Journal of International Economics最新文献

A recent literature emphasizes the prominence of dominant currencies in international trade invoicing and the role of invoice currencies in the transmission of exchange rate shocks. In this paper, we examine the introduction of the euro as a once-in-a-century natural experiment that induced a substantial shifting in invoice currencies, allowing us to test existing theories. We use unique data on the invoice currencies of the universe of export and import transactions of Chilean firms trading with the Eurozone over the period 1997–2010. Before the euro, exports to the Eurozone were dominated by the US dollar, and euro legacy currencies were rarely used. The introduction of the euro led a substantial number of firms to switch their invoice currencies to euros, which eventually accounted for 40% of all transactions. We first study the determinants of the adoption of the euro in exports to the Eurozone, finding a key role for strategic complementarities and for the invoice currency of imported inputs. We then show how firms switching from dollars to euros faced a radical transformation of their exchange rate pass-through, in line with recent theories. While the literature has studied trade invoice currencies in settings in which these are very persistent firm-level choices, our findings validate the conjecture that large–scale policy changes can lead to changes in these choices, and simultaneous changes in exchange rate pass-through.

Using matched firm-level data on operations, trade, and patents in China, we empirically investigate the impact of exporting on firms’ innovation and learning from destinations. We first show that access to export markets improves both the quantity and quality of innovation. We then construct a measure of knowledge flows based on Chinese patent citation data and demonstrate that there are actual knowledge transfers from destination markets to exporting firms, which help firms improve their innovation. These findings support the learning-by-exporting effect. Moreover, we show that this learning effect remains significant and unchanged, even after controlling for the spillover effect of FDI. To investigate how the learning process occurs, we also explore whether the learning-by-exporting effect varies with different export products or export modes. We find that vertical linkages and direct exporting facilitate Chinese firms’ learning from destination markets. Finally, we show that the learning effect is particularly salient at the extensive margin compared to the intensive margin.

We build a structural model of multi-product firms to illustrate how access to foreign intermediate goods contributes to product innovation. We establish a stochastic dynamic model of firm evolution and allow firms to be heterogeneous in their efficiency levels. The model’s mechanism to capture the effects of importing intermediate goods is twofold: (i) importing these goods increases the revenue per each product introduced, and (ii) increases the likelihood of introducing new varieties using newly available inputs. We calibrate the model to firm-level data from India. The model successfully explains the heterogeneous innovation dynamics and statistical moments related to importing and product distribution. Counterfactual exercises further illustrate and quantify the mechanism between trade, innovation performance, and product growth. We find that the critical contribution of trade to growth and product innovation is mainly through access to new imported varieties rather than just the direct import cost.

This paper studies the impact of the US-China tariff war on China, using high-frequency night lights data and grid-level measures of tariff exposure. Exploiting within-grid variation over time and controlling extensively for grid-specific contemporaneous trends, we find that each one-percentage-point increase in exposure to the US tariffs was associated with a 0.59% reduction in night-time luminosity. This impact was highly skewed across locations: Grids with negligible direct exposure to the US tariffs accounted for 70% of China’s population. But the tail 2.5% of China’s population with the highest exposure saw an implied 2.52% (1.62%) decrease in income per capita (employment) relative to unaffected grids. These effects were moreover concentrated in locations with a high commuting openness. By contrast, we do not find significant effects from China’s retaliatory tariffs, and offer evidence of several channels through which the impact on imported inputs was mitigated. In a parallel analysis at the prefecture level, we confirm that the US tariffs had discernible negative aggregate consequences.

We use an exogenous fiscal shock to identify the transmission of government risk to bank lending due to banks holding government bonds. We illustrate with a theoretical model that for banks with higher exposure to government bonds, a higher sovereign default risk implies lower bank net worth and less lending. Our empirical estimates confirm the model’s predictions. The exogenous change in sovereign default risk of Turkish government debt as a result of the 1999 Earthquake impacted banks whose balance sheets were exposed more to government bonds. The resulting lower bank net worth translates into a lower credit supply. We rule out alternative explanations. Our estimates suggest this channel can explain half of the decline in bank lending following the earthquake. This underlines the importance of the bank balance-sheet channel in transmitting a higher sovereign default risk to reduced real economic activity.

How do credit default swaps (CDS) affect sovereign debt markets? We analyze how liquidity, exposure to default risk, and regulation affect the answer to this question using a sovereign debt model where investors trade bonds and CDS over the counter via directed search. Restricting portfolios can improve bond prices and bond-market activity, but the net effect depends on relative frictions in bond and CDS markets, the exposure of investors, and how the sovereign responds to the policy. Our novel identification strategy exploits confidential microdata to quantify trading frictions and the exposure distribution. The calibrated model generates realistic CDS-bond basis deviations, bid–ask spreads, and CDS volumes and positions. Our baseline specification predicts trading frictions and an inability to short sell bonds significantly improves sovereign debt prices, but policies that restrict CDS trading have small effects.

This paper presents a theory of institutional specialization in which some countries uphold the rule of law while others choose extractive institutions, even when countries are ex-ante identical. The driving force of specialization is that for incumbents in each country, the first steps to the rule of law have the greatest cost. Good institutions require sharing power and rents, but in places where power is already shared broadly, each power base or branch of government underpinning institutions is individually less important and thus receives lower rents. Countries with diametrically opposed institutions have a symbiotic relationship in the world equilibrium. The transition from sail to steam-powered vessels in 19th-century trade provides suggestive evidence supporting the theory.

This paper examines how labor market imperfections distort firm-level technology choices and alter the gains from trade in developing countries. Motivated by evidence that firms using modern technologies are disproportionately exposed to labor market distortions, we introduce firm-level technology choices and labor market distortions into an otherwise standard quantitative trade model. We then provide formulas for the welfare and labor productivity gains from trade liberalization, highlighting the role of distortions and technology choice. Our quantitative analysis reveals that labor market distortions provide a possible explanation for the inefficiently low levels of modern technology adoption in developing countries. Moreover, labor market distortions erode one-third of the potential labor productivity gains from trade liberalization among low-income countries.

This paper estimates the impact of external demand shocks on real income. We utilize a first order approximation to a wide class of small open economy models that feature sector-level gravity in trade flows, which allows us to measure foreign shocks and characterize their welfare impact in terms of reduced-form elasticities. We use machine learning techniques to group 4-digit manufacturing sectors into a smaller number of clusters, and show that the cluster-level elasticities of income with respect to foreign shocks can be estimated using high-dimensional statistical techniques. Foreign demand shocks in complex intermediate and capital goods have large positive impacts on real income, whereas impacts in other sectors are negligible. We show that the estimates imply that countries that specialize in these sectors enjoy greater gains from increased openness, and that (small) export subsidies to these sectors are welfare-improving. Finally, a calibrated multi-sector production and trade model with input–output linkages and external economies of scale can match the empirical estimates.