The Heterogeneous Effects of Uncertainty on Trade

The Heterogeneous Effects of Uncertainty on Trade
Author: Ibrahim Nana
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2024-07-09
Genre:
ISBN:

Download The Heterogeneous Effects of Uncertainty on Trade Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between uncertainty and trade. We use a gravity model for 143 countries over the 1980-2021 period to assess the impact of uncertainty on bilateral trade. We confirm that, in general, uncertainty has a negative impact on trade. The findings suggest that a one standard deviation increase in global uncertainty is associated with a decline in bilateral trade by 4.5 percent, with fuel and industrial products trade being the most impacted. This negative impact is observed for uncertainty on both sides of the border, with a higher impact of uncertainty from the importing country. The article goes deeper into the analysis and shows that deeper trade integration (horizontal integration) mitigates the negative impact of uncertainty on trade. In contrast, higher participation in global value chains (vertical integration) amplifies the negative effect of uncertainty on trade. We find that geopolitical tensions amplify the deterrent effect of uncertainty on trade. Finally, the result is heterogeneous across income levels, regions, and resource endowment: (a) uncertainty has a negative impact on bilateral trade between Emerging Markets and Developing Economies and Advanced Economies; however, (b) at the regional level, Africa and Europe’s intraregional trade decrease as uncertainty surges. (c) Evidence shows that non-resources-rich countries are more at risk.

The Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty

The Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty
Author: Alberto Osnago
Publisher:
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

Download The Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Policy Uncertainty Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This paper studies the effects of trade policy uncertainty on the extensive and intensive margins of trade for a sample of 65 exporters at the Harmonized System six-digit level. The paper measures trade policy uncertainty as the gap between binding tariff commitments under trade agreements (multilateral and regional agreements) and applied tariffs-what is also known as tariffs' water. The results show that trade policy uncertainty is an important barrier to exports and its effects are heterogeneous. On average and at the current level of tariff commitments, the paper estimates that the elimination of water, without any change of the applied tariff, would increase the probability of exporting by 6 percent and trade volumes by 1.3 percent. The negative impact of trade policy uncertainty on export participation is higher for countries with low-quality institutions and in the presence of global value chains. For a sample of new acceding countries, the analysis finds that removing water would boost the probability of trading by 50 percent and exports by 16 percent. The paper also estimates that the current system of commitments boosts trade by between 10 and 30 percent, compared with a world where at any moment tariffs could be raised to an arbitrarily high level.

Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements on Trade

Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements on Trade
Author: Oksana Grabova
Publisher:
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2021
Genre: Business
ISBN:

Download Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements on Trade Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Many studies consider the potential for preferential trade agreements (PTAs) to have differing effects on trade. Kohl (2014) and Baier et al. (2019) show that some PTA's promote trade while the majority of PTAs have no significant effect. Some even lower trade. Why do these differing cases arise? One possibility is that the effects of trade agreements depend on specific provisions--provisions that differ across agreements. Another possibility is the potential for PTAs to impact trade differently depending on the presence of certain bilateral characteristics between trading nations such as physical distance or metaphorical types of distance such as culture or language. In my dissertation, "Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Agreements on Trade," we explore these two avenues separately. In the first chapter we consider if differences in the prevalence of corruption between members of a PTA make trade agreements more or less effective at boosting trade. Such differences could create more uncertainty that limits the potential for trade even if a trade agreement lowers barriers, implying that such agreements will not boost trade. On the other hand, trade agreements could be most effective in such disparate countries. Not only might trade agreements remove barriers used by corrupt officials to extort firms, but a trade agreement could reduce the uncertainty of operating in a different business environment by establishing rules and regulations. Results in this paper are allowed to differ across several dimensions, including extensive versus intensive margin, whether the exporter or importer is more corrupt, and between South-South and South-North trade. Using a gravity model of trade spanning a panel of countries from 1996 to 2017, we find that PTAs increase trade more along the intensive margin when importing countries are more corrupt but boost trade more along the extensive margin when exporting countries are more corrupt. Results are stronger for trade between South-South (S-S) countries than between North-South (N-S) countries. Chapter two examines how specific provisions within trade agreements--particularly, provisions regarding environmental standards--affect trade between members and non-members. While there is a rising trend to incorporate different types of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs), few studies took explicit steps to assess the trade consequences of environmental provisions in PTAs. This paper employs a gravity model over the period from 1984 to 2016 and uses a new detailed dataset on a broad range of environmental provisions in PTAs to fill the gap in the literature by looking at possible trade diversion effects from trade agreements with deep environmental clauses. We follow Mattoo et al. (2017) and construct an index that captures importers' average depth of trade agreements with the rest of the world where depth is taken as the extent that environmental provisions are covered. The inclusion of this depth variable allows us to see if any trade diversion effect arises from trade agreements with deep environmental provisions. We specifically focus on exporters with low environmental standards, as those are the countries that are likely to "host" trade in environmentally unsustainable goods. We also differentiate between different types of environmental policies and concentrate on trade in "dirty" products. Our results suggest that environmental provisions in PTAs are an effective tool of promoting environmentally sustainable trade in the world, as these types of policies tend to reduce "dirty" trade even with non-member nations. Finally, the third chapter considers the heterogeneous design of PTA's more broadly, looking at the trade effects of different policy areas within trade agreements, while differentiating their impact on trade in new product varieties of goods versus trade in existing products. We specifically focus on 18 "core" provisions that Hofmann et al. (2019) mark as most economically relevant policies. We further distinguish three types of policies within the "core" group of provisions, namely: i) provisions that directly liberalize trade through either reduction in tariffs or simplification of standards, ii) policies that enable signatory nations to compete on equal grounds, and iii) provisions that specify the rules of investment. Previous studies that consider the effects of trade agreements on the margins of trade have either focused on the effects of different types of PTAs, rather than specific policies, or used limited data and outdated methodologies. We are contributing to the literature by assessing the impact of different groups of policies on the margins of international trade using a highly disaggregated dataset covering a large number of countries and years. We also employ Factor Analysis to check robustness of our findings using regular count indices. Our results indicate that provisions that tend to reduce barriers to trade through either simplification of standards or reduction in monetary charges tend to increase trade in existing varieties of goods, while the effect of investment provisions is either insignificant or might actually lower trade.

Trade Uncertainty and Investment in the Euro Area

Trade Uncertainty and Investment in the Euro Area
Author: Mr.Christian H Ebeke
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2018-12-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484392345

Download Trade Uncertainty and Investment in the Euro Area Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

We analyze the impact of trade policy uncertainty on investment in the euro area. Our identification strategy assumes that countries that are relatively more dependent on global trade networks exhibit a higher sensitivity of investment with respect to trade uncertainty. We find that the investment-to-GDP ratio is on average 0.8 percentage points lower for five quarters following a one standard deviation increase in the level of trade uncertainty. We demonstrate that these results are unlikely to be driven by omitted variables and that they are robust to different measures of trade uncertainty and trade openness. Our analysis suggests that the detrimental effect of trade tensions goes beyond lower trade growth, as uncertainty can reduce investment and the economy’s long-term growth potential.

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms

Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms
Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre:
ISBN:

Download Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

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
Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2003
Genre: Commerce
ISBN:

Download Falling Trade Costs, Heterogeneous Firms, and Industry Dynamics Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

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.

Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment

Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment
Author: Robert S. Pindyck
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 58
Release: 1989
Genre: Capital investments
ISBN:

Download Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Irreversible investment is especially sensitive to such risk factors as volatile exchange rates and uncertainty about tariff structures and future cash flows. If the goal of macroeconomic policy is to stimulate investment, stability and credibility may be more important than tax incentives or interest rates.

Geopolitical Risk on Stock Returns: Evidence from Inter-Korea Geopolitics

Geopolitical Risk on Stock Returns: Evidence from Inter-Korea Geopolitics
Author: Seungho Jung
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2021-10-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1557759677

Download Geopolitical Risk on Stock Returns: Evidence from Inter-Korea Geopolitics Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

We investigate how corporate stock returns respond to geopolitical risk in the case of South Korea, which has experienced large and unpredictable geopolitical swings that originate from North Korea. To do so, a monthly index of geopolitical risk from North Korea (the GPRNK index) is constructed using automated keyword searches in South Korean media. The GPRNK index, designed to capture both upside and downside risk, corroborates that geopolitical risk sharply increases with the occurrence of nuclear tests, missile launches, or military confrontations, and decreases significantly around the times of summit meetings or multilateral talks. Using firm-level data, we find that heightened geopolitical risk reduces stock returns, and that the reductions in stock returns are greater especially for large firms, firms with a higher share of domestic investors, and for firms with a higher ratio of fixed assets to total assets. These results suggest that international portfolio diversification and investment irreversibility are important channels through which geopolitical risk affects stock returns.