenous policy theory. We study the tariff rates for 95 industries in China in 1996. The potential determinants of tariff rates are collected from an array of variables characterizing industries in 1995. A principal component method is used to reduce these variables into four major dimensions. The first component comprises the information on the composition of employees broken down by age, education, and job classification. The second component is underlined by the profitability of the industry. The third component consists of those variables not picked up with high salience in the first two components. More closely resembling those in the second component than the first, these variables include gross product, foreign capital, inventory, sales revenue, and total loss. The fourth component receives high loadings from two variables: the number of firms in the industry and the number of firms that incur net losses in their operation. Using variables identified by the principal component analysis and postulated by the variants of the endogenous trade theory, regression analysis finds that the trade policy in China is mainly defined by an industrial policy favoring high-tech industries and a social policy minimizing social instability. The implications for China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) are also provided in the paper.     

International trade and firm performance: a survey of empirical studies since 2006

The literature on international trade and firm performance grows exponentially. This paper attempts to summarize what we learn from this literature to guide future empirical and theoretical work in this area. The focus is on the empirical part of the literature that consists of recently published papers using data for firms from manufacturing or services industries to study the links between international trade (exports and imports) and dimensions of firm performance (productivity, wages, profitability and survival).