Establishment heterogeneity,exporter dynamics,and the effects of trade liberalization

We study the effects of tariffs and iceberg trade costs in a two-sector dynamic variation of the Melitz (2003) model extended to include a sunk cost of exporting, establishment-level uncertainty in productivity, capital accumulation, and material usage. We calibrate the model to match both cross-sectional and dynamic aspects of US producers related to export participation and the establishment lifecycle. We find a tariff equivalent of fixed export costs of 30 percentage points. We also find that a sizeable share of export profits is a return to the organizational capital from investing in export capacity rather than creating an establishment. We use the model to estimate the effect of reducing tariffs on welfare, trade, and export participation. We find that eliminating an 8 percent tariff increases the ratio of trade to GDP from 3.9% to 7.4% and raises welfare by 1.02%. Along the transition, consumption overshoots its steady state, even as trade and the capital stock grow gradually, so that the change in steady state consumption understates the welfare gain. Models without a dynamic export decision generate more gradual aggregate transition dynamics and smaller gains from trade. Capital accumulation and material usage are important sources of the welfare gains to trade.     

Index Volume XIII – 1979

Abstract:

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 has been typically viewed as being the Republican Party’s policy response to weak farm prices which – via political logrolling – snowballed into a full-fledged, across-the-board tariff bill, wreaking havoc at home and abroad (Irwin 2011; Shattschneider 1935; Taussig 1930). Empirical evidence, however, has failed to confirm this hypothesis (Callahan, McDonald and O’Brien 1994; Destler 1986; Pastor 1980). Rather, voting patterns in the Senate have been consistent with the “party platform” hypothesis. This paper presents an alternative account of the origins of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which is in keeping with the “party platform” hypothesis, and whose results are consistent with the “log-rolling” hypothesis. Specifically, I argue that the demand for protection on the part of U.S. farmers and manufacturers in the late 1920s, and the subsequent supply of protection by the Republican Party, were the direct result of a general-purpose technology shock – namely, electrification whose diffusion throughout the 1920s led to significant excess capacity in manufacturing and agriculture. In manufacturing, more productive firms became increasingly constrained on product markets. The resulting tractorization of U.S. agriculture and the motorization (trucks and automobiles) of transportation throughout the 1920s wreaked havoc on an already weakened agricultural sector (owing to lower post-war exports) by decreasing the demand by 48,294,887 grain- and hayequivalent acres. The proposed tariff bill sought to increase domestic firms’ market share in these industries by reducing imports.     

进口需求、市场准入与我国农产品的贸易逆差

我国加入世贸组织以来，于2003—2004年间出现了农产品的贸易逆差，本文分析了农产品贸易逆差的构成及其产生原因。大豆、棉花、食用油等是我国农产品贸易逆差的主要构成产品．这些农产品进口价格和进口数量都出现了增长，而相关产业的发展导致这些农产品进口需求猛增．致使农产品贸易逆差不断扩大。另外，我国农产品关税的大幅削减以及配额管制农产品市场准入机会的扩大，也是农产品贸易逆差进一步拉大的一个重要原因。     

我国现行贸易报复机制及其适用性分析

我国作为世界贸易组织成员被赋予对采取歧视性贸易保护措施的国家(地区)实施贸易报复的权利.在"和平崛起"战略下,我国现行贸易报复机制的适用是以符合世贸组织争端解决机制为前提的,其适用的措施及其适用的范围都有其独特性.     

物流成本控制与铁路货物运价体系的完善

运输成本是制约物流成本的重要组成部分,控制运输成本对提高企业和产品的竞争力具有重大的意义。运价是决定运输成本的关键。文中对现行铁路货物运价体系的现状及弊端的进行了分析,并对如何完善铁路货物运价体系提出了设想。     

中澳自由贸易谈判中的竞争性和互补性分析

中澳自由贸易协定的谈判从2005年4月18日起正式启动,目前双方已经进行了三轮谈判。双边自由贸易的实现将是一个艰苦而漫长的过程,本文从中国和澳大利亚两国贸易关系的竞争性与互补性分析入手,阐述了签订自由贸易协定可能对两国经济发展带来的影响,并根据上述分析提出了相应的政策建议。     

Labor standards, labor-management bargaining and international rivalry

Using the labor union's bargaining power as an indication of government policy on labor standards issues, we analyze the competition between a domestic (North) firm and a foreign (South) firm, and their relationship with optimal labor standards (LS). First, we show that the optimal level of LS is higher when labor unions are employment-oriented than when they are not. Second, it is higher under free trade than under the optimal tariff system if labor unions are employment-oriented. Third, ‘a race to the bottom’ of LS occurs in the case of wage-oriented unions. Fourth, the North's imposing a tariff to force the Southern government to raise its LS is effective only if the Southern union is wage-oriented. In order to raise Southern LS, both countries may need some deeper form of economic integration, if the North does not want to abandon its free trade system.     

非关税措施量化公式评价

与直接可以用税率高低来度量其保护程度的关税不一样,非关税措施是一种隐蔽的难以直接度量其保护作用的贸易保护主义手段。本文评价了近年来国外普遍采用的非关税措施保护作用的量化方法,包括频度——类型测算法、价格对比测算法、支持率测算法的设计思路和运用状况,以便为不时发生的贸易争端和贸易谈判提供可以用来判断进口国非关税措施保护程度的分析工具。     

Preferential trade agreements between asymmetric countries: Free trade areas (with rules of origin) vs. customs unions

This paper examines differences in welfare implications between a free trade area (FTA) and a customs union (CU) for member countries differing in their market sizes. In a stylized three-country model of trade under oligopoly, we take into account the conditions that FTA members set external tariffs to induce their exporting firms to comply with rules of origin (ROO) within the trade bloc. This approach rules out trade deflection and regime switches in forming an effective FTA. The key findings are as follows: (i) Unless the difference in market size is too large and ROO are too restrictive, an FTA can be welfare-improving to countries with market size differential. (ii) The formation of a preferential trade agreement (either an FTA or a CU) is more likely to emerge between countries of similar market size. However, forming a CU allows for a greater degree of market size asymmetry than forming an FTA. (iii) Compared to the pre-PTA equilibrium, the greater reductions in external tariffs under an FTA than under a CU remain valid even for the case with market size asymmetry and preferential ROO. As such, a non-member country is relatively better off under an FTA. (iv) World welfare is higher under an FTA than under a CU when the market size asymmetry is moderate and ROO are less restrictive.     

Ranking the optimum tariff and the maximum revenue tariff in vertically related markets

This paper firstly shows that in a vertically related industry with either domestic upstream monopolist or foreign upstream monopolist, when the upstream firm adopts uniform input pricing, the optimum-welfare tariff is higher than the maximum-revenue tariff, if the number of foreign competitors is sufficiently large. Secondly, when domestic upstream monopolist adopts discriminatory input pricing, the maximum-revenue tariff is higher than the optimum-welfare tariff. Thirdly, when foreign upstream monopolist adopts discriminatory input pricing, the optimum-welfare tariff will exceed the maximum-revenue tariff if the sizes of domestic and foreign firms become more unequally distributed.