Cong S. Pham

Trading on Time

The authors determine how time delays affect international trade using newly collected World Bank data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 126 countries. They estimate a modified gravity equation, controlling for endogeneity and remoteness. On average, each additional day that a product is delayed prior to being shipped reduces trade by at least 1 percent. Put differently, each day is equivalent to a country distancing itself from its trade partners by 70 kilometers on average. Delays have an even greater impact on developing country exports and exports of time-sensitive goods, such as perishable agricultural products. In particular, a days delay reduces a countrys relative exports of time-sensitive to time-insensitive agricultural goods by 6 percent.

The role of endowments, technology and size in international trade: new evidence from product-level data

ABSTRACT Using product-level trade data, we empirically investigate the export patterns of more than 150 countries in their exports to the USA, Brazil, India, and Japan. We document strong evidence that exporters specialize according to their relative factor endowments, technology, and economic size. More developed, capital abundant countries are found to export products of higher unit values and a wider range of products to developed, emerging and developing markets. More developed, economically larger, and technologically advanced countries are also the major exporters of new products, spanning a wide range of product categories with high unit values. Our findings provide important insights into the macro phenomenon that a large proportion of the global trade takes place among developed economies, and that the latter are also major exporters to developing markets.

Has China displaced its competitors in high tech trade

This paper empirically investigated the extent to which China displaced its competitors in high†tech exports using disaggregated data for the period 1992–2013. To address the endogeneity problem, we used a comprehensive set of instruments for Chinese high†tech exports in relevant markets, including Chinas GDP and distances to those markets. Results of our IV regressions revealed that in most of the high†tech sectors, Chinese exports had displaced the exports of its developing competitors such as India, South American exporters like Brazil and Mexico, and South†East Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, especially in the period prior to the 2007–08 global financial crisis. Yet, Chinese exports had been associated with more high†tech exports of developed exporters like OECD countries, South Korea and Japan. Our findings suggest that while China became the worlds top high†tech exporter, its high†tech exported products had been substitutes to those of other developing and emerging economies but complementary to that of developed economies.

The role of rice in poverty dynamics in rural Vietnam: 2002–2008

Using the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Surveys of 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, this paper investigates the role of rice in poverty dynamics in the recent context of Vietnam. We find that sizeable changes in rice prices in the 2000s, which were driven largely by the countrys integration into the world markets, have not helped rural households escape poverty, even for households with large-scale rice production. Our results also document that changes in rice output and productivity did not help mitigate poverty either. The paper provides evidence to explain why a substantial exogenous increase in the rice prices between 2006 and 2008 did not help rural households to move out of poverty, while similar changes did help in the 1990s.

Terrorism and international air travel: a gravity approach

We present a theoretical model (adapted from the structural gravity model by Anderson and van Wincoop, American Economic Review, 93, 2003, 170) to capture the effects of terrorism on air passenger traffic between nations affected by terrorism. We then use equations derived from this model, in conjunction with alternative functional forms for trade costs, to estimate the effects of terrorism on bilateral air passenger service flows from 58 source countries to 26 destination countries during 2000–14. An additional small‐scale terrorist incident in the origin country and destination country together results in a reduction in bilateral air passenger travel by, at least, 1.3% and 0.81%, respectively, for pairs of countries located 1,000 and 2,000 km or less apart. The adverse impact of transnational terrorism is approximately five times larger. Terrorism adversely impacts bilateral air passenger travel both by reducing national output and especially by increasing psychological distress. Last but not the least, international air passenger travel is found to be extremely sensitive to fatal terrorist attacks and terrorist attacks on targets such as airports, travel or tourists.