世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

The gravity model has been widely used to infer substantial trade flow effects of institutions such as customs unions and exchange rate mechanisms. McCallum [1995] found that the US-Canada border led to trade between provinces that is a factor 22 (2,200%) times trade between states and provinces, a spectacular puzzle in light of the low formal barriers on this border. We show that the gravity model usually estimated does not correspond to the theory behind it. We solve the 'border puzzle' by applying the theory seriously. We find that national borders reduce trade between the US and Canada by about 44%, while reducing trade among other industrialized countries by about 30%. McCallum's spectacular headline number is the result of a combination of omitted variables bias and the small size of the Canadian economy. Within-Canada trade rises by a factor 6 due to the border. In contrast, within-US trade rises 25%.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=256086

Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle

This article builds a theoretical framework to help explain governance patterns in global value chains It draws on three streams of literature ‐ transaction costs economics, production networks, and technological capability and firm-level learning ‐ to identify three variables that play a large role in determining how global value chains are governed and change These are: (1) the complexity of transactions, (2) the ability to codify transactions, and (3) the capabilities in the supply-base The theory generates five types of global value chain governance ‐ hierarchy, captive, relational, modular, and market ‐ which range from high to low levels of explicit coordination and power asymmetry The article highlights the dynamic and overlapping nature of global value chain governance through four brief industry case studies: bicycles, apparel, horticulture and electronics

/pdf/the-governance-of-global-value-chains-3dmchifo7i.pdf

The governance of global value chains

Gravity equations have been widely used to infer trade flow effects of various institutional arrangements. We show that estimated gravity equations do not have a theoretical foundation. This implies both that estimation suffers from omitted variables bias and that comparative statics analysis is unfounded. We develop a method that (i) consistently and efficiently estimates a theoretical gravity equation and (ii) correctly calculates the comparative statics of trade frictions. We apply the method to solve the famous McCallum border puzzle. Applying our method, we find that national borders reduce trade between industrialized countries by moderate amounts of 20-50 percent.

/pdf/gravity-with-gravitas-a-solution-to-the-border-puzzle-4dn7us6msp.pdf

This paper develops techniques for empirically analyzing demand and supply in differentiated products markets and then applies these techniques to analyze equilibrium in the U.S. automobile industry. Our primary goal is to present a framework which enables one to obtain estimates of demand and cost parameters for a class of oligopolistic differentiated products markets. These estimates can be obtained using only widely available product-level and aggregate consumer-level data, and they are consistent with a structural model of equilibrium in an oligopolistic industry. When we apply the tech- niques developed here to the U.S. automobile market, we obtain cost and demand parameters for (essentially) all models marketed over a twenty year period.

/pdf/automobile-prices-in-market-equilibrium-1w0xnf91hi.pdf

Automobile prices in market equilibrium

In this paper, we examine the increase in the relative wages of skilled workers in Mexico during the 1980s. We argue that rising wage inequality in Mexico is linked to capital inflows from abroad. The effect of these capital inflows, which correspond to an increase in outsourcing by multinationals from the United States and other Northern countries, is to shift production in Mexico towards relatively skill-intensive goods thereby increasing the relative demand for skilled labor. We study the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the share of skilled labor in total wages in Mexico using state-level data on two-digit industries from the Industrial Census for the period 1975 to 1988. We measure the state- level growth in FDI using data on the regional activities of foreign- owned assembly plants. We find that growth in FDI is positively correlated with the relative demand for skilled labor. In the regions where FDI has been most concentrated, growth in FDI can account for over 50 percent of the increase in the skilled labor share of total wages that occurred during the late 1980s.

Foreign Direct Investment and Relative Wages: Evidence from Mexico's Maquiladoras

This paper describes data on U.S. exports from 1972-1994, classified according to the Schedule B' system, Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade Classification (SITC, Revisions 2 and 3), and Standard Industrial Classification (SIC, 1972 basis), along with various concordances. All of these data sets are disaggregated by the destination country for exports. U.S. Exports, 1972-1994,' which can be ordered for $50 from the Publications Department, NBER, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. A summary of the SIC data, which does not contain the source country detail and incorporates earlier years, is available via anonymous FTP from nber.org /pub/feenstra, or via the Web from www.nber.org. Disk 1 of the NBER Trade Database contained complete data on U.S. imports, and included on this CD-ROM is a revision to the SIC imports for the years 1989-1994. In" addition, the CD-ROM includes state-level exports and a number of other U.S. datasets contributed by various researchers, such as tariff reductions under NAFTA, antidumping cases, domestic and imported automobile data, materials consumption by industry, foreign trade zones, foreign investment, and programs used to construct and update the data.

U.S. Exports, 1972-1994: With State Exports and Other U.S. Data

In this paper we measure the quality change which has occurred in U.S. steel imports during the 1969-74 VRA, using an index number method. Under this approach, the yearly changes in unit values is broken into three components: a quality-adjusted or pure price index; a quality index, which measures changes in the product mix; and a supplier index, which measures changes in the source of supply. We also derive a measure of welfare cost, which equals the inverse of a Paasche price index minus the inverse of an exact price index. Over the 1969-74 VRA period we find quality upgrading of 7.4 percent in U.S. steel imports, which occurs most strongly in the first year. The welfare cost of quality change varies around one percent of import expenditure during 1970-73. This cost is at least as large as the conventional deadweight loss triangle, but smaller than the transfer of quota rents.

Quality Upgrading and its Welfare Cost in U.S. Steel Imports, 1969-74

This paper aims to reduce the range within which the true U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit lies, and identify the determinants of the bilateral trade deficit. We take advantage of detailed Chinese Customs data at the commodity level. Our calculated U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit is $15 billion to $20 billion in 1994, and $16 billion to $22 billion in 1995, compared to the official range of $8 billion to $30 billion, and $9 billion to $34 billion, respectively. The widening of the U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit in recent years reflected various factors, including: (i) macroeconomic forces in the U.S. and China moving in opposite directions, causing their respective overall trade balance to move in opposite directions; and (ii) the accelerated relocation of production of U.S. imports from East Asia to China.

The U.S.-China Bilateral Trade Balance: It's Size and Determinants

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets and producers in China, which provides welfare gains to foreign firms using these services. During the 1990s, Hong Kong intermediated about one-half of the goods that China exported to the rest of the world. Using constant elasticity demand curves, we find that the gains to intermediary services provided by Hong Kong are roughly equal to the value of these Hong Kong re-exports, and four to five times larger than the markups earned in Hong Kong. Using a linear approximation to the demand curves instead, we find that the gains are one-quarter as much as the value of re-exports, or slightly larger than the markups.

/pdf/the-value-of-information-in-international-trade-gains-to-10u12ic8pr.pdf

Robert C. Feenstra

Papers

Foreign Direct Investment and Relative Wages: Evidence from Mexico's Maquiladoras

U.S. Exports, 1972-1994: With State Exports and Other U.S. Data

Quality Upgrading and its Welfare Cost in U.S. Steel Imports, 1969-74

The U.S.-China Bilateral Trade Balance: It's Size and Determinants

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong