Antecedents to international student inflows to UK higher education: A comparative analysis

This study explores the antecedents of international student flows into UK higher education and the variations in the antecedents between home countries of origin. The results suggest that home country economic wealth and demographics, historic/linguistic link and UK government preferential policies are the important antecedents for international students from worldwide flows into the UK. However, a comparative analysis shows that a wide variety of economic, social and political factors are all important to the UK international students originally from developing economies, while home country economic wealth and population, and bilateral trade are more important than other factors in determining the students from developed countries studying in the UK. The UK government should formulate effective and flexible policies and UK HEIs should develop specific marketing strategies to attract a growing number of international students in general and from key target countries and regions in particular.     

Human capital and exports: A micro-level analysis of transition countries

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of human capital endowments on export intensity employing firm-level data for 29 transition economies. A particular focus is placed on comparing and contrasting Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEECs) with those from the former Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The impact of the share of employees with higher education, provision of on-the-job training, years of experience of the top manager and labour cost on export intensity is assessed. To test these relationships, Tobit and Fractional Logit approaches are adopted. The estimation results suggest that, overall, having a more educated workforce exerts a positive impact on the export intensity of firms in transition economies, the magnitude being larger for CEECs. Average labour cost, as an alternative measure, also turns out to exert a positive but stronger impact. Insufficient evidence is found of a role for training programmes and years of experience of the top manager.     

重新审视进口在经济增长中的作用——基于中国的实证研究

理论上,进口与经济增长间存在着一定程度的互为因果关系。但长期以来,我国政界和学界表现出高度重视出口在经济增长中的作用,而低估甚至忽视进口对经济增长的推动作用的倾向。本文认为,无论是从进口发展与GDP增长的经验数据还是从进口影响经济的经济学逻辑的角度分析,都无法获得充分的证据支持出口贸易在推动经济增长中的重要性要胜过进口贸易的观点,同时,通过对我国1980-2003年的进口贸易与经济增长数据的协整分析,指出了进口贸易在经济增长中的重要作用及其传导机制。     

Education,trade and development

A two-sector trade model with scale economies in education can account for some broad features of the contrasting development of those countries which have pursued import substitution and those pursuing export promotion, assuming that the former group is at a ‘low education’ equilibrium where relatively few workers are educated and that the latter group is at a ‘high education equilibrium’ where most workers receive an education. Our analysis suggests that the recent switch toward export promotion by countries disappointed with import substitution may fail to achieve some important development goals, unless the switch is accompanied by major initiatives in education.     

The Dynamic Links Between Exports,Foreign Direct Investment,and Economic Growth: Evidence from European Transition Economies

ABSTRACT

By applying time series and panel data cointegration analysis, this study investigates the causal relations between exports, inward FDI and GDP for fifteen European transition economies over the period 1995–2014. This study goes beyond previous empirical works by using two auxiliary variables in the aforementioned nexus: domestic investment and government spending. Empirical findings suggest that though the effect of openness is beneficial to all economies of the region, the presence of export-led growth and FDI-led growth hypotheses are validated mainly for the group of economies that entered the European Union in 2004. Conversely, for the remaining economies, the results confirm the prevalence of a culture for saving over spending, which eventually provokes the beneficial expansion of their local investment and export capacity.     

Trade Policy Issues in a Small African Economy: The Trade Policy Review of The Gambia 2004

The Gambia displays many of the classic characteristics of a small open economy, with the vulnerabilities that implies. The sum of its imports and exports are around 100 per cent of GDP, with a limited number of export commodities and a wide variety of imports, including some key staple foods. The Trade Policy Review of The Gambia 2004 provides a very helpful review and assessment of current trade patterns and policies. The latter rely predominantly on import and export taxes. While quite substantial trade reform measures have been implemented recently, these have led to only a very small reduction in the average tariff rate, and trade policy displays a substantial anti‐export bias. Other important issues highlighted by the Trade Policy Review include serious capacity constraints relating to trade policy, and a failure to discuss connections between trade policy and growth and poverty reduction – again common characteristics of many small economies.     

Strategic Trade Policies Under Monopsony and Uncertainty: The Exporter’s Non-Linear Responses Based on the Organization of Its Industry

Players’ access to information, their market power, and the timing and rationale of their decisions are important but often neglected in the making of strategic trade policies. I examine optimal decisions in a monopsonistic market with asymmetric information to determine an exporting country’s policy strategies. The large importing country first sets a producer subsidy and later imposes an import tariff after learning about the welfare-maximizing exporter’s reactions to the subsidy. I assume that at the time of their decisions, the n exporting firms have incomplete information and rely only on noisy signals from their own domestic market to account for the uncertainty in the international market. I find that import tariff and producer subsidy can be substitute rather than exclusively independent policies. Results also show that the exporting country’s optimal reaction is non-linear and is based on the structure of its export industry; the exporting country’s government facing a large importer subsidizes (or taxes) its export when the number of exporting firms is low (or high) relative to a threshold number of firms. More important, before giving out subsidies, the exporting country’s government requires more collusion of its firms especially when the large importer targets a fixed domestic price.     

湖北省对外贸易与经济增长关系的实证分析

以湖北省1981-2006年数据为样本,分别运用统计方法和计量方法分析了湖北省对外贸易与经济增长的关系。基本结论包括:湖北省货物出口和进口对经济增长的作用表现得并不稳定且不明显,产业结构变动对进出口产品结构的影响较明显;湖北省GDP增长与进口呈单向因果关系,与出口不构成显著的因果关系;从长期看,湖北省GDP与出口、进口之间存在协整关系,即存在着长期稳定的均衡关系,三者是协调一致、同步变动的。从短期来看,进口对经济增长起到了一定的促进作用,且这种促进作用要强于出口,但其本身也较小。     

Domestic Credit and Export Diversification: Africa from a Global Perspective

ABSTRACT

As open economies, African countries need to diversify their exports for economic transformation, sustained growth, and development. Meanwhile, there has been increasing importance of development financing. Following the discussion of theoretical issues on the importance of domestic credit as a potential instrument for overcoming the liquidity constraint of developing countries, as in the case of Africa, this paper empirically explores the determinants of export diversification, with particular attention to domestic credit. The estimation is based on a five-year panel regression analysis for the 1962–2010 period involving 80 countries around the world, of which 62 are developing and 29 African countries, using as covariates variables traditionally viewed as affecting export diversification. System GMM estimates provide robust evidence supporting the importance of domestic credit for African countries, while its role in other countries seems rather marginal. In addition, human capital in the form of schooling, governance as measured by constraint on the chief executive of government, and being land-locked, all exert significant effects, as anticipated, on export diversification among African countries. However, except for governance, appropriately controlling for the interactive effect of domestic credit with ‘Africa’ yields generally insignificant impacts of these variables, together with domestic credit, on export diversification in non-African countries. These results point to the dominant role of domestic credit in Africa vis-à-vis other countries globally.     

论出口、消费与产出增长

本文采用时间序列和面板数据,对二战后11个高速增长经济体的出口、消费和产出三个变量之间的因果关系进行计量检验。对单个经济体的时间序列数据进行三变量向量自回归估计后发现,这些经济体的三变量之间存在不同的因果关系,并没有一般性的规律;而将这些经济体在1978-1996年的三变量进行面板向量自回归并进行因果检验后的结果显示,存在显著的出口和产出之间的双向因果关系,以及消费和产出的双向因果关系。本文的分析结果表明,对于快速赶超的发展中经济体,经济增长应该注意维持内部和外部的平衡,既重视出口也重视消费对经济增长的拉动作用。     

Impacts of Emerging Asia on African and Latin American Trade: Projections to 2030

Rapid growth in Asia's emerging economies has boosted export earnings of resource‐rich economies over the past decade. Whether or not those high growth rates continue, how will structural changes in Asia alter the relative importance of their imports of primary products? This paper projects production and trade patterns of Africa and Latin America to 2030 under various growth and policy scenarios in Asia, using the GTAP model of the global economy. We compare a projection assuming relatively conservative economic growth in China and India with a projection in which those economies continue to grow rapidly (albeit slower than in the previous decade). We then compare our conservative growth baseline with two alternative scenarios: one assuming Africa and Latin America choose to invest more in public agricultural R&D to take advantage of Asian import growth; the other assuming China and India dampen that import growth by restricting their imports of key food grains (following the historical pattern of economies such as Japan and Korea). The final section summarises the results and draws out policy implications for Latin America and Africa.     

《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》的经济效应及产业产出分析

为进一步推进《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》进程,东盟及中国、日本、韩国、澳大利亚、新西兰、印度等亚太地区的各个经济体通过“抱团”的方式增强亚太地区的经济实力,提高国际贸易的话语权。本文分析《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员在亚太地区的经济规模以及各个成员经济体的产业竞争优势,运用GTAP9.0数据库和一般均衡模型,以逐步降低《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》内部成员之间关税水平的方式,探讨《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员的宏观经济及产业产出情况。随着《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员内部关税水平的逐步降低直至零关税水平,成员经济体的进出口贸易、福利水平等方面都有不同程度的增加,中国、日本、韩国、澳大利亚、新西兰等国的国内经济产出增加、贸易条件得到改善,而印度和东盟的国内经济出现一定程度的负效应、贸易条件出现小幅恶化现象;同时,各个成员方的产业互补优势更加明显。     

International Market Segmentation and Cross-Export Strategies Development Case Study: Iranian Furniture Industry

ABSTRACT

By developing an international market and significant differences between countries in this regard, segmentation becomes an increasingly important concept in marketing. In this article, the international market of Iranian furniture industry is segmented and cross-exporting strategies are developed to increase the market share of Iranian furniture in each segment. To achieve this, two distance functions are introduced based on correlation between export groups to cluster countries with k-means algorithm. After market segmentation for increasing sales in each segment, cross-exporting strategies are predicted by extracting association rules in each segment based on Apriori algorithm to set export baskets.     

东亚经济一体化的贸易与投资效应

20世纪80年代以来,东亚区域(10+3)经济一体化取得长足的进展,经济区域化给东亚地区带来显著的经济绩效。文章根据区域经济一体化理论,深入地分析了东亚经济区域化带来的区域内贸易和投资效应,并通过计量模型对东亚地区的FDI与贸易的关系进行了检验,发现在东亚FDI与进口和出口都是互补关系,即FDI促进了东亚地区的贸易发展。     

Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Integration in Mercosur: Argentina and Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between economic integration and fiscal decentralization for Argentina and Brazil. Economic openness adds costs and benefits to fiscal decentralization, beyond those analyzed in closed economies. The relationships among variables with panel data for the period 1988–2005 are estimated. The innovation of the article lies in considering decentralization at the level of states/provinces. In Brazil, the effect of openness on decentralization is negative and significant, both for expenditures and revenues; in Argentina, the effect is negative or not significant. This difference between countries is based on the different structure of subnational government financing.     

The Role of Economics in the Management Curriculum

Abstract

The economic transition in the Central and Eastern European Countries provides a unique opportunity to observe the evolution of economies from planned systems to more market-oriented and decentralized systems. Aside from the bounty of economic policy issues raised by such a transition, a more fundamental adjustment involves the design of education for the future managers in these economies and, in particular, the role of economics-a subject at the core of the transition-in the management curriculum. Using the MBA curriculum as its focus, this paper discusses both the rationale for including economics in the program for various curric-ular models and the particular relevance of the subject to management students in the transition environment.     

美国《国家出口战略》的地区与国别战略剖析

根据许多专家学者和政府官员的研究,1993年至今克林顿政府出台了十份指导美国出口的《国家出口战略》,作为报告主要内容之一的地区与国别战略主要包括新兴大市场战略、拉丁美洲战略和传统出口市场战略。报告实施十年来的成效体现在整个报告的绩效评估体系、预算拨款体系和对整个美国产业和贸易发展的影响上。     

INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMPOSITION AND MEDIUM-RUN GROWTH: Evidence of a Causal Relationship

The motivation for this article stems from Mazumdar's (1996) hypothesis that international trade composition impacts a country's ability to achieve transitional economic growth. In his article, Mazumdar suggested that developing economies, generally known for exporting consumption goods and importing capital goods, benefit more from international trade than do developed economies. In addition to static gains, developing economies experience a decline in the replacement costs of capital as the relative price of capital falls with trade. To empirically test this hypothesis, a trade composition variable is created using unpublished SITC export and import data of both consumption and capital goods. Incorporating this variable into a linear equation, a Granger Causality test and a more extensive VAR test are performed for a select group of developed and developing economies. The empirical results are suggestive, and indicate some support for the hypothesis that trade composition "causes" medium-run transition.     

Tariff evasion in global trade data

ABSTRACT

We find evidence of pervasive tariff evasion in the global data on trade from 1988 to 2015. Using over 35 million observations of data on import and export flows at the HS6 product category level, we find evidence of substantial underreporting of imports relative to export data on average and particularly when tariffs on product categories are high. These effects are stronger in more corrupt destination countries, as measured by the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators [World Bank. 2016. Worldwide Governance Indicators. September 25, 2016]. In addition, evidence of tariff evasion increases significantly in economic downturns. We document these patterns in the global data and explore the welfare effects of this evasion by (1) putting a lower bound on the extent to which there are revenue losses from tariff evasion, and by (2) estimating the effects of corruption as measured by this indicator on global trade in a simple gravity model. We estimate that in total, revenue losses from tariff evasion are currently likely to exceed 400 to 670 million USD globally per year, and find that the effects of corruption on trade flows are ambiguous overall but change from weakly positive (‘grease the wheels’) to largely negative over the years in our sample.     

从国外部门角度对战前日本总供求态势的研究——基于M-L条件和贸易条件学说的分析

对日本1900～1937年宏观经济的数量分析表明,Ex+|Em|=0.74<1,即不能满足马歇尔—勒纳条件;同时,日本的贸易条件与贸易收支为弱正相关,即如无政府干预,贸易收支的改善则依赖进出口物价而不是进出口物量。因此,数量分析支持日本的总供求态势属"供给约束型"的逻辑结论。笔者认为,分析战前日本宏观经济运行时,不应使用以"需求约束型经济"为上位前提的理论框架,特别是凯恩斯经济学的理论。