Quality heterogeneity and global economic growth

This paper develops a fully endogenous, variety-expansion growth model with firm-specific quality heterogeneity, limit pricing, and an endogenous distribution of markups. Firms with high-quality products engage in exporting, firms with intermediate-quality products serve the domestic market, and inefficient firms with low-quality products exit the market. Trade liberalization, measured by a reduction in trade costs or a decline in foreign market entry costs, generates a reallocation of resources from low-quality to high-quality products and exit of inefficient firms. However, it has ambiguous effects on the average global quality level, long-run growth, and welfare. An increase in the rate of population growth or in the intensity of trade-related knowledge spillovers accelerates economic growth. The laissez-faire equilibrium is inefficient, and this leaves room for welfare-improving government intervention.     

The influence of international trade on labour productivity in services: The case of Brazil in the 1990s

In the developing world, services account for a rising share of domestic employment and international trade. Thus, it is important to know whether trade liberalization contributes to labour productivity in services. We explore this question, examining the 1990–2000 Brazilian trade liberalization. We find that growth of imports and exports strengthened labour productivity in services, but the contribution was smaller in subsectors with more college graduates, and this negative offset was larger in subsectors that received large foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. Improved access to imported manufactured intermediate inputs raised downstream services' labour productivity and downstream manufacturing firms benefitting from tariff cuts enacted by trade partners generated spillovers that improved the labour productivity of upstream service subsectors. However, FDI inflows and investments in human and physical capital modified these downstream factors. We conclude that the Brazilian trade liberalization strengthened productivity in services, but unequally across subsectors.     

Is Foreign Direct Investment “Gender Blind”? Women's Rights as a Determinant of US FDI

The impact of women's rights on a country's competitiveness in the global economy is a source of contention. While educational opportunities for women, as well as political empowerment, are linked to a variety of positive outcomes, the impact of economic rights is mixed. Toward better understanding these issues, we focus on the role of women's rights in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). Though foreign capital plays a key role in the development strategies of many countries, and many of the growth areas in FDI rely heavily on women's labor, extant literature on the determinants of FDI largely ignores gender. To gain insight into these issues, we examine the impact of women's political, economic, and educational rights across four different types of US FDI into the developing world. We find a mixed relationship between women's rights and FDI that varies across industrial sectors.     

利率市场化、经验借鉴及应对策略--以河南地方银行为例

在分析河南地方银行现状的基础上,借鉴其他经济体利率市场化的经验教训,提出河南地方银行应对策略。地方政府应成立跨部门的机构对利率市场化改革进行研判和指导,进行跨界统一监管和提升监管能力,通过大力发展合作金融组织、社区银行等破解融资贵问题,大力发展直接融资与资产证券化业务。地方银行应继续将服务小微企业、“三农”作为利润增长点而不是不切实际地开展中间业务,推动以客户为中心的商业模式转型,增加客户黏度和价值,处置不良资产,提升利率风险和流动风险管理水平等。     

服务业开放与竞争力的国际比较研究

对中国与主要发达国家以及发展中国家的服务业开放水平进行比较分析,从国内国际两个角度来分析服务业开放与产业竞争力的联系,对提高中国服务业竞争力和市场占有率提出可以借鉴的建议。     

利率市场化背景下实体经济融资效率问题研究

在利率市场化改革进程中,应适时关注实体经济对融资成本的承受能力和对风险的防控能力以及产生的服务效率,处理好利率市场化改革与优化实体经济融资环境之间的关系,建立利率定价机制与综合考量实体经济部门融资成本承受能力之间的关系,建立利率调控框架与提升服务实体经济效率之间的关系,处理好利率市场化改革协调配套政策与市场监管效率之间的关系。     

To formalize or not to formalize: Entrepreneurship and pro-market institutions

In this paper, we examine the effects of pro-market institutions on both formal and informal entrepreneurship. While formal entrepreneurship has long been studied in economic literature, informal entrepreneurship has been less frequently discussed. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not only to examine the impact of pro-market institutions, but also to foster a better understanding of, and introduce a method to measure, informal entrepreneurship. For the purpose of this paper, pro-market institutions are broken into their two main components: economic liberalization and governance levels. The arguments posit that economic liberalization positively impacts both formal and informal entrepreneurship while governance levels have a positive impact on formal entrepreneurship but a negative effect on informal entrepreneurship. Furthermore, governance levels reduce informal entrepreneurship to a greater extent than they increase formal entrepreneurship, resulting in a net reduction in entrepreneurial activity. The analyses of a panel covering 51 countries from 2002–2009 provide robust support for these arguments.     

A gravity model to account for vertical linkages between markets with an application to the cattle/beef sector

A gravity model is developed to explain bilateral trade flows in primary and processed commodities within the same agri-food supply chain. It accounts for vertical production linkages, trade and domestic policies, and supply rigidities at the farm level. Our application focuses on cattle/beef trade flows between 42 countries. The estimated parameters of the model are used to simulate trade flows. We found large differences in the impacts of the full and partial liberalization scenarios. A parametric bootstrap procedure is used to generate confidence intervals around predicted trade liberalization outcomes.     

Product quality,firm heterogeneity and trade liberalization

This paper develops a framework for studying the general equilibrium effects of endogenous quality upgrading, a new margin of trade, on the welfare impact of trade liberalization. The theoretical model introduces product quality differentiation amongst heterogeneous firms and focuses on supply-side determinants of international trade. Among other results, in general equilibrium, trade liberalization decreases the share of high-quality varieties in exports and the average productivity of exporters. These changes affect average export price in opposite ways. Nevertheless, trade liberalization in the quality-extended model increases consumers’ welfare by more than in the benchmark model.