China’s fare share? The growth of Chinese exports in world trade

The growth of Chinese exports in market share over the past two decades is a singular event in the history of world trade. Using data from 1995–2010, we document this growth in a variety of ways. We show that the expanded trade is pervasive. Virtually every country in the world has seen China claim a larger share of its import market. Then, we use Constant Market Share analysis to determine which country or countries have lost market share as China’s trade has grown. Contrary to much discussion in the popular press, we find strong evidence that other developing countries have not seen export shares fall as a result of China’s gains. Rather, our results suggest that China’s share growth has come largely at the expense of exporters based in developed countries, especially Japan and the United States.     

Development-related biases in factor productivities and the HOV model of trade

Abstract .  Past empirical failures of the basic Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) model related to the inability of data to meet its restrictive assumptions. Trefler (1993) tried to resuscitate HOV by introducing a simple Hicks-neutral (HN) factor-productivity adjustment. In this paper, we re-examine this question by estimating factor-specific productivities from the individual technology data of multiple developed and developing countries. We find evidence of factor-augmenting technological differences. Further, the ratios of factor productivities are strongly correlated with corresponding factor endowments. This systematic bias implies that the ability of HOV to explain North-South factor trade depends on both relative factor abundance and factor-augmenting productivity gaps.     

Per Capita Income and the Mystery of Missing Trade

The literature on the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model has concentrated on the production side, particularly the unrealistic assumptions of identical techniques and factor price equalization. However, less is known about the demand side. In this paper, we compare the supply side assumptions versus the demand side assumptions as a cause of the empirical failures in the HOV prediction. While the relaxation in the supply side assumptions is crucial to predict the direction of factor trade, the demand side assumptions are shown to play an important role in explaining why factor trade is “missing” in relation to the HOV prediction. For example of the slope test for labor, the supply side repair improves from 0.026 to 0.162, whereas the demand side repair improves significantly from 0.162 to 0.891.     

International differences in production techniques: Implications for the factor content of trade

This paper examines how production techniques differ across countries, factors, and industries and considers its implications for previous empirical evidence on the Vanek prediction. I find that production techniques differ substantially across countries and factors, but differ much less across industries within a country. Davis and Weinstein (2001) argue that modeling cross-industry differences (multiple-cone specialization) improves the fit of the Vanek prediction; however, their test statistics are unchanged when one restricts techniques to be identical across industries within a country. Thus, the bulk of world factor content of trade does not arise from specialization.     

International differences in emissions intensity and emissions content of global trade

Understanding international differences in the emissions intensity of trade and production is essential to understanding the effects of greenhouse gas limitation policies. We develop data on emissions from 41 industrial sectors in 39 countries and estimate the CO₂ emissions intensity of production and trade. We find no evidence that developing countries specialize in emissions-intensive sectors; instead, our evidence suggests that emissions intensities differ systematically across countries because of differences in production techniques. Our results confirm that international differences in emissions intensity are substantial, but suggest that they do not play a significant factor in determining patterns of trade.     

Trade Frictions and Market Access of Developing Countries: A Product‐level Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the effects of trade frictions on export market access at the product level and the role these frictions have on the ability of developing countries to access world markets. We find distance and trade frictions are determinants of the probability of success in entering foreign markets. We examine whether there are any systematic biases from these frictions that further limit market access for exporters from developing countries. Our results suggest that developing countries are not differentially impacted by these factors.