Firms’ heterogeneity,demand accumulating,and exchange rate pass-through

In this article, we study how the export behaviors of new and incumbent exporters differentially respond to exchange rate shocks. We establish a dynamic model, in which new exporters strategically charge a lower price than incumbent exporters to grow their customer base and increase future sales. The model predicts that new exporters adjust their prices more aggressively relative to their incumbent counterparts in response to exchange rate fluctuations. Using a transaction-level data set containing all Chinese exporters during the 2000–2009 period, we find supporting evidence for the model's predictions: new exporters adjust their price 1.5 times more than incumbent exporters. This, in turn, results in export quantities being less responsive to exchange rate shocks among new exporters. The result holds for a series of robustness checks. The findings imply that there are different degrees of exchange rate pass-through among new and incumbent exporters.     

‘Eating the bread out of their mouth’: Antwerp's export trade and generalized institutions, 1544–5

This article studies the distribution of exports from mid‐sixteenth‐century Antwerp at the individual and group level (grouped by merchant origin). Recently, scholars have argued that sixteenth‐century Antwerp, and in its wake a series of other cities, hosted an open‐access market as a result of an evolution towards open‐access institutions. However, the direct effect of this institutional change on merchant enterprise is hard to measure. Relying on detailed tax records, preferences at the individual merchant level for particular destinations and commodities are documented, to evaluate whether exporters had equal chances in Antwerp's export market. A few exporters had large export shares next to a multitude of smaller merchants. The exports of these smaller merchants to distant destinations and their participation in the export of important products demonstrate a fairly level commercial playing field with regard to their larger‐scale colleagues. Foreign traders had access to trade in Low Countries products, while local merchants were active in the export of major transit products. The activities of the latter group are particularly important; contrary to previous literature, Low Countries traders did not differ in their preference for home‐grown products.     

Does quality differentiation matter in exporters' pricing behaviour? Comparing China and India

The product quality dimension has been rarely mentioned as a factor explaining the heterogeneous pricing strategies of exporters. This could underestimate the degree of mark-up adjustment and the extent of incomplete exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) at a disaggregated level across products and destination markets. This paper investigates the role of quality differentiation in price discrimination using data for China and India's exports disaggregated at the 6-digit product level across destination markets. The paper adopts an empirical approach that incorporates gravity model explanatory factors and allows disentangling the effect of quality on trade prices and volumes from that of other sources of price variation. After excluding short duration export spells, China's export prices denominated in foreign currency terms increase with the yuan's depreciation, implying an increase in exporters' mark-ups, but they decrease as expected in the case of India. However, mark-up increases decline with product quality and destination market income, as the elasticity of demand perceived by exporters increases. These findings remain robust to different measures of quality, samples, specifications, and to the potential endogeneity of quality.     

Exporting, capital investment and financial constraints

Many firms cite financial constraints as some of the most important impediments to their investment and growth. Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic this paper investigates the importance of financing constraints in the context of exporters. It finds that exporters are less financially constrained than non-exporters. However, after carefully correcting for possible endogeneity and selection issues, the evidence points to less constrained firms self-selecting into exporting rather than exporting alleviating firms’ financial constraints.     

Does agglomeration promote internationalization of Chinese firms?

Knowledge spillover from the agglomeration of exporters can reduce the initial costs of exporting faced by other firms and thereby facilitate exports. We use a large dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms to assess whether industrial agglomeration lowers the minimum productivity level required for exporting and whether it increases a firm's probability of exporting. Semi-parametric quantile regressions reveal that the productivity advantage of exporters against non-exporters is markedly smaller in agglomerated regions. Furthermore, a parametric estimation of an export entry model indicates that the agglomeration of incumbent exporters contributes significantly to export participation, although its magnitude is limited. These spillover effects are generated not only by the agglomeration of exporting foreign invested firms (FIFs), but also, more importantly, by that of indigenous Chinese exporters. In fact, the agglomeration of exporting FIFs only contributes to the export entry of FIFs.     

Trade and International R&D Spillovers among OECD Countries

This paper examines the relationship between trade patterns and international research-and-development (R&D) spillovers using Kao and Chiang's (1998) and Kao's (1999) recently developed panel cointegration techniques. Monte Carlo-type tests demonstrate that the choice of weights used in constructing foreign R&D stocks is informative of the spillover transmission when panel cointegration techniques are employed. However, the evidence does not support a relationship between import patterns and R&D spillovers. The relationship between export patterns and R&D spillovers is then considered. Consistent with recent theoretical models (Ben-David and Loewy 1998), the evidence suggests that exporters receive substantial R&D spillovers from their customers.     

Taxation in the Tanzanian gold sector: Overview of impacts and possible solutions

This paper analyses the factors that reduce the gold sector's contribution to the Tanzanian government's revenue. Tanzania is among Africa's largest gold exporters. Yet ordinary Tanzanians have seen little benefit from this. This is partly because the government has enacted tax laws that are, as we shall see, overly favourable to multinational mining companies, and partly because of the same companies' business practices. Critics argue that the government fails to capture a substantial amount of state revenue as a result of low royalty rates, unpaid corporate taxes and tax evasion by major gold mine operators. This paper argues that the Tanzanian government should try to increase its share of revenues by taxation based on revenues, increasing its auditing skills and its involvement in mining, as well as by increasing the transparency of contracts and limiting the discretionary power of policy-makers in negotiating contracts.     

PROBLEMS IN EXPANDING JAPAN'S IMPORTS OF MANUFACTURES FROM DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: A SURVEY*

The Japanese economy is now the second largest market economy, with a large trade surplus. And yet, Japan's imports of manufactures have long been very low relative to its GNP, when compared with other industrial countries; its ratio of manufactured imports to GNP was in the range of 2.1–2.7% in the 1980-87 period, as compared with 8.5–10.3% for the industrial countries as a whole or 4.7-7.2% for the United States. The share of developing economies in total imports of manufactures in Japan is about the same as, if not higher than, those for most other industrial countries. If Japan's ratio of manufactured imports to GNP were to rise in the future to approach closer to those of other industrial countries, Japan's imports of manufactures from developing economies could be two to three times what they are today, even if Japan's GNP does not increase at all and the share of developing economies in Japan's manufactured imports does not increase. This paper is an attempt to probe the potential of the Japanese market for imports of manufactures from developing economies in terms of rising ratio of such imports to GNP. The paper explores the reasons why Japan's ratio is exceptionally low, on the basis of existing literature. (a) Japan's ratio of manufactured imports to GNP has remained exceptionally low compared with those for other industrial countries. (b) Japan's ratio of manufactured imports from developing economies to GNP has remained distinctly low despite the recent surge in such imports. (c) If a part of the reason for the low ratio for Japan was a market access problem as often alleged, the problem is not with formal import barriers such as tariffs and formal non-tariff barriers because these barriers in Japan are no higher than in other industrial countries. As for informal import barriers, evidence found indicates that: (i) Administrative guidance and flexibly managed competition policy, which in the past had considerable effects of limiting imports, appear to have declined-in importance, but they still have import-limiting effects in certain areas. (ii) Market access difficulties involving import procedures, product standards, testing and certification requirements, which were enormous in the past, may have also decreased in severity over the last decade, but problems in these areas persist. (iii) There are aspects of the Japanese distribution system and practice that seem to make foreign access to the Japanese market significantly more difficult than the access by Japanese exporters to the markets in other industrial countries. Distribution in Japan suffers from overregulation. (iv) Users of manufactured products in Japan are sensitive to quality, perhaps more so, on the average, than in other industrial countries. Does the recent upsurge in Japan's imports of manufactures suggest that the traditional import behavior of Japan is changing? Japan's manufactured imports measured in yen increased by 18 and 27 percent in 1987 and 1988, respectively, and those coming from developing economies increased even more rapidly. There is also some evidence that price and income elasticities of demand for manufactured imports may have increased recently. These are encouraging, but it remains to be seen whether the trends will continue far enough into the future to bring Japan's import behavior more into line with those of other industrial countries. If they do, implications for the market prospects of manufactured exports from developing economies could be far-reaching. Outstanding questions are: (i) How much of the recent increase in manufactured imports is attributable to the appreciation of the yen (price effect)? How much is attributable to the increase in income or industrial output (income effect)? How much is attributable to removal of formal and informal import barriers effected so far (structural change)? Has consumer taste changed? (ii) Why have Latin American countries not been successful in promoting their exports of manufactures to Japan, when Asian exporters have been so successful? (iii) Up until now, the share of developing economies in Japan's manufactured imports has not been particularly low compared with those for other industrial countries, but is this share likely to fall or rise in the future? (iv) What is the likely impact of recently increased direct investment (DFI) by Japanese manufacturers in developing economies on the imports of their products into Japan?     

Integration, trade costs and the export behaviour of firms: Empirical evidence on the venables model

Conclusions Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence presented in this paper clearly indicate that economic integration helps firms in old member countries to augment their exports to the new member states. The increase in the export value is, to a large extent, due to new exporters entering the new markets, and only to a small extent due to an increase in average export value per firm. This effect is stronger for small-scale exporters than for medium- and large-scale exporters. In addition to the other benefits, economic integration appears to be peculiarly beneficial to small firms, as it allows them to access new markets previously closed to them.     

The Spread of Antidumping Regimes and the Role of Retaliation in Filings

Over the past decade, the worldwide use of antidumping has become very widespread—41 WTO-member countries initiated antidumping cases over the 1995-2003 period. From another perspective, U.S. exporters were subjected to 139 antidumping cases during this period, by enforcement agencies representing 20 countries. In this context, it is natural to consider whether antidumping filings may be motivated as retaliation against similar measures imposed on a country's exporters. This is the focus of our study, though we also control for the bilateral export flows involved and nonretaliatory impacts of past cases, with other motivations—macroeconomic, industry-specific, and political considerations—dealt with through fixed effects. Applying probit analysis to a WTO database on reported filings, we find strong evidence that retaliation was a significant motive in explaining the rise of antidumping filings over the past decade, though interesting differences emerge in the reactions to traditional and new users of antidumping.     

China's Exchange Rate Movements and Corporate Currency Invoicing Strategies

Since China introduced a new managed floating exchange rate regime in 2005, the persistent appreciation of the renminbi against the US dollar has led Chinese firms to reassess their choice of invoice currency among the dollar and other international alternatives to price their exports. The present paper performs a systematic invoice currency analysis by surveying the published literature, summarizing criteria for decision-making, and evaluating the choices available to Chinese exporters implementing currency invoicing strategies to maximize expected profits. This study finds that the euro could play an increasing role as the invoice currency of Chinese firms, although the US dollar will still play a dominant role. Chinese exporters might shift gradually from the dollar to the euro in the face of the falling dollar, balancing between the two by necessity.     

Industry‐specific Exchange Rate Fluctuations,Japanese Exports and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregressive Analysis

Using a panel vector autoregression approach and industry breakdown data for financial constraints obtained from the Bank of Japan's Tankan (Short‐Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan) database, this study empirically investigates whether and how Japanese firms' financial constraints (internal and external) influence the response of Japanese sectoral exports to an exchange rate shock. Furthermore, we use the industry‐specific real effective exchange rate data developed by to allow for different movements of real effective exchange rates across industries. It is found that financial constraints have a significant influence on Japanese exports in response to exchange rate shocks. Japanese exporters with either lower internal financial constraints or external financial constraints are less affected by the yen's appreciation. In addition, if firms face high external financial constraints, only reducing the internal financial constraints cannot help them mitigate the impact of the yen's appreciation on their exports. Thus, an accommodative financial environment also plays an important role in alleviating the impact that the yen's appreciation has on Japanese exports.     

Spanish merino wools and the nouvelles draperies: an industrial transformation in the late medieval Low Countries1

From the seventeenth century, the world's finest wools have been those produced by descendants of the Spanish merino. During the middle ages, however, England produced Europe's finest wools. Not until the fourteenth century does a distinct merino breed appear in Spain; and, before then, 'Spanish' wools were amongst the very worst in Europe, used in the production of only the very cheapest fabrics. By the late fourteenth century, some merino wools were being used in some Italian draperies; but, in the north, long‐held historic prejudices against 'Spanish' wools hindered their introduction, especially into the Low Countries' draperies, which, because of structural changes in international trade, had become re‐oriented to manufacturing luxury woollens, most woven from the finest English wools. From the 1420s, however, disastrous changes in England's fiscal policies so increased the cost of these exported wools that many of the younger Flemish draperies, the so‐called nouvelles draperies, producing imitations of the finer woollens from the older established draperies, decided to switch to Spanish merino wools (often mixed with English wools). By the mid‐fifteenth century, the merinos had indeed improved enough in quality to rival at least the mid‐range English wools. Most of the traditional draperies, however, did not adopt merino wools until much too late, and thus, by the early sixteenth century found themselves displaced by the nouvelle draperies as the leading cloth manufacturers in the Low Countries.     

Dutch and Danish agricultural exports during the First World War

Abstract

The Danish agricultural sector continued to maintain agricultural exports to Great Britain during the First World War, even when higher prices ruled on the German market. Dutch agricultural exporters, 011 the other hand. continued to sell to the highest bidder; until, in 1916, British pressure forced them to do otherwise. It was not the Danish government but the Danish cooperatives who were responsible for Danish agricultural export policy, especially in the first years of the war. More than was the case with the Dutch exporters, the Danes were highly dependent on the British market. The strong Danish cooperatives (in contrast to the weaker Dutch agricultural organizations) forced the Danish government to support their strategy in order not to lose their suppliers to the newly establishedfirms who were exporting to Germany.     

Successful Adjustment in Indian Industry: the Case of Ludhiana's Woolen Knitwear Cluster

This paper examines the case of adjustment in a labor-intensive export industry (woolen knitwear) to understand how traditional sectors in developing regions cope with external crises and rise above them. India's woolen knitwear industry, concentrated in Ludhiana, recently survived two crises—the collapse of its largest export market (the former Soviet Union), and the simultaneous opening up of the domestic market to freer trade. After an unusually short downturn, the cluster not only recovered rapidly, but is increasingly diversifying into more demanding and competitive external markets. Four factors are key to explaining this surprisingly resilient recovery. First, the best performing firms had a strong and simultaneous presence in dynamic segments of the domestic market alongside exports. This generated key organizational learning, and built managerial and production capacities that helped firms adapt quickly to more demanding markets later. Second, an important feature of the learning relationship between first-time exporters and their foreign buyers was the small-scale nature of contracts and a “customization of fit” between the producer and the feedback-giving intermediary. Third, better performing firms paid equal if not greater attention to making organizational changes in their work practices than to the purchase of new equipment. Fourth, the embedded nature of production networks, and the government's past programs to assist local firms have indirectly helped create a dynamic middle-tier of locally-rooted exporters who appear to be leading the cluster's transformation and modernization.     

Product and destination mix in export markets

This article studies the joint destination and product strategies of exporters, using the universe of export transactions for firms located in Portugal in the period 1995–2005. The article breaks down the annual growth rate of total exports along different margins and details choices made by multi-product, multi-destination firms regarding their export portfolio. In addition, the article looks at similar features for the subsample of new exporters. We find that both the firm-level extensive and intensive margins are important in driving the year-to-year variation in aggregate exports. However, variation over time in the sales of continuing exporters is mainly driven by their sales in continuing destinations. In addition, a product’s export tenure within a firm varies largely across currently exported products in the context of an intense activity of product and destination switching. Moreover, the higher the importance of a product, the more its sales are concentrated in the firm’s top destination. Finally, the article finds that, while continuing exporters enter new markets mainly by selling old products, new exporters access new destinations mainly by exporting new products.     

Exchange-Rate Policies in Emerging Countries: Eleven Empirical Regularities From Latin America and East Asia

In this paper I discuss some of the most important lessons on exchange-rate policies in emerging markets during the last 35 years. The analysis is undertaken from the perspective of both the Latin American and East Asian nations. Some of the topics addressed include: the relationship between exchange-rate regimes and growth, the costs of currency crises, the merits of “dollarization,” the relationship between exchange rates and macroeconomic stability, monetary independence under alternative exchange-rate arrangements, and the effects of the recent global “currency wars” on exchange rates in commodity exporters.     

Exporting and Productivity in the USA

Exporting is often touted as a way to increase economic growth.This paper examines the interaction between exporting and productivitygrowth in US manufacturing. While exporting plants have substantiallyhigher productivity levels, there is no evidence that exportingincreases plant productivity growth rates. The higher productivityof exporters largely predates their entry into exporting. However,within the same industry, exporters do grow faster than non-exportersin terms of both shipments and employment. Exporting is associatedwith the reallocation of resources from less efficient to moreefficient plants. In the aggregate, these reallocation effectsare quite large, making up over 40 per cent of total factorproductivity growth in the manufacturing sector. Half of thisreallocation to more productive plants occurs within industriesand the direction of the reallocation is towards exporting plants.     

English timber imports from Northern Europe in the eighteenth century

Abstract

English commercial history has tended to concern itself with tracing the pattern of exports, especially of textiles, rather than that of imports. There are, however, certain commodities on the import side that have attracted more attention than others—strategically important articles, for example, such as tar and pitch, which used to be designated as ‘naval stores’. These commodities, together with iron, constituted northern Europe's most important contribution to English imports in the eighteenth century.¹ The import of ‘naval stores’, like that of iron, was based upon northern Europe's vast forest resources combined with proximity to England. Of the regions within the orbit of English trade, only North America could boast continuous tracts of forest on a comparable scale; but the long transatlantic crossing retarded such imports from America, for wood and wood products were bulky commodities in relation to their value.     

英语专业教学中的美国非主流文化思考

随着英语专业教学的不断深入和发展,教材所选的课文也逐渐体现出多元文化的特点,不仅有主流作家的作品,也出现了黑人文学、华裔文学和印第安文学等少数裔作家的文章.少数裔作家有着与白人主流作家不同的生活方式和文化背景,在创作过程中形成了自己鲜明的特色,再加上他(她)们细致入微的观察,因此其提供的知识是丰富多维的.从美国非主流文化的角度来思考英语专业教学,可以使学生进一步扩展知识面,全面地掌握美国文化.