Regional integration in Africa versus higher levels of intra-Africa trade

Regional integration arrangements have mushroomed worldwide, both on intra-regional and extra-regional levels. On an intra-regional level, Africa faces a complicated grid of multiple and overlapping membership of several regional integration organisations, aiming to increase intra-regional trade and cooperation. In this study, a comparative analysis will be executed, based on an intra-regional breakdown of trade, using the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa classification of countries according to geographical region. The level of intra-regional trade will be determined, whereafter the level of inter-regional trade will be established and, lastly, trade with the rest of the world. It seems that despite the high level of regional integration within Africa, it does not necessarily stimulate intra-Africa trade to expected levels as proposed by literature. A regional integration strategy that would cause deeper integration is crucial if the continent is to play a rightful role in the global arena.     

From imperial to regional trade preferences: Its effect on europe’s intra- and extra-regional trade

From Imperial to Regional Trade Preferences: Effect on Europe's Intra- and Extra-Regional Trade. - Europe's switch from imperial to regional trade preferences has certainly raised the share of its trade that is intra-regional, but this does not necessarily mean Europe is becoming less economically integrated with the rest of the world. This paper shows that the propensity for European GDP to be traded with non-Europeans - which trebled during the hundred years to 1928 - has fallen little since then. The reason is that the re-direction of Europe's trade has been accompanied by a considerable degree of opening up to trade with non-Europeans. Data are also presented for Eastern and Western Europe separately from 1928. The hope is that Europe's latest regional integration initiatives will be able to continue this trend, rather than lead to a “Fortress Europe” outcome.     

区域经济金融合作:东亚应对全球失衡的必然选择

从中长期来看，全球国际收支失衡不断向主要几个国家和地区集中是不可持续的，东亚国家面临极大的风险。这一背景下，加强东亚区域经济金融合作是必然的选择。东亚国家和地区应完善区域合作协调机制、加强区域货币和贸易投资合作，并进一步促进亚洲债券市场发展。     

Trade Liberalization and National Food Security: Rice Trade between Bangladesh and India

Following a poor harvest in late 1997 and a massive flood in 1998, private sector traders in Bangladesh imported several million metric tons of rice from India. This paper presents evidence that this trade, made possible by separate trade liberalizations in India and Bangladesh in the early 1990s, augmented domestic supplies and stabilized prices in Bangladesh at import parity levels. Letters of credit data indicating the participation of hundreds of importers, and a close correlation of price movements across the two countries suggest that the trade was competitive. A risk of co-incident crop shortfalls in the two countries remains, though these have occurred rarely in the past two decades. Bangladesh imports from alternative sources would also enhance food availability if another production shortfall occurs, but these imports face higher transport costs and would involve far fewer importing firms given the economies of scale of shipments by sea.The positive contribution of trade liberalization to short-run food security in Bangladesh in recent years does not minimize the importance of increased agricultural productivity and rural economic growth to provide rural poor households with sufficient incomes to acquire food. Nonetheless, the Bangladesh experience shows that trade liberalization offers potential benefits for national food security by enabling a rapid increase of food supplies following domestic production shortfalls.     

Changes in world trade

Summary In the last twenty years world trade has displayed not only a rapid growth rate but also considerable changes in composition of goods and regional structure. In particular the trade in industrial products has strongly increased in both absolute and relative terms. Intra-industry trade has also played an important part in this. Trade policy and regional industrialization are the principal factors explaining the latter phenomenon.The relatively rapid increase in the trade in industrial products in respect of the world production of these goods proves to be a recent phenomenon, which did not occur before 1914. The causes that may be adduced for this — rapid economic growth, lowering of trade barriers and regional economic integration — will probably no longer occur in the near future. The possibility of a slower growth rate for world trade thus seems considerable.The figures for the tables were collected by H. van Harten, econ. cand., and by H. Hoytink, econ. cand., to whom I should like to express my gratitude.     

Empirical study on intra-regional bond investment: an application to East Asia

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, bond market development has been one of the central pillars of financial cooperation in East Asia, with concerted efforts made by the East Asian economies to integrate regional bond markets. As a result, aggregate intra-regional bond investment expanded from US$49.56 billion in 2003 to US$352.18 billion in 2017. This paper examines the pattern and determinants of intra-regional bond investment in East Asia. We analyse regional foreign holdings of long-term and short-term bonds in eight East Asian economies. Bond market size turns out to be the main concern of regional foreign investors participating in East Asian long-term bond markets. This analysis also highlights the importance of bond issuance and bond yield volatility in attracting regional foreign short-term bond investment. Therefore, initiatives to improve regional bond market development may be crucial to stimulating intra-regional bond investment and in turn enhance East Asian financial stability.     

全球价值链贸易对区域贸易协定发展的影响研究

国际贸易自20世纪90年代以来呈现出两大重要特征,即全球价值链(GVC)分工细化和区域贸易协定日益深化。文章使用1995~2015年的联合国贸发会议Eora26投入产出数据匹配CEPII引力数据和世界银行的贸易协定深度数据,实证研究了双边GVC贸易强度对RTA发展的影响机制。研究发现,GVC贸易强度增加会显著提高RTA签订概率和深度,在处理了潜在内生性和更换实证模型等方法后结论依然十分稳健。由于南北方国家存在较大的机制性差异,在北-北贸易模式下GVC贸易强度对RTA深化发展的影响作用更大,尤其是RTA关键条款。考虑到条款的法律可执行性,仅在北-北模式中GVC贸易会对RTA关键条款深度起到显著促进作用,在南-南模式中这一机制仅局限在边境关税类条款中,而在南-北模式下的贸易强度增加反而会降低RTA深度。文章的实证结论为当前中国签订RTA提供了很好的思路和经验证据。     

Cross-border portfolio investment in the APEC region

This paper aims to establish a firm understanding of the structure and determinants of bilateral portfolio investment among APEC economies. The paper demonstrates that APEC membership has a significantly positive relationship with financial transactions among members. That is, as compared with non-members, APEC member economies purchase more equities and long-term bonds from other APEC member economies. However, the APEC membership effect is not uniform: the positive effect of APEC membership is mainly due to the overshadowing role of East Asian countries. This finding is especially evident for equities, rather than for long-term bonds. This paper also shows that a large part of the regional financial market integration in the APEC region is due to strong linkages of intra-regional goods trade in the region.     

Vertical trade and China's export dynamics

This paper examines how China's exports are affected by exchange rate shocks from countries that supply intermediate inputs to China. We build a simple small open economy model with intermediate goods trade to show that due to the intra-regional trade in intermediate goods, a devaluation of other Asian currencies does not necessarily hurt China's exports, as imported intermediate goods could become cheaper. The effect of intermediate goods costs depends critically on the share of intermediate goods used in China's export goods production and the degree of exchange rate pass-through in imported intermediate goods prices. If prices for intermediate goods are not very sticky, the effect through this channel could be large, and China's exports could even benefit. We find that these findings do not depend on China's choice of currency invoicing between the RMB and the US dollar or the choice between fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes.     

Blue Box Policy Reform in the Doha Round Negotiations： Effects and China＇s Position

This paper uses an agricultural trade policy simulation model to quantitatively evaluate the effects of Blue Box policy reform on agricultural production and trade, and further provides specific proposals regarding China ＇ s reform position. The results indicate that, if the reform could achieve a reduction in distorting supports in more developed countries, China＇ s total agricultural production would increase, accompanied by a decrease in agricultural imports and a slight increase in exports. In terms of social welfare, producers would gain significantly, consumers would lose and government would not suffer greatly, which is in accordance with current agricultural policies in China. As a core member of G20, China should approve a subsidy level as low as possible required by Blue Box to achieve ＂substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic supports＂.     

Trade Destruction and Trade Diversion: Evidence from China

Over the past three decades, we have seen a dramatic increase in the incidence of temporary trade barriers such as antidumping duties and countervailing duties. China has been at the receiving end of a large number of such measures. In this paper, we study how China's exports to its major trade partners have been affected when its major trade partners have used these measures either against China or against other countries. We find that Chinese exports to the country that imposed an antidumping duty decreased by approximately 35 percent. At the same time, an antidumping duty used by the importing country that was directed towards other countries but not against China led to an approximate 30‐percent increase in China's exports to the policy‐imposing country. These results remain robust across various specifications. Our findings have important policy implications. In particular, the magnitude of these effects highlights why it is important to curb the recent widespread use of these barriers.     

Structural reform,intra-regional trade,and medium-term growth prospects of East Asia and the Pacific—Perspectives from a new multi-region model

This paper analyses the potential benefits from reforms aimed at promoting domestic demand in the region, as well as the effects of slower growth in the US and the G3 (US, euro area, and Japan) on the members of the Executives’ Meeting of East Asian-Pacific Central Bank (EMEAP). The analysis is based on simulation scenarios using an expanded version of the IMF Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal (GIMF) model which is particularly useful for conducting medium-term policy analysis, as it incorporates rich layers of intra-regional trade, production, and demand allowing the transmission mechanism of structural reforms and external shocks to be fully articulated. The simulation results show that reforms to rebalance the pattern of demand in regional economies (such as Mainland China) more towards domestic demand could entail non-negligible benefits for the EMEAP. These benefits could be even larger for those economies that more flexibly adjust to the shift in China's trade pattern. The simulation results also demonstrate that structural reforms in EMEAP economies will allow them to reduce vulnerabilities to economic downturns in major economies.     

Impact of RMB Appreciation on Trade and Labor Markets of China and the USA： A Multi-country Comparative General Equilibrium Model

Since the recent economic crisis, the undervaluation of China's exchange rate has been a focus in the debate on the global policy mix. Using a non‐competitive input–output table, we establish a comparative‐static general equilibrium model to simulate the impact of real exchange rate changes on Sino–US trade and labor markets. The simulation shows that the impacts of a 10‐percent RMB revaluation on the trade surplus of China and the labor market of the USA are more modest than is generally perceived, and the negative impact on the output of the non‐processing industry in China is more significant than that on the processing industry. The Sino–US trade imbalance will continue to deteriorate, China's non‐processing trade surplus will decline and the processing trade will increase, with the combined effect being small. For the USA, labor‐intensive goods imported from China will shift to different Asian countries instead of transferring back to the US market. The simulation results indicate that the impacts of an RMB revaluation on both Chinese and US labor markets would be limited.     

实际汇率对欧元区内出口贸易影响的实证分析

汇率是调节一国进出口贸易的重要工具,在欧元区由于使用统一的货币,这使得成员国无法通过改变汇率来调节本国的进出口贸易,而成员国的通货膨胀率的不同造成了欧元区各国的实际汇率并不相同,实证分析发现,实际汇率与区内出口贸易存在着明显的负相关,实际汇率每增加1%,区内出口就会减少2.39%。     

贸易开放度、劳动力市场扭曲与全要素生产率——基于省级面板数据的实证分析

基于空间计量模型,使用中国省级层面数据探究劳动力市场扭曲程度和贸易依存度对地区全要素生产率的影响.研究结果表明,劳动力市场扭曲抑制了地区经济增长,贸易开放水平对经济发展有着正向促进作用.对比中国不同区域可以发现,东部地区在劳动力市场与国际贸易市场上发展较为完善,中西部地区还需缓和中西部地区农业部门与非农部门的劳动力市场不平衡、增加贸易对外开放程度、增加企业自主研发等方式来提升地区全要素生产率.     

How does trade affect the labor market? Evidence from Japanese manufacturing

This paper investigates how increased trade has affected labor demand at different levels of skills in Japanese manufacturing since the 1980s. First, the estimated loss of employment in aggregate manufacturing attributable to increased imports between 1980 and 1990 is 4.7 percent of the 1980 level of employment. Second, the rate of change in the relative wage of non-production to production workers attributable to the change in trade between 1980 and 1990 is 2.4 percent or less. These findings suggest that the effect of increased trade on the Japanese manufacturing labor market in the 1980s is not yet very large.     

Do Exporting Firms Pay Higher Wages? Evidence from Kenya's Manufacturing Sector

Abstract: When trade liberalization was first embarked on in Kenya some 20 years ago, a key argument against it was that it would reduce domestic wages, as exporting firms sought to remain competitive versus, for example, the low‐cost Asian countries. A counter argument was that manufactured exports require more elaborate design, supervision, packaging and handling, and thus a more educated labor force than production for the domestic market. To attract such skills, exporting firms would need to pay higher wages than non‐exporting ones. This paper uses data from Kenyan manufacturing to study the impact of trade liberalization on earnings, distinguishing between exporting and non‐exporting firms. In particular, it investigates whether exporting firms paid a wage‐premium to their employees. The study uses manufacturing firm survey data from a World Bank regional project. The study has three important findings: (1) There was a large and significant effect of exporting on wages in the first decade of trade liberalization. During the first half of the 1990s, workers in exporting firms earned up to 30 percent more than those engaged in non‐exporting firms. The results are robust even after controlling for individual and firm‐level characteristics such as employee demographics, productivity, firm location and occupation. (2) After a decade of trade liberalization, exporting ceased to be a significant determinant of wages in Kenyan manufacturing, after controlling for productivity and firm location. (3) During the 2000s, casual or irregular employment became a more common feature of exporting firms. The results suggest that while higher wages were important in attracting skilled labor to exporting firms at the beginning of trade liberalization in the 1990s, domestic competition has since reduced the wage premium. Cost cutting pressures are instead reflected in the substitution of casual and low wage labor for permanent and better educated labor and in increased automation.     

日本制造业产品架构的比较优势及其对东亚区域内贸易模式的影响

自20世纪90年代以来,东亚开始逐步形成以集成化产品、模块化生产和区域内贸易三位一体的产业一贸易格局.近年来,日本为了确保制造业的竞争优势,尝试对产品架构进行调整.其中,模块型架构程度高的产品生产比较适合水平产业内分工;整合型架构程度高的产品生产则比较适合垂直产业内分工.随着东亚区域内中间产品和零部件市场规模的扩大,不...