Trade,labour market rigidity,and aggregate productivity in OECD countries

As the economy becomes more open to trade, aggregate productivity can increase by driving out the least productive firms (the selection effect). Since the selection effect reallocates resources toward the more productive firms, this process can be hindered by rigidity in domestic labour market institutions. Based on the selection effect by Melitz (2003), this article empirically examines how rigidity in labour market institutions affects the consequence of trade on aggregate productivity. Findings from panel dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) estimators suggest that a high degree of labour market rigidity in an open economy reduces Total Factor Productivity (TFP). In particular, in the case of extremely high labour market rigidity but low foreign R&D capital stocks, openness to trade can cause a country to experience decreasing TFP.     

The warren court,inequality and the poor

This paper presents a gender perspective of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. The TAA is the primary US policy to assist the transition of workers displaced due to trade related economic restructuring. In comparison to the relatively substantial research on gendering trade policies in developing economies there is very limited focus on gendering policy responses to trade in the US. We argue that there is a specific gender trend in the trade-displacement patterns in the US which calls for a gender sensitive policy response. We examine the TAA in light of this trend and offer some suggestions for a gendered approach to providing assistance to workers negotiating an increasingly flexible global labor market.     

How to estimate market concentration given grouped data

A novel method is proposed of estimating market concentration for the census case in which firms are grouped into size classes and all that is known about the firms in each category is their number and aggregate size. The formula arises as a way of applying an alternative expression for the concentration ratio based upon the original and first moment size distributions of firms. The semi-parametric technique, which includes a method of interval as well as point estimation, is derived, applied and validated using actual and simulated data. It is anticipated that the estimator will be of use in competition analysis as well as in academic research.     

国外异质性厂商贸易理论研究综述

异质性厂商贸易理论代表了国际贸易理论最新发展趋势,研究的是微观经济主体--厂商的贸易和投资行为与自身特征的关系.厂商的市场进入方式与其生产率水平是相对应的,出口和贸易自由化能够提高行业生产率,汇率变化、贸易政策和产业集聚对厂商出口具有重要的影响,厂商进入出口市场前后存在自我选择效应和出口中学习效应,这两种效应都导致厂商生产率提高,最终生产率最高的厂商将以对外直接投资的方式进入国际市场.     

地区性行政垄断的经济增长效应

地区性行政垄断是指地方政府运用行政权力对市场竞争的限制和排斥,往往造成了要素价格扭曲,进而诱致地方保护和市场分割。本文基于一个经济增长模型,并将地区性行政垄断指数纳入该模型中,实证研究了地区性行政垄断对经济增长的影响以及这种影响在开放程度不同的地方会发生什么样的变化。结果表明,地区性行政垄断与经济增长呈倒U型关系,而且经济开放程度越高,地区性行政垄断越不利于经济增长。     

论天人合一与生态环境──台湾八八水灾的省思

人类向来就不是自然大千世界的主宰者。2009年,八八水灾重创台湾,省思缘由,是天灾也是人祸。如果无法从灾难中记取教训,灾难永远无法停止。古代人智慧结晶＂天人合一＂,是人类与大地永续经营的天然法则。从＂心＂做起,净化人心,建立人类的环保心灵,方是终止灾难的关键。万物是人类生存的主体,懂得疼惜,才能久远。处处留心皆学问,花开花落尽禅机,万物静观皆自得,一切莫名的感动与行动都是生命的活泉。     

The Scope and Limits of a Public–Private Hybrid: Dispute Settlement under NAFTA Chapter 19

Globalisation is often depicted as having led to an increase in private authority at the expense of that of the state. It is important to correctly specify the scope that private authority has achieved and the capacity of states to push back and limit that authority. This article grounds these theoretical issues in a discussion of the hybrid, public–private dispute settlement mechanism set up in the original Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (CUSTFA), and later extended into Chapter 19 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It finds that privatising the enforcement process did make a difference. Trade experts on panels saw things differently to judges and in ways that were more sympathetic to exporters. This favoured Canadian and Mexican interests. However, the arrangement lacked deep roots. It was a late-stage compromise in trade negotiations. This rendered it vulnerable to a US counterattack once panels began to rule in favour of Canadian and Mexican challenges to US trade determinations. The transfer of quasi-judicial authority to a public–private hybrid proved contingent, partly on the hegemonic state's ongoing level of comfort with the arrangement, as well as on a lack of business consensus within the United States.     

Trade and financial liberalization with asymmetric information in bank financing

We investigate trade and financial openness in a small developing country where entrepreneurs need bank financing to operate in an import‐competing sector but banks do not observe their ability. This informational asymmetry causes adverse selection of low‐ability individuals into entrepreneurship and also prevents poor but able individuals from being entrepreneurs. We find that trade opening improves national welfare, but a tax is needed on foreign financial capital. Trade opening reduces an income gap between the rich and the poor, while financial opening affects this income gap ambiguously.     

Transnational corporations' strategies and foreign trade patterns in MERCOSUR countries in the 1990s

Market-seeking strategies predominate in the recent FDI boomin MERCOSUR countries. In the trade performance of transnationalcorporation affiliates a sort of ‘asymmetric integration’is clearly visible: they produce for the internal market and,to some extent, for the regional one, while import inputs andfinal goods from developed countries (and a significant partof these trade flows is intra-firm). Thus, even if affiliatesobtained productivity gains in the 1990s, they have not yetbeen reflected in a significant increase in exports, and evenless in extra-regional exports. Hence, the foreign direct investmentboom seemingly has not yet contributed to a better insertionof MERCOSUR countries into the world economy.     

A Note on adding-up restrictions when modelling trade flows

An ad hoc rule is often required when modelling trade in multi-country models to ensure that aggregate imports equal aggregate exports in volumes and values. This paper offers an approach that offers some advantages over current methods.