Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms PDF Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper examines how country, industry and firm characteristics interact in general equilibrium to determine nations' responses to trade liberalization. When firms possess heterogeneous productivity, countries differ in relative factor abundance and industries vary in factor intensity, falling trade costs induce reallocations of resources both within and across industries and countries. These reallocations generate substantial job turnover in all sectors, spur relatively more creative destruction in comparative advantage industries than comparative disadvantage industries, and magnify ex ante comparative advantage to create additional welfare gains from trade. The relative ascendance of high-productivity firms within industries boosts aggregate productivity and drives down consumer prices. In contrast with the neoclassical model, these price declines dampen and can even reverse the real wage losses of scarce factors as countries liberalize.

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms PDF Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper examines how country, industry and firm characteristics interact in general equilibrium to determine nations' responses to trade liberalization. When firms possess heterogeneous productivity, countries differ in relative factor abundance and industries vary in factor intensity, falling trade costs induce reallocations of resources both within and across industries and countries. These reallocations generate substantial job turnover in all sectors, spur relatively more creative destruction in comparative advantage industries than comparative disadvantage industries, and magnify ex ante comparative advantage to create additional welfare gains from trade. The relative ascendance of high-productivity firms within industries boosts aggregate productivity and drives down consumer prices. In contrast with the neoclassical model, these price declines dampen and can even reverse the real wage losses of scarce factors as countries liberalize.

Falling Trade Costs, Heterogeneous Firms, and Industry Dynamics

Falling Trade Costs, Heterogeneous Firms, and Industry Dynamics PDF Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Commerce
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
This paper examines the response of industries and firms to changes in trade costs. Several new firm-level models of international trade with heterogeneous firms predict that industry productivity will rise as trade costs fall due to the reallocation of activity across plants within an industry. Using disaggregated U.S. import data, we create a new measure of trade costs over time and industries. As the models predict, productivity growth is faster in industries with falling trade costs. We also find evidence supporting the major hypotheses of the heterogenous-firm models. Plants in industries with falling trade costs are more likely to die or become exporters. Existing exporters increase their shipments abroad. The results do not apply equally across all sectors but are strongest for industries most likely to be producing horizontally-differentiated tradeable goods.

What Makes Exports Boom?

What Makes Exports Boom? PDF Author: Mark J. Roberts
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821336670
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
"This report sheds new light on what makes exports grow. The effects of macroeconomic conditions and policy variables on manufacturing exports have been notoriously unpredictable in the research literature. The research summarized here suggests that that unpredictability can be traced largely to neglected microeconomic characteristics of manufacturing sectors. In particular, the export response to a given stimulus is shaped by the cross-firm dispersion in unit production costs, the extent of product differentiation, and, critically, the prevalence of previous exporting experience. This research is derived from a recently completed World Bank project examining the microeconomic foundations of industrial export booms in Colombia, Mexico, and Morocco. For each country, plants were followed through time, and their decisions to begin exporting, cease exporting, or adjust their export volumes were detailed. By focusing on microeconomic characteristics, the authors highlight some features of export supply response not previously quantified. First, export booms in Colombia, Morocco, and to a lesser extent Mexico would have been more modest if large numbers of firms had not decided to break into foreign markets. Second, new exporters face significant start-up costs as they develop marketing channels, adapt products and packaging to foreign tastes, and learn bureaucratic procedures. They become exporters only when the expected profits from foreign sales are large enough to cover these costs, and are unlikely to respond to export incentives viewed as transitory." -- Website.

International Trade and Investment Behaviour of Firms

International Trade and Investment Behaviour of Firms PDF Author: Murali Patibandla
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190991941
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In the last four decades the world has been significantly impacted by globalization and rapid technological changes. This in turn had major effects on the global economy. Several developing and socialist economies that earlier followed closed door and import substitution policies started to open up their economies to world trade and investments. Some such countries, as India, managed to achieve a degree of economic prosperity over the last few years after opening up their economy. The analyses in this book show that there are significant benefits from international trade and investment to emerging economies that possess critical-level initial conditions in technology, infrastructure, and ease of doing business, and also have friendly policies. Focusing on Indian firms, the book spans the period from the pre-reform era to the post-reform era, when the market was responding to policy reforms and global market dynamics. The reforms, it argues, resulted in positive outcomes of increased outward orientation and annual growth rates. The book also comments on the economic and institutional factors that change over time, locally as well as globally, and affect the behaviour of firms and industries.

Global Production

Global Production PDF Author: Pol Antràs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Global Production is the first book to provide a fully comprehensive overview of the complicated issues facing multinational companies and their global sourcing strategies. Few international trade transactions today are based on the exchange of finished goods; rather, the majority of transactions are dominated by sales of individual components and intermediary services. Many firms organize global production around offshoring parts, components, and services to producers in distant countries, and contracts are drawn up specific to the parties and distinct legal systems involved. Pol Antràs examines the contractual frictions that arise in the international system of production and how these frictions influence the world economy. Antràs discusses the inevitable complications that develop in contract negotiation and execution. He provides a unified framework that sheds light on the factors helping global firms determine production locations and other organizational choices. Antràs also implements a series of systematic empirical tests, based on recent data from the U.S. Customs and Census Offices, which demonstrate the relevance of contractual factors in global production decisions. Using an integrated approach, Global Production is an excellent resource for researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in the inner workings of international economics and trade.

Firm Innovation and Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Firm Innovation and Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Inter-American Development Bank
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349581518
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This volume uses the study of firm dynamics to investigate the factors preventing faster productivity growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, pushing past the limits of traditional macroeconomic analyses. Each chapter is dedicated to an examination of a different factor affecting firm productivity - innovation, ICT usage, on-the-job-training, firm age, access to credit, and international linkages - highlighting the differences in firm characteristics, behaviors, and strategies. By showcasing this remarkable heterogeneity, this collection challenges regional policymakers to look beyond one-size-fits-all solutions and create balanced policy mixes tailored to distinct firm needs. This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO license.

Trade Liberalization

Trade Liberalization PDF Author: Romain Wacziarg
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781788111492
Category : Free trade
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This compelling two-volume collection presents the major literary contributions to the economic analysis of the consequences of trade liberalization on growth, productivity, labor market outcomes and economic inequality. Examining the classical theories that stress gains from trade stemming from comparative advantage, the selection also comprises more recent theories of imperfect competition, where any potential gains from trade can stem from competitive effects or the international transmission of knowledge. Empirical contributions provide evidence regarding the explanatory power of these various theories, including work on the effects of trade openness on economic growth, wages, and income inequality, as well as evidence on the effects of trade on firm productivity, entry and exit. Prefaced by an original introduction from the editor, the collection will to be an invaluable research resource for academics, practitioners and those drawn to this fascinating topic.

Does Import Competition Induce R&D Reallocation? Evidence from the U.S.

Does Import Competition Induce R&D Reallocation? Evidence from the U.S. PDF Author: Rui Xu
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484326008
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
We analyze the impact of rising import competition from China on U.S. innovative activities. Using Compustat data, we find that import competition induces R&D expenditures to be reallocated towards more productive and more profitable firms within each industry. Such reallocation effect has the potential to offset the average drop in firm-level R&D identified in the previous literature. Indeed, our quantitative analysis shows no adverse impact of import competition on aggregate R&D expenditures. Taking the analysis beyond manufacturing, we find that import competition has led to reallocation of researchers towards booming service industries, including business and repairs, personal services, and financial services.

Exporting Through Intermediaries: Impact on Export Dynamics and Welfare

Exporting Through Intermediaries: Impact on Export Dynamics and Welfare PDF Author: Parisa Kamali
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513519875
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
In many countries, a sizable share of international trade is carried out by intermediaries. While large firms tend to export to foreign markets directly, smaller firms typically export via intermediaries (indirect exporting). I document a set of facts that characterize the dynamic nature of indirect exporting using firm-level data from Vietnam and develop a dynamic trade model with both direct and indirect exporting modes and customer accumulation. The model is calibrated to match the dynamic moments of the data. The calibration yields fixed costs of indirect exporting that are less than a third of those of direct exporting, the variable costs of indirect exporting are twice higher, and demand for the indirectly exported products grows more slowly. Decomposing the gains from indirect and direct exporting, I find that 18 percent of the gains from trade in Vietnam are generated by indirect exporters. Finally, I demonstrate that a dynamic model that excludes the indirect exporting channel will overstate the welfare gains associated with trade liberalization by a factor of two.

What is the Impact of Increased Business Competition?

What is the Impact of Increased Business Competition? PDF Author: Sónia Félix
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513521519
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
This paper studies the macroeconomic effect and underlying firm-level transmission channels of a reduction in business entry costs. We provide novel evidence on the response of firms' entry, exit, and employment decisions. To do so, we use as a natural experiment a reform in Portugal that reduced entry time and costs. Using the staggered implementation of the policy across the Portuguese municipalities, we find that the reform increased local entry and employment by, respectively, 25% and 4.8% per year in its first four years of implementation. Moreover, around 60% of the increase in employment came from incumbent firms expanding their size, with most of the rise occurring among the most productive firms. Standard models of firm dynamics, which assume a constant elasticity of substitution, are inconsistent with the expansionary and heterogeneous response across incumbent firms. We show that in a model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups the most productive firms face a lower demand elasticity and expand their employment in response to increased entry.