The Welfare of Nations in a Globalized Economy

Is free trade always good for advanced industrialized countries? Are fears of globalization and outsourcing imaginary, totally unfounded, and misguided? Is the West always going to benefit from technological improvements in the East? This article constructs a few thought experiments to analyze such issues. The article provides some rational insight into the puzzle of why global trade is so controversial. The effects of technological improvements in the East on the welfare of both the East and the West are analyzed. The conclusion highlights some of the less desirable effects of outsourcing in a more globalized world.     

Retail recovery from natural disasters: New Orleans versus eight other United States disaster sites

This study seeks to determine retail recovery patterns after a natural disaster and to provide useful information for areas recovering from a major disaster. The New Orleans metropolitan area serves as the primary area studied in this research due to Hurricane Katrina's status as the most costly natural disaster in the history of the United States. Eight additional cities that were impacted by natural disaster were also investigated in order to compare and contrast the retail recovery rate ofthese cities to New Orleans across 10 retail categories. The Yellow Pages telephone book and the United States Census of Retail Trade were utilized to determine recovery rates and the existence of possible patterns of recovery in each of the 10 retail categories. The analysis also includes a provision for population shifts due to the respective disasters. The results, which demonstrate both consistencies and inconsistencies across the disaster recovery areas, are discussed and future direction for retail recovery research is advanced.     

How and how far to liberalize a developing economy with informal sector and factor market distortions

Whether a liberalizing developing economy should implement the entire WTO-prescribed package, and to what extent this is expedient, are two important questions, especially because the available empirical evidence suggests that developing countries have been facing substantial adjustment costs in their endeavour to implement trade and investment reform. The present paper makes a humble effort to provide answers to the above questions in terms of a three-sector general equilibrium model with informal sectors. Welfare implications of three liberalization policies: inflow of foreign capital, tariff reduction and labour market reform, have first been analysed in a full-employment framework. Later, the paper has been extended into a Harris?–?Todaro framework with an urban informal sector and capital market distortion. We have shown that welfare consequences of a tariff reform and/or a policy of deregulating the labour market crucially depend on the presence and magnitude of foreign capital in the economy. It is argued here that unless a proper choice among different prescribed policies, compatible with the internal institutional, technological and trade-related characteristics, is made, drastic implementation of reform measures may produce counterproductive results for the welfare of the relevant country.     

Impact of trade openness on GDP growth: Does TFP matter?

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to empirically explore the impact of trade openness on GDP growth initiating with the idea that trade openness cannot be fully characterized through the different openness measures only, we propose to account for total factor productivity (TFP) development level as an additional dimension of countries’ trade integration. Our empirical application is based on 35 years’ balanced panel of 82 countries spanning 1980–2014. To address the potential endogeneity issue, we use the system GMM estimator developed for dynamic panel data models. The results outline that there exists an interesting non-linear pattern between trade openness and GDP growth when TFP development level is taken as an intervening variable into account: trade may have a negative impact on GDP growth when countries have specialized in low-TFP development level; trade openness clearly boosts GDP growth once countries exhibit a minimum threshold of TFP development level. Therefore, there is some pattern of complementarity between trade openness and TFP development level so that the higher the TFP development level, the higher the impact of the trade openness on GDP growth.     

不完全竞争、贸易与资源配置扭曲

传统理论认为,随着全球化的深入,市场竞争加强,垄断程度会越来越低,因此当市场处于开放的状态下,贸易被认为能够帮助纠正垄断定价带来的资源配置扭曲。然而数据显示,行业间和地区间的成本加成异质性随着时间增长在不断扩大,贸易使垄断力量差异变大。由于行业进入壁垒不同,贸易对竞争程度不同的行业影响不同,进入壁垒低的行业由于更易于参与贸易,成本加成相比于进入壁垒高的行业进一步降低,这也预示着各行业间的成本加成差别将会变大,资源配置扭曲的程度加深。本文试图建立一个包含不完全竞争的一般均衡模型,说明开放部分行业的贸易政策会导致福利损失,而市场进入壁垒的消除能纠正不对称贸易自由化造成的资源配置扭曲。     

The choice of trade regime: delayed reform under productivity fluctuations and cost of structural change

Despite the advantages of international trade, a number of countries have stuck to restricted trade regimes, allowing the productivity gap between themselves and the “trading” world to become huge before turning to a more outward oriented trade policy. As a supplement to the existing explanations for the hesitation to change trade regime, we present a model where the international productivity development shared by open economies, is uncertain. Due to uncertainty, it might be optimal to wait and maybe exercise the option to change trade regime later, i.e. to delay a trade reform.     

Adjustment,trade policy and investment slumps: evidence from east asia ∗

This paper presents a model of investment in five East Asian economies over the 1970s and 80s, paying particular attention to the impact of the policy reforms which have accompanied Structural Adjustment Programmes. A priori, the impact of trade reform on investment can be positive or negative; in practise, it is found to be negative.     

我国出口贸易结构的特征及优化对策

2007-2011年期间,我国出口贸易结构出现了一些新特征和新问题,主要表现在出口商品结构中初级产品以食品为主、工业制成品以化学制品为主,出口国别市场多元化发展态势明显,外商投资企业仍是我国外贸出口主体等.对此,我国应打造良好的国内产业结构优化环境、强化出口企业创建自主品牌和核心技术观念、调整加工贸易战略和实施出口市场多元化战略,实现出口贸易结构优化和对外贸易持健康发展.     

关于建立两岸自由贸易区的国际法思考

中国与中国台北同时入世，对海峡两岸的经贸关系必将产生重大影响。在WT0法律框架下，建立两岸自由贸易区，不仅有现实必要性，而且具有法律上的可行性。应坚持“一个中国”原则和政治分歧不影响经济合作、两岸经贸关系平等、友好协商等方针，借鉴欧盟、北美自由贸易区、东盟等国际组织的经验，建立适合于两岸情形的自由贸易区法律模式。     

中国大豆产业国际竞争力分析

本文介绍了中国大豆进出口现状以及通过国际竞争力评价指标体系说明中国大豆出口的竞争优势与劣势，综合中国大豆产业所存在的问题和所具有的优势，提出在WTO的规则下，中国应采取的对策。