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Articles 1 - 30 of 220
Full-Text Articles in International Economics
Horizontal Regulatory Barriers In International Trade: Evidence From Electric Plugs, Yuan Mei, Mingzhi (Jimmy) Xu
Horizontal Regulatory Barriers In International Trade: Evidence From Electric Plugs, Yuan Mei, Mingzhi (Jimmy) Xu
Research Collection School Of Economics
Domestic policies regulating the horizontal dimensions of product differentiation can impede international trade and have become a major concern in contemporary trade negotiations. We estimate trade frictions associated with incompatible designs of electric plugs, a well-known example of a horizontal regulatory barrier. Our findings indicate that fewer electronic devices are exported to destinations with incompatible electric plugs, and this effect operates through both the extensive margin and the intensive margin of exports. These results are further corroborated by an online survey of Chinese electronics exporters. Moreover, incompatible plugs are associated with lower average quality of exported electronic devices, suggesting that …
The Interplay Of Interdependence And Correlation In Bilateral Trade, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang
The Interplay Of Interdependence And Correlation In Bilateral Trade, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
Following Crémer and McLean (1985, 1988) for finite type spaces and McAfee and Reny (1992) for continuous ones, we establish two respective sufficient conditions for the existence of efficient, ex ante budget-balanced mechanisms satisfying Bayesian incentive compatibility (BIC) and interim individual rationality (IIR) in bilateral trade settings with interdependent values and correlated beliefs. We then utilize the ex ante welfare (EAW) condition proposed by Kunimoto and Zhang (2026), which is necessary for the stricter requirement of ex post budget balance. We prove that while the EAW condition is sufficient in a two-type model and generalizes existing conditions in the literature, …
Dynamics Of High-Growth Young Firms And The Role Of Venture Capitalists, Yoshiki Ando
Dynamics Of High-Growth Young Firms And The Role Of Venture Capitalists, Yoshiki Ando
Research Collection School Of Economics
Motivated by the substantial growth and upfront investments of venture capital (VC)-backed firms observed in administrative US Census data, this study develops a life-cycle firm dynamics model. In the model, startups choose the source of financing from VC, angel investors, or banks, depending on their growth potential, and invest in innovation. The calibrated model explains the life-cycle dynamics of firms with different sources of financing and suggests that venture capitalists' managerial advice accounts for around 22% of the growth in VC-backed firms. A counterfactual economy without VC financing would experience an aggregate consumption loss of around 0.46%.
The Smu Trade Dashboard: Tracking And Quantifying The Trump Ii Tariffs, Pao-Li Chang, Ruoqing Chen, Lin Ma
The Smu Trade Dashboard: Tracking And Quantifying The Trump Ii Tariffs, Pao-Li Chang, Ruoqing Chen, Lin Ma
Research Collection School Of Economics
The SMU Trade Dashboard (https://economics.smu.edu.sg/soetrade/tr ade-dashboard), developed by the SMU Center for Research on International Trade, consists of Tariff Tracker and Trade Simulation functions. The Tariff Tracker allows users to track the tariff applicable to an HS 6-digit product or an ISIC 2-digit sector bymarkets and country origins. The Trade Simulation presents quantitative simulation results of the effects of Trump II tariffs (and the associated tariff responses by its trading partners) on trade flows, welfare, and wages. This companion paper documents the methodologies underlying the tariff data collection protocol and the structuralsimulation designs.
Projecting Inflation Tail Risks In A Small Open Economy: Some Evidence From Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Jordan Lee
Projecting Inflation Tail Risks In A Small Open Economy: Some Evidence From Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Jordan Lee
Research Collection School Of Economics
This study empirically assesses the drivers of risks to the inflation outlook for a small open economy like Singapore. We apply the inflation-at-risk framework of López-Salido and Loria (2020) and incorporate projections from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) as point forecasts of inflation. Our findings show that macro-financial risk factors—shaped by Singapore’s openness, role as a financial hub, and exchange rate–centered monetary policy framework—enter nonlinearly into inflation risk models and exert differentiated effects. Foreign price pressures heighten upside risks, and exchange rate policy has proven effective at mitigating them. Tighter global financial conditions amplify inflation risks through cost-push channels, …
Efficient Bilateral Trade With Interdependent Values: The Use Of Two-Stage Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang
Efficient Bilateral Trade With Interdependent Values: The Use Of Two-Stage Mechanisms, Takashi Kunimoto, Cuiling Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
Efficient, voluntary bilateral trades are generally not implementable in an interdependent values environment with two-sided asymmetric information. To obtain more positive results, we consider two-stage mechanisms in which (i) the outcome (e.g., allocation of the goods) is determined first; (ii) the agents partially learn the state via their own outcome-decision payoffs; and (iii) transfers are finally made. We propose the approximate shoot-the-liar (AS) mechanism and identify Assumption 1, under which “approximately” efficient, voluntary trades are implementable. We further illustrate the permissiveness of the assumption, and characterize it in terms of the nature of interdependence in valuation functions – delineating the …
(When) Can Trade Wars Be Good?, Henry S. Gao, Weihuan Zhou
(When) Can Trade Wars Be Good?, Henry S. Gao, Weihuan Zhou
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
‘Trade wars are good, and easy to win,’ tweeted Donald Trump in 2018. The US–China trade war that followed proved otherwise – especially when confronting a major economic power. Yet, can trade wars ever be good? While the academic consensus holds they harm all participants, we argue that under certain circumstances they can produce positive outcomes. Set against the backdrop of the Liberation Day tariffs announced on April 2, 2025, this paper examines the limits of the Ricardian free trade model underpinning the current multilateral trading system, identifies when trade wars may serve strategic goals, and explores alternative rules to …
The Aggregate Welfare And Trade Implications Of Contracting Frictions In Global Sourcing, Davin Chor, Lin Ma
The Aggregate Welfare And Trade Implications Of Contracting Frictions In Global Sourcing, Davin Chor, Lin Ma
Research Collection School Of Economics
How much do contracting frictions between global firms and their suppliers impact country welfare and trade? We answer this by developing a model of global sourcing under partial contractibility, where firm-supplier relationships are exposed to a bilateral holdup problem. Sourcing decisions aggregate into a gravity equation for trade flows by organizational mode (intrafirm vs. arm’s length), which we take to structural estimation. We can then evaluate welfare changes with an extended Arkolakis, Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2012) formula that incorporates these contracting frictions. Our counterfactual analysis reveals a sizeable average country welfare gain of 9.2% from eliminating contracting frictions in global …
Local Insights Into Global Value Chains, Pao-Li Chang
Local Insights Into Global Value Chains, Pao-Li Chang
Asian Management Insights
Leveraging firm-level data to inform anticipatory economic policy decisions.
Essays On Spatial Economics And International Trade, Yunlong Song
Essays On Spatial Economics And International Trade, Yunlong Song
Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)
This dissertation consists of two chapters that study the China’s spatial economy in the context of heterogenous skill workers, local capital investment, and foreign direct investment (FDI). The first chapter studies how production factor accumulations in space respond to economic shocks or events, and how those responses modify the aggregate and distributional impacts of shocks. To examine their responses and implications, we develop a dynamic spatial model that incorporates capital accumulation and skill acquisition. Focusing on China’s trade liberalization and infrastructure expansion in the early 2000s, we show that allowing for capital accumulation amplifies welfare gains and intensifies between-skill inequality, …
The Impact Of Nafta On Prices And Competition: Evidence From Mexican Manufacturing Plants, Felipe Brugués, Ayumu Ken Kikkawa, Yuan Mei, Pablo Robles
The Impact Of Nafta On Prices And Competition: Evidence From Mexican Manufacturing Plants, Felipe Brugués, Ayumu Ken Kikkawa, Yuan Mei, Pablo Robles
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper assesses the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on Mexican manufacturing plants’ output prices and markups. We distinguish between Mexican goods that are exported and those sold domestically, and decompose their prices separately into markups and marginal costs. We then analyze how these components were affected by the reductions in Mexican output tariffs, intermediate input tariffs, and U.S. tariffs on Mexican exports. We find that domestically sold products saw a decline in prices as Mexican plants faced more competition and gained access to cheaper inputs. Prices of exported goods fell only slightly as plants increased their …
(Trade) War And Peace: How To Impose International Trade Sanctions, Gustavo De Souza, Naiyuan Hu, Haishi Li, Yuan Mei
(Trade) War And Peace: How To Impose International Trade Sanctions, Gustavo De Souza, Naiyuan Hu, Haishi Li, Yuan Mei
Research Collection School Of Economics
What is the most cost-efficient way to impose trade sanctions against Russia? We build a quantitative model of international trade with input–output connections. Sanctioning countries choose import tariffs to simultaneously maximize their income and minimize Russia's income, with different weights placed on these objectives. We find, first, that for countries with low willingness to pay for sanctions against Russia, the most cost-efficient sanction is an approximately 20% tariff on all Russian products. Second, if countries are willing to pay at least US$0.70 for each US$1 drop in Russian welfare, an embargo on Russia's mining and energy products is the most …
Financial Crises, Bailouts And Monetary Policy In Open Economies, Yang Jiao
Financial Crises, Bailouts And Monetary Policy In Open Economies, Yang Jiao
Research Collection School Of Economics
I jointly study the optimal bailout policy and monetary policy in open economies that borrow in foreign currency from international lenders. A policy dilemma emerges during financial crises. Policymakers trade off the benefit of more bailouts alleviating firms’ financial constraints against the cost of larger currency devaluation, which tightens firms’ financial constraints. I embed the optimal bailout in an otherwise standard “sudden stop” model with nominal rigidities. The model sheds light on the role of bailouts and currency mismatch in driving the exchange rate dynamics, firms’ balance sheets and economic recovery. Quantitatively, the model matches key business cycle moments. A …
Several Us Trade ‘Deals’ Later, There Are Still More Questions Than Answers, Locknie Hsu
Several Us Trade ‘Deals’ Later, There Are Still More Questions Than Answers, Locknie Hsu
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
For ASEAN countries, the immediate question is not whether United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs are legal but how to get greater clarity about trade agreements, says SMU law professor Locknie Hsu.
Trade Imbalance, Heavy Goods, And Pollution, Jungho Lee, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianhuan Xu
Trade Imbalance, Heavy Goods, And Pollution, Jungho Lee, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianhuan Xu
Research Collection School Of Economics
We propose a new welfare effect of trade surplus. Guided by insight from several fields in economics, we provide evidence that an increase in a country's trade surplus alters the unit shipping costs for its trade and the composition of its imports in ways that induce more pollution in the country in equilibrium. This new form of welfare loss of trade imbalance has not been accounted for in the existing international economics literature
Essays On Spatial Economics And International Trade, Naiyuan Hu
Essays On Spatial Economics And International Trade, Naiyuan Hu
Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)
This dissertation consists of three papers on spatial economics and international trade. The first paper focuses on spatial inequalities. Educational resources are distributed unevenly and contribute to spatial inequality. A dynamic spatial model with life-cycle elements studies the impacts of location-specific educational resources. Individuals determine where to attend college, weighing distance, expected value of education, and available resources. Locations with more colleges attract more students. As mobility costs increase with age, many graduates stay in the city where they studied, affecting skill composition. Applied to China, it finds that the 2005- 2015 college expansion had minimal welfare impacts and suggests …
Regulatory Protection And The Role Of International Cooperation, Yuan Mei
Regulatory Protection And The Role Of International Cooperation, Yuan Mei
Research Collection School Of Economics
I develop a general equilibrium framework to analyze the welfare consequences of product regulations and their international harmonization. In my model, raising product standards reduces a negative consumption externality, but also increases the marginal and fixed costs of production. When product standards are set noncooperatively, the effects of standards on other countries' wages and number of firms are not internalized, giving rise to an international inefficiency. The World Trade Organization's nondiscrimination principle of national treatment only partly addresses this inefficiency. Welfare losses from abandoning national treatment average 2.8%, whereas the maximum welfare gains from efficient cooperation average 11.8%.
The Balance Of Concessions In Trade Agreements, Mostafa Beshkar, Pao-Li Chang, Shenxi Song
The Balance Of Concessions In Trade Agreements, Mostafa Beshkar, Pao-Li Chang, Shenxi Song
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper introduces a quantitative framework to analyze the WTO’s reciprocity principle. Utilizing two polar bargaining environments, we measure terms-of-trade concessions among WTO members and examine how shifts in applied tariffs and economic fundamentals affect bilateral and multilateral balance of concessions. We find significant disparities in concessions, largely driven by the rise in trade imbalances since the early 1990s. Notably, although US-China bilateral tariffs suggest considerable terms-of-trade benefits for China, under a hypothetical balanced trade scenario, their relationship evolves towards near reciprocity following China’s accession to the WTO. Furthermore, in contrast to the significant gains in its relationship with the …
Assessing The Impacts Of The Us-China Trade War On Asian Economies, Ruoqing Chen
Assessing The Impacts Of The Us-China Trade War On Asian Economies, Ruoqing Chen
Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)
The ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China have reverberated globally, sparking concerns about economic stability and growth. What are the most affected industries and economies among Asia? What will happen if the US and China further raise their tariffs? Are there any useful trade policy adjustments for the Asian economies to improve their lots under the not-so-optimistic world trade climate? This paper employs a multi-country, multi-industry, general equilibrium model to analyze the impacts of the US-China trade war and potential further tariff war on 13 Asian regions across 20 industries in the year 2017. The results indicate …
The Influence Of Societal Nationalist Sentiment On Trade Flows, Douglas Dow, Ilya Cuypers
The Influence Of Societal Nationalist Sentiment On Trade Flows, Douglas Dow, Ilya Cuypers
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
In recent years, the world has witnessed a backlash against globalization and a rise in populist and nationalist movements around the world. However, there appears to be little empirical research concerning how these movements, and especially nationalist sentiment, actually influence trade. Therefore, we explore how and when nationalist sentiment within a country influences trade. Our results indicate that the effect of nationalist sentiment on imports is mediated by lower participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) but not via tariffs. Furthermore, we are unable to confirm support for a direct effect of nationalist sentiment on imports, as predicted by the consumer …
Migration And Resource Misallocation In China, Xiaolu Li, Lin Ma, Yang Tang
Migration And Resource Misallocation In China, Xiaolu Li, Lin Ma, Yang Tang
Research Collection School Of Economics
We structurally estimate the firm-level frictions across prefectures in China and quantify their aggregate and distributional implications. Based on a general equilibrium model with input and output distortions and migration, we show that the firm-level frictions are less dispersed and less correlated with firm productivity in richer prefectures. Counterfactual exercises show that reducing the within-prefecture misallocation increases aggregate welfare, discourages migration toward large prefectures, and reduces spatial inequality. Moreover, internal migration alleviates micro-frictions’ impacts on aggregate welfare and worsens their effects on spatial inequality.
Cross-Border Technology Investments In Recession, Juliana Yu Sun, Huanhuan Zheng
Cross-Border Technology Investments In Recession, Juliana Yu Sun, Huanhuan Zheng
Research Collection School Of Economics
Utilizing industry-level foreign direct investment (FDI) from 72 source markets to 122 destination markets between 2003 to 2018, we evaluate how cross-border technology investments respond to economic recessions. We find that FDI embedded with intensive research and development (R&D) drops when the destination market is in a recession and the source market is in a normal state and recovers to the pre-recession levels when both destination and source markets are in recession. However, there is little evidence that recessions affect cross-border investments in other aspects of technology measured by the penetration of robots, intellectual property products and information and communications …
The Long And Short-Run Spatial Impacts Of Trade, Lin Ma, Yunlong Song, Yang Tang
The Long And Short-Run Spatial Impacts Of Trade, Lin Ma, Yunlong Song, Yang Tang
Research Collection School Of Economics
We explore how the spatial impacts of trade evolve over time using a dynamic spatial model that incorporates capital accumulation and skill acquisition. We show that in the short run, the spatial impacts of trade mainly depend on the initial conditions, especially the endowments of physical and human capital across locations. However, in the long run, trade shocks shape the distribution of production factors across space through factor accumulation and migration, resulting in significantly different spatial impacts. In the context of China’s WTO accession, we find that international trade is seven times more effective in driving the population towards coastal …
Essays On Foreign Trade Zones, Xincheng Huang
Essays On Foreign Trade Zones, Xincheng Huang
Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)
In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the US Congress enacted the Foreign Trade Zones (FTZs) Act, and all states have at least one zone. FTZ play a significant role of sourcing foreign products, constituting about 12% of all imports entering the US and over 28% of total taxable goods during the US-China Trade War. As of 2021, there were 258 approved FTZs and roughly 85% of the outputs are domestically consumed. The US government set three main objectives of FTZs, including facilitating international trade, fostering domestic economic activities, and attracting foreign investments. This thesis firstly quantitatively measures …
China’S Changing Perspective On The Wto: From Aspiration, Assimilation To Alienation, Henry S. Gao
China’S Changing Perspective On The Wto: From Aspiration, Assimilation To Alienation, Henry S. Gao
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
Since its accession to the WTO twenty years ago, China’s image has shifted from a good student aspiring to assimilate itself into the multilateral trading system to one that is increasingly alienated from key WTO principles. How has China’s perspective on WTO been evolving? What are the reasons behind China’s changing perspective? This chapter addresses these questions from the Chinese perspective with a comprehensive analysis of the key moments in China’s first two decades in the WTO, followed by practical suggestions on how to engage China more constructively in the WTO and beyond.
The Depth Of Preferential Trade Agreements, Pao-Li Chang, Wei Jin, Kefang Yao
The Depth Of Preferential Trade Agreements, Pao-Li Chang, Wei Jin, Kefang Yao
Research Collection School Of Economics
Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have increased rapidly in number since the 1990s, and have extended their traditional focus on tariff reduction to include deeper integration in policy areas such as competition policy, intellectual property rights, investments, and movement of capital. This paper uses a comprehensive dataset on the content of PTAs to quantify the impacts of the depth of trade agreements on bilateral trade flows and national welfare across the world for the period 1980–2015. The results indicate that agreements that are deeper (by different definitions) contribute to larger trade growth and welfare gains. Furthermore, the results imply that the …
Growth And Risk: A View From International Trade, Pravin Krishna, Andrei A. Levchenko, Lin Ma, William F. Maloney
Growth And Risk: A View From International Trade, Pravin Krishna, Andrei A. Levchenko, Lin Ma, William F. Maloney
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies the cross-country patterns of risky innovation and growth through the lens of international trade. We use a simple theoretical framework of risky quality upgrading by firms under varying levels of financial development to derive two predictions. First, the mean rate of quality growth and the corresponding cross-sectional variance of quality growth in a country are positively correlated. Second, both the mean and variance of quality changes are positively correlated with the country's level of financial development. We then test these two hypotheses using data on disaggregated (HS10) bilateral exports to the United States. The patterns in the …
Migration And Spatial Misallocation In China, Xiaolu Li, Lin Ma, Yang Tang
Migration And Spatial Misallocation In China, Xiaolu Li, Lin Ma, Yang Tang
Research Collection School Of Economics
We structurally estimate the firm-level frictions across prefectures in China and quantify their aggregate and distributional implications. Based on a general equi-librium model with input and output distortions and migration, we show that the firm-level frictions are less dispersed and less correlated with productivity in richer prefectures. Counterfactual exercises show that reducing the within-prefecture mis-allocation increases the aggregate welfare, discourages migration towards large cities, and narrows the spatial inequality. Moreover, internal migration alleviates the impacts of micro-frictions on aggregate welfare and worsens their impacts on spatial inequality.
The Evolution Of The ‘Trade And …’ ‘Debate’: A View From Asean, Locknie Hsu
The Evolution Of The ‘Trade And …’ ‘Debate’: A View From Asean, Locknie Hsu
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This article explores the ‘Trade and …’ ‘Debate’ in the context of trade and environment issues. It provides an explanation of the evolution of discussions of such issues in a non-dispute settlement context, using developments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ integration efforts as illustrations. It also highlights a number of opportunities for trade and environment collaboration in negotiations for free trade agreement and Digital Economy Partnership Agreements.
Growth And Risk: A View From International Trade, Pravin Krishna, Andrei A. Levcheko, Lin Ma, William F. Maloney
Growth And Risk: A View From International Trade, Pravin Krishna, Andrei A. Levcheko, Lin Ma, William F. Maloney
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies the cross-country patterns of risky innovation and growth through the lens of international trade. We use a simple theoretical framework of risky quality upgrading by firms under varying levels of financial development to derive two predictions. First, the mean rate of quality growth and the corresponding cross-sectional variance of quality growth in a country are positively correlated. Second, both the mean and variance of quality changes are positively correlated with the country’s level of financial development. We then test these two hypotheses using data on disaggregated (HS10) bilateral exports to the United States. The patterns in the …