石油净进口大国利率与油价对净出口的影响

传统贸易理论在研究影响一国净出口因素时只考虑了汇率和收入水平,本文在此基础上加入了利率和油价因素,并以美、中、日三个石油净进口大国为例进行了实证分析,结果表明利率上升减少投资需求,降低国内物价水平,增强出口商品价格竞争力,使出口增加,进口减少;油价上涨,石油进口支出增加,一国进口总额增加。实证和理论分析结果基本相符,即净出口与利率呈正向关系,与油价呈负向关系。     

Can the Japanese agri-food producers survive under freer trade? A general equilibrium analysis with farm heterogeneity and product differentiation

The roles of firm heterogeneity and product differentiation in the manufacturing industries have attracted research attention on the “new new trade theory.” The agricultural sectors also produce new goods using product differentiation through breeding, branding, and other activities. In reaction to globalization, the Japanese Government has sought to revitalize its agri-food sectors by promoting exports of differentiated products. This computable general equilibrium study examines the relevance of this policy, focusing on five agri-food sectors other than grains. We simulate Japan’s three trade deals and a policy intervention that cuts fixed export costs to promote exports. We show that only a few agri-food sectors can increase exports and maintain domestic output under freer trade, and that export promotion would markedly increase entrants into export markets and increase exports of the vegetables and fruit, and processed food product sectors. In these trade deals, tariff and nontariff barriers have different impacts on trade, output, and farm/firm entry.     

China’s Exports during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused various economic contraction in most countries, including all of China’s major trading partners. Using a difference-in-differences model, this study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China’s monthly exports from January 2019 to May 2020. We find strong and robust evidence that China’s exports to countries at high risk from the pandemic experienced a larger decline than exports to low-risk countries after the onset of the pandemic, with the prices of exports increasing significantly. Furthermore, the results of a triple differences model show heterogeneous effects across different industries and goods. Chinese industries located upstream in the global value chain are more vulnerable than those located downstream. Industries with high labor and contract intensity (proxies for processing trade) experienced greater declines than other industries. Exports of goods with high import elasticity of substitution experienced higher prices and moderate volume losses due to the pandemic.     

Firm heterogeneity and aggregate business services exports: Micro evidence from Belgium,France, Germany and Spain

This paper uses detailed micro data on services exports at the firm–destination–service level to analyse the role of firm heterogeneity in shaping aggregate services exports in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain from 2003 to 2007. We decompose the level and the growth of aggregate services exports into different trade margins paying special attention to firm heterogeneity within countries. We find that the weak export growth of France is at least partly due to poor performance by small exporters. By contrast, small exporters are the most dynamic contributors to the aggregate exports of Belgium, Germany and Spain. Our results highlight the importance of firm heterogeneity in understanding aggregate export growth.     

Assessing the sustainability of external imbalances in the European Union

We assess the sustainability of the current account (CA) balance, net international investment position (NIIP) and net external debt (NED) in a sample of 22 EU countries using two complementary approaches. First, we employ time‐series stationarity tests of current account balance‐to‐GDP ratios as well as cointegration tests of exports and imports of goods and services. Second, we assess the level of trade balance that stabilises the NIIP and the NED. We find that there is sustainability of the CA balance in eight countries, NIIP in five countries and NED in 10 countries, whereas there is evidence of a lack of sustainability in five debtor nations and three creditor nations. Both approaches are consistent with each other given the relationship between flows and stocks, the existence of structural breaks, and valuation effects via exchange rate and interest rate changes.     

The weak linkages between processing exports and the internal economy. The Mexican case

The aim of this paper is to show the internal linkages of manufacturing exports and the rest of the economy. We take the Mexican economy as the case of study. Manufacturing exports constitute the most of exports and processing exports (maquiladora) represent an important part of them. We consider the indirect domestic value added contained in Mexican manufacturing exports, dividing them into exports from the internal economy and the maquiladora industry. We show that the internal backward linkages of exports are weak, that only a few sectors produce inputs for exports, and that the forward linkages are weak too because the Mexican maquiladora industry assembles imported parts and components into final goods for export. The actual picture is quite different from that presented by Hirschman [(1958) The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven, Yale University Press], who argued that the manufacturing sector plays a key role to promote economic growth because of its dense forward and backward internal linkages.     

Global and local food value chains in Africa: A review

The rapid expansion of agrifood exports from low- and middle-income countries and the contribution of global value chains to rural development are well-documented in the literature. Also, studies on modernization of domestic food value chains in these countries are emerging. Yet, the linkages between global and local value chains are rarely studied. On the one hand, the development and expansion of global value chains may create competition with local value chains for land, labor, water, soil nutrients, and other resources. On the other hand, positive spillover effects, such as investment, technical or institutional spillovers, may occur and spur the development of local value chains. In this article, we put forward a conceptual discussion on the type of linkages between global and local value chains, and how these depend on crop and value chain characteristics. We review the empirical evidence on these linkages. Our focus is on Africa, where agrifood exports and global value chains evolved rapidly and where challenges remain to upgrade and increase efficiency in local food value chains.     

Technology from emerging markets: Why serendipity played a role in exports of Brazilian software

Brazilian software exports still do not match a relatively high local prowess in the matter. The negative country of origin image for technology products may only emphasize a tendency to avoid international exposure among entrepreneurs. I suggest that lack of self‐esteem may play an important part in hindering Brazilian competitiveness and I point out to the roots of the negative portrayal of themselves, buying in to the negative image that gives place to the country of origin effect. Much of this interpretation may be relevant to other former colonies and are applicable to other creative industries. I draw on three cases in which Brazilian software companies awaited foreigners to invite them to export and I illustrate that a strong Brazilian reluctance to expose themselves abroad may be at play. I seek to explain the roots of that reluctance in a lack of worldliness as well as in an attitude that may have psychoanalytical foundations grounded in genesis of Brazil and in the way this development affected its institutions and the people's Weltanschauung. The policy implications are significant, as expecting Brazilians technology entrepreneurs to sell technology products at fairs, may be the wrong way to go. Instead, an export policy that allows for building partnerships capable of allowing for mitigating risks, building affective relationships, and better understanding of the other will require rebalancing policies, that is, less participation in fairs and more two‐way internships, policies which are likely to render more palpable results among Brazilians and possibly among other former colonial nations.     

Food self-sufficiency: Making sense of it,and when it makes sense

Food self-sufficiency gained increased attention in a number of countries in the wake of the 2007–08 international food crisis, as countries sought to buffer themselves from volatility on world food markets. Food self-sufficiency is often presented in policy circles as the direct opposite of international trade in food, and is widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency. This paper takes a closer look at the concept of food self-sufficiency and makes the case that policy choice on this issue is far from a straightforward binary choice between the extremes of relying solely on homegrown food and a fully open trade policy for foodstuffs. It shows that in practice, food self-sufficiency is defined and measured in a number of different ways, and argues that a broader understanding of the concept opens up space for considering food self-sufficiency policy in relative terms, rather than as an either/or policy choice. Conceptualizing food self-sufficiency along a continuum may help to move the debate in a more productive direction, allowing for greater consideration of instances when the pursuit of policies to increase domestic food production may make sense both politically and economically.     

Do foreign workers reduce trade barriers? Microeconomic evidence

This paper provides evidence that foreign workers reduce firms’ trade costs and thus increase the probability that firms export. This informs both the literature on trade costs and the microeconomic literature on firms’ export behaviour. We identify the nationality of each worker in a large sample of German establishments and relate this to the exporting behaviour of these establishments. We allow for the possible endogeneity of an establishment's workforce by instrumenting the share of foreign workers with the regional distribution of foreign workers in the wider labour market. We find a significant effect of worker nationality on exporting which is not driven by the industrial, occupational or locational concentration of migrants. The effect is much stronger for senior occupations, who are more likely to have a role in exporting decisions by the establishment. The relationship is also stronger when we consider exports to particular regions and workers from these regions, consistent with a gravity model in which trade flows from country i to j are a function of migrants from j in i.