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Author: Luca Macedoni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780355151237
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
The effects of international economic integration on the prices the firms charge and the number of varieties available for consumption is crucial for the welfare of consumers. This dissertation is a compilation of three essays, which, using both theory and empirical analysis, study the determinants of prices and of the number of varieties available for consumption. Recent empirical work has shown that world trade is dominated by firms producing multiple products, and that a few large exporters, or superstars, account for most of a country's exports. These findings challenge traditional models of trade, in which each firm is small and produces a single product. The first two chapters of my dissertation study how the presence of multiproduct firms and superstars affects the predictions of the traditional models of trade. In chapter one, I study the effects of international integration on consumers' welfare in the presence of large multiproduct exporters. The welfare of consumers depends on how large firms choose the number of the varieties they export - their product scope. I focus on two determinants of the scope of large exporters: income effects and cannibalization effects, namely the reduction in a firm's own sales following the introduction of a new variety. Several sources of data confirm the empirical relevance of the two determinants: 1) the product scope increases with the per capita income of the destination, and 2) as evidence of cannibalization effects, there exists a hump-shaped relationship between product scope and market share of a firm. I build a model of large multiproduct firms that generates results consistent with the empirical evidence. The model features firms competing oligopolistically and consumers with non-homothetic preferences. What are the effects of international integration on the welfare of consumers? To answer to this question, I derive a new formula for the welfare gains from trade that arise in a world of large multiproduct exporters. The formula highlights the contributions of income and cannibalization effects to the welfare gains from trade. In fact, models that ignore income effects would overestimate the gains from trade, while models that ignore cannibalization effects underestimate the gains. Moreover, neglecting cannibalization effects causes a sizable underestimation of the gains from trade in more concentrated industries. A common prediction of standard models of multiproduct firms is that firm's total sales are proportional to the firm's scope. The underlying assumption is that the ability of a firm to produce efficiently a variety is proportional to its ability to introduce new varieties. In chapter two, joint with Mingzhi Xu, we document that such a prediction performs poorly in the data. Using Chinese firm-level data, we find a disconnect between sales and scope across firms within a destination: for any level of sales, there are several single product firms and wide scope firms. Moreover, firm-destination specific shocks explain more than 50% of the variation in scope across firms and destinations, and the scope of exporters conditional on sales depends on measurable characteristics of firms, such as capital intensity and R&D expenditures. We rationalize the three stylized facts in a model in which firms differ in their productivity and in their flexibility, namely the ability to introduce new varieties in a destination at low costs. The additional layer of heterogeneity has new implications for both intensive and extensive margins of trade.While the first two chapters of the dissertation study how economic integration - modeled as a reduction in trade frictions - affects the welfare of consumers, in the third chapter, I examine those trade frictions, decomposing their nature and their effects. Recent research showed that deviations from the Law of One Price are starkly smaller within a currency union. Can a reduction in trade costs within a currency union explain this fact? I answer to this question in chapter three. I apply Heckscher's insight that transaction costs create bands of inaction in which price differences are not arbitraged away. Only when price differences exceed a certain threshold does arbitrage become profitable and prices begin to converge. A simple model of international arbitrage predicts that bands of inaction between two countries increase with trade costs and decline with the countries' sizes. I use monthly disaggregated price indices from 32 European countries from 1999 to 2016 and estimate the bands of inaction for the relative prices of 43 tradable commodities, using a Threshold Autoregressive Model. Currency unions reduce trade costs: the bands of inaction between countries that are in the European Monetary Union are 17% lower than the average band.
Author: Luca Macedoni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780355151237
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
The effects of international economic integration on the prices the firms charge and the number of varieties available for consumption is crucial for the welfare of consumers. This dissertation is a compilation of three essays, which, using both theory and empirical analysis, study the determinants of prices and of the number of varieties available for consumption. Recent empirical work has shown that world trade is dominated by firms producing multiple products, and that a few large exporters, or superstars, account for most of a country's exports. These findings challenge traditional models of trade, in which each firm is small and produces a single product. The first two chapters of my dissertation study how the presence of multiproduct firms and superstars affects the predictions of the traditional models of trade. In chapter one, I study the effects of international integration on consumers' welfare in the presence of large multiproduct exporters. The welfare of consumers depends on how large firms choose the number of the varieties they export - their product scope. I focus on two determinants of the scope of large exporters: income effects and cannibalization effects, namely the reduction in a firm's own sales following the introduction of a new variety. Several sources of data confirm the empirical relevance of the two determinants: 1) the product scope increases with the per capita income of the destination, and 2) as evidence of cannibalization effects, there exists a hump-shaped relationship between product scope and market share of a firm. I build a model of large multiproduct firms that generates results consistent with the empirical evidence. The model features firms competing oligopolistically and consumers with non-homothetic preferences. What are the effects of international integration on the welfare of consumers? To answer to this question, I derive a new formula for the welfare gains from trade that arise in a world of large multiproduct exporters. The formula highlights the contributions of income and cannibalization effects to the welfare gains from trade. In fact, models that ignore income effects would overestimate the gains from trade, while models that ignore cannibalization effects underestimate the gains. Moreover, neglecting cannibalization effects causes a sizable underestimation of the gains from trade in more concentrated industries. A common prediction of standard models of multiproduct firms is that firm's total sales are proportional to the firm's scope. The underlying assumption is that the ability of a firm to produce efficiently a variety is proportional to its ability to introduce new varieties. In chapter two, joint with Mingzhi Xu, we document that such a prediction performs poorly in the data. Using Chinese firm-level data, we find a disconnect between sales and scope across firms within a destination: for any level of sales, there are several single product firms and wide scope firms. Moreover, firm-destination specific shocks explain more than 50% of the variation in scope across firms and destinations, and the scope of exporters conditional on sales depends on measurable characteristics of firms, such as capital intensity and R&D expenditures. We rationalize the three stylized facts in a model in which firms differ in their productivity and in their flexibility, namely the ability to introduce new varieties in a destination at low costs. The additional layer of heterogeneity has new implications for both intensive and extensive margins of trade.While the first two chapters of the dissertation study how economic integration - modeled as a reduction in trade frictions - affects the welfare of consumers, in the third chapter, I examine those trade frictions, decomposing their nature and their effects. Recent research showed that deviations from the Law of One Price are starkly smaller within a currency union. Can a reduction in trade costs within a currency union explain this fact? I answer to this question in chapter three. I apply Heckscher's insight that transaction costs create bands of inaction in which price differences are not arbitraged away. Only when price differences exceed a certain threshold does arbitrage become profitable and prices begin to converge. A simple model of international arbitrage predicts that bands of inaction between two countries increase with trade costs and decline with the countries' sizes. I use monthly disaggregated price indices from 32 European countries from 1999 to 2016 and estimate the bands of inaction for the relative prices of 43 tradable commodities, using a Threshold Autoregressive Model. Currency unions reduce trade costs: the bands of inaction between countries that are in the European Monetary Union are 17% lower than the average band.
Author: Ahmad Lashkaripour
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Each of the three chapters in this dissertation is based on an empirical research paper. The collective goals of these, rather independent, papers is to present an alternative and unifying theory of international specialization. A theory suitable for analyzing international trade at various levels and between a broad set of countries.The first chapter develops a new theory of international specialization that tractably com- bines all aspects of North-North and North-South trade into one model. The new theory also provides an alternative explanation for many other well-established facts, most notably the "Washington apples" effect. The theory builds upon, and retains the central elements of Krug- man [1980]. In the new framework, North-North trade is governed by national product dif- ferentiation. North-South trade is governed by a new channel of across product specialization that has been overlooked in the literature. Specifically, there are many products and each prod- uct comes in different varieties. Products differ in how (horizontally) differentiated they are. Monopolistically competitive firms charge a higher markup for varieties of highly differenti- ated products. In equilibrium, rich countries specialize in highly differentiated--high markup products, while poor countries specialize in less differentiated--low markup products. To quan- tify the gains from trade, I estimate the structural parameters of the model using disaggregated data. Incorporating the new channel of across-product specialization into the Krugman model magnifies the gains from opening to trade by around 200%. Despite trading less, low-income countries experience the largest gains from trade liberalization.The second chapters provides the first empirical confirmation of the iceberg trade cost as- sumption. The assumption is embodied in all major models of International trade. However, empirical evidence to support this rather conventional assumption is lacking. This paper pro- vides such evidence by developing a simple model of international transportation. The model links shipping cost to the f.o.b. price of the shipment, and demonstrates that shipping cost per count is more iceberg-like than shipping cost per kilogram -- existing studies have generallylooked at shipping cost per kilogram for goods that are measured primarily in counts (e.g. TVs, cars). To address this finding, I first calculate price and shipping cost on a per-count basis for goods that report count as the primary unit of measurement in US import data. Then, I estimate the dependence of shipping costs on f.o.b. price. Estimation results strongly support the iceberg specification. Specifically, for every 1% increase in f.o.b. price (per count), the ship- ping cost (per count) increases by 0.91%. The paper then estimates the "Washington apples" effect: the dependance of export f.o.b prices on shipping costs. The effect is estimated to be stronger in industries where shipping costs are more iceberg-like. This suggests that, contrary to common belief, per-unit trade costs cannot be the only driving force behind the "Washing- ton apples" effect. The paper then proceeds to find strong empirical support for an alternative force.The third chapter provides a simple framework to analyze the three main components of international trade flows: (i) the number of goods traded, (ii) the quantity of each good that is shipped, and (iii) the prices they are sold for. While gravity equations are massively suc- cessful in explaining the overall value of trade, they do not provide much insight about the decomposition of trade. In this paper I develop a novel framework that provides, consistent with data, predictions about not only the value of trade but the composition of trade values. I relax the conventional assumption that consumers are identical, and allow for demand hetero- geneity across consumers. I also allow for quality heterogeneity across varieties. The model explains the effect of distance and per capita income on trade along the intensive margin, the extensive margin and the price margin--all of which are well-documented in the empirical literature. It also provides a novel theoretical foundation for the higher price of tradables in developed countries. To further asses the model, I evaluate two predictions, of the model, re- garding the price of traded goods and one prediction regarding the extensive margin of trade. The exercise confirms that all three predictions are borne out in the data. The model provides a framework to investigate the (across-consumer) distributional effects of trade liberalization. I show that, despite the aggregate gains, the poorest consumers experience losses in face of trade liberalization.
Author: Sangho Kim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Commercial policy
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Author: Yelena Sheveleva
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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This dissertation consists of three essays spanning the fields of international trade and economic development. In the first essay, we ask why developing countries fail to specialize in products in which they (at least potentially) have a comparative advantage? For example, farmers in land-poor developing countries overwhelmingly produce staples rather than exotic fruits that command high prices. We propose a simple model of trade and intermediation that shows how holdup resulting from poor contracting environment can produce such an outcome. We use the model to examine which polices can help ameliorate the problem, even when its cause cannot be eliminated.In the second and the third essays, we study how exporters introduce new products into the export market. In the second essay, using information on the universe of Chinese exporters to the US, we document a number of empirircal facts that discipline economists' undrstanding of dynamic aspects of multiproduct exporters. In the third essay, we estimate a structural dynamic model of multiproduct exporting.In Chapter 1, "Wheat or Strawberries? Intermediated Trade with Limited Contracting," we develop the model that provides a new explanation as to why developing countries have agricultural productivity orders of magnitude smaller than in the developing countries. We propose that due to contracting frictions agricultural producers often specialize in staples in which they have a comparative disadvantage, instead of specializing in fruits and vegetables which they can grow efficiently and which command higher prices in the export markets. While farmers can subsits on staples, farmers require services of the intermediaries to deliver cash crops to the export market. When markets are thin intermediaries hold the bulk of the bargaining power and offer a small price to the farmer for his produce. Foreseeing the hold up farmers choose to specialize in the staples.In the model, farmers can produce two types of goods: wheat and strawberries. Wheat is suitable for subsistence but farmers are inefficient in producing it. Farmers are efficient in making strawberries, but cannot subsist on it, and have to sell them to an intermediary who makes profits by selling it at the world price. In a frictionless world farmers would specialize in strawberries. Central to the model is the inability of farmers and traders to contract ex-ante on a price. The absence of enforceable contracts sets the stage for the classic hold up problem and precludes negotiating the terms of trade prior to entry into production. We use a two period model with a continuum of traders and farmers. In the first period, farmers decide whether to produce wheat or strawberries and intermediaries decide whether to enter the business of intermediation. In the second period, farmers and traders meet randomly and trade. Since meetings are random and traders do not know the number of local competitors but do know how thick the market is, they can infer the distribution of potential rivals and offer a price based on this information. In other words, traders compete for the output of farmers in the first price auction. As a result, some farmers fetch a high price for their strawberries; others fetch a low price, or even fail to meet an intermediary. Farmers make the production decision based on the expected price.We solve the model and characterize all the possible equilibria as a function of the primitive parameters. Of particular interest is the region in the parameter space that yields multiple equilibria. In the good equilibrium, specialization occurs according to comparative advantage and there is intermediation, while in the bad equilibrium, there is no intermediation and the staple is produced. Our work suggests that there may be some simple measures to ensure intermediation and specialization according to comparative advantage even if the government is not able to resolve the core issue, the underlying lack of enforceable contracts. A temporary production subsidy or a marketing board that ensures a sufficiently high minimum price to the farmer can help an economy remove the bad equilibrium without intermediation. This paper is closely related to the work of Antras and Costinot (2011). In their paper they focus on the implications of intermediation for globalization in a model that assumes that contracts between traders and producers are enforceable. In contrast we study the implications of contractual failure on production choices in a model of trade with intermediation. In Chapter 2, "Multiproduct Exporters: Empirical Regularities," we use information on Chinese exporters to the US to document a number of empirical regularities regarding dynamic multiproduct exporter behaviour. First, we confirm that scope and firm scale are positively associated. This suggests that more productive firms select to produce more products. Furthermore we find empirical regularities that are consistent with firms facing uncertainty in the export market. We explore the conjecture that firms learn about their potential in new export products trough exporting similar products. We find only tentative support for this conjecture.In chapter 3, "Multiproduct Exporters: Learning versus Knowing," we develop and estimate a structural model of multiproduct exporters based on three empirical regularities documented using data on Chinese exporters. These regularities are as follows: (1) multi-product exporters introduce their best-selling products early; (2) more than 40% of the new products introduced by incumbent exporters are dropped due to low sales within the first year; (3) for a firm, the probability of introducing a new product is positively related to the survival and success of the earlier products.The first regularity is consistent with unobserved firm-product specific heterogeneity. The second suggests that both incumbents and new exporters face uncertainty when they introduce new products. The third is consistent with firms learning about their potential in an export market, i.e., their brand effect, as they introduce new products. We develop a model which incorporates all of these features, and we estimate it structurally using data on Chinese exporters to the U.S. in the plastics industry.First, we find that known demand shocks play an important role in whether producers enter the exporting market or not. Second, we find that it is important to account for large attrition among new exporters including uncertainty about the brand effect. When we let firms know their brand effect precisely, only those with sufficiently high brand effects enter, and then the model cannot replicate disproportionately large attrition of new products among new exporters. Third, we find that while firms act consistently with learning about their brand effect, the uncertainty that firms face in conjunction with introducing new products looms large, and limits the extent to which learning affects incentives of firms to add new products. Our counterfactuals show that the distribution of products among the high brand effect firms only marginally first order stochastically dominates the distribution for low brand effect firms.Using our model we revisit the question of trade policy in the multiproduct firm setting. We simulate a decrease in the cost of introducing new products for firms. Our simulations suggest that in the presence of economies of scope and even moderate learning effects, decreasing costs of introducing subsequent products can make a significant contribution to increasing trade flows.
Author: Bernal Jimenez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Author: David Blandford
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1786349779
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Current Issues in Global Agricultural and Trade Policy presents an authoritative perspective on matters that will contribute to the future shape of global markets for agricultural products. Written by a rare grouping of eminent and globally leading agricultural economists from a wide variety of backgrounds, the book provides an analytical overview of the academic and professional work of the late Timothy E Josling, an outstanding intellectual innovator.Areas covered in the book include farm policies of the EU and the USA, analysis of farm support and its effects, US trade policy for agricultural products, analysis of food security, implications of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and relevance of geographical indications in international trade. The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for agricultural trade policy are discussed in an endnote. This book throws light on some of the most impressive achievements of the agricultural economics profession.
Author: George Horwich
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483267482
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577
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Book Description
Trade, Stability, and Macroeconomics: Essays in Honor of Lloyd A. Metzler provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of trade, stability, and macroeconomics. This book covers a variety of topics, including nontraded and intermediate commodities, prices, production, exchange rates, and wages. Organized into five parts encompassing 22 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the theory of international trade and the effect of a tariff or export tax on domestic prices. This text then defines the supply of the international commodities as a function of their prices and of the output of the domestic commodity. Other chapters consider the Stolper–Samuelson analysis of the effects of protection of the distribution of income. This book discusses as well the theory of external–internal balance or the assignment problem as related to macroeconomic policy in an open economy. The final chapter deals with the dynamic allocation of scarce resources. This book is a valuable resource for economists.
Author: Ethel M. Fonseca
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bolivia
Languages : en
Pages : 138
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This dissertation brings together three empirical studies of international trade issues covering trade policy reforms, trade patterns and the duration of trade relationships in Latin American countries. In the first essay, we review export activities in Brazil since the 1990s, describing changes in export basket composition and diversification of destination markets. Using highly disaggregated trade data, we decompose export growth into the extensive margin (exports of new goods) and the intensive margin (more exports of established goods). We then estimate a probabilistic model of export decisions to investigate whether previous export experience in proximate markets contributes to the shipment of new goods to a trade partner. We find that prior export experience in neighboring countries has a small, positive effect on the probability of exporting in the future. As far as export promotion is concerned, this suggests that new trade relationships should be formed with countries within regions where previous export experience exists. After describing, in the first essay, what products and to what countries Brazil exports, in the second essay we study how long trade relationships last. We characterize the duration of trade relationships by investigating the length of time until Brazil stops exporting a good to a country and whether exports of particular products or to particular markets last longer than others. Our results indicate that trade relationships have a very short life, with a median duration of only 2 years. We add to the list of trade policy recommendations on export promotion by suggesting that instead of encouraging new relationships it might be better to prevent the existing ones from ending too soon. In the last essay, we study trade issues in another Latin American country. We perform a quantitative analysis of the impact of various trade policies on international trade patterns, domestic prices and poverty in Bolivia. With a unique dataset combining trade data with survey data at the household level, we simulate the magnitude of a variety of trade shocks using a partial-equilibrium model, feed these shocks into price and quantity changes, and finally feed these price and quantity changes into household incomes and expenditures.
Author: Rajat Acharyya
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 8132211510
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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This book was written in honour of Professor Kalyan K. Sanyal, who was an excellent educator and renowned scholar in the field of international economics. One of his research papers co-authored with Ronald Jones, entitled “The Theory of Trade in Middle Products” and published in American Economic Review in 1982, was a seminal work in the field of international trade theory. This paper would go on to inspire many subsequent significant works by researchers across the globe on trade in intermediate goods. The larger impact of any paper, beyond the number of citations, lies in terms of the passion it sparks among younger researchers to pursue new questions. Measured by this yardstick, Sanyal’s contribution in trade theory will undoubtedly be regarded as historic. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester he joined the Department of Economics at Calcutta University in the early 1980s and taught trade theory there for almost three decades. His insights, articulation and brilliance in teaching international economics have influenced and shaped the intellectual development of many of his students. After his sudden passing in February 2012, his students and colleagues organized a symposium in his honour at the Department of Economics, Jadavpur University from April 19 to 20, 2012. This book, a small tribute to his intellect and contribution, has been a follow-up on that endeavour, and a collective effort of many people including his teachers, friends, colleagues and students. In a nutshell it discusses intermediation of various kinds with significant implications for market integration through trade and finance. That trade can generate many non-trade-service sector links has recently emerged as a topic of growing concern and can trace its lineage back to the idea of the middle product, a recurring concept in Prof. Sanyal’s work.
Author: Huiwen Lai
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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This thesis includes three essays related to international economics and financial economics. The first essay presents a model of trade in the presence of multinationals, asymmetric trade barriers, and international differences in production costs. The first part of the essay presents the model's implications for bilateral trade. The estimation reveals more reasonable parameters for elasticity of substitution and trade costs than that suggested by previous research. The simulation indicates that tariff liberalization will shift trade from rich countries to poor countries and from preferential trading areas to inter-continental trading partners. The second part of the essay derives the multinational production and export equations implied by the model and estimates these equations simultaneously by recognizing the cross-equation restrictions on parameters and error terms. It suggests that the elimination of tariffs would substantially increase U.S. exports, but would not affect U.S. production abroad. The second essay models general equilibrium product price effects using the CES monopolistic competition model in international trade. We then estimate the model and, mimicking computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, use the model to estimate the compensating variation associated with trade liberalization. We find gains from trade liberalization that are much larger than those usually reported. In addition, extensive specification testing is conducted to evaluate the performances of this model and its alternatives. The results point to the types of model specifications needed before the model can usefully be applied to policy questions. The third essay studies the properties of Canadian interest rates relative to those of U.S. In sharp contrast to the U.S. evidence, the conditional variances of Canadian macroeconomics variables are found to be insignificant predictors of term premia in the Canadian T-bill term structure. However, the conditional variances of U.S. macroeconomic variables are found to be important determinants of Canadian premia.
