Daria Taglioni

The Gravity Model in International Trade

Since Jan Tinberben’s original formulation (Tinbergen 1962, Shaping the World Economy, The Twentieth Century Fund, New York), the empirical analysis of bilateral trade flows through the estimation of a gravity equation has gone a long way. It has acquired a solid reputation of good fitting; it gained respected micro foundations that allowed it to move to a mature stage in which the “turn-over” gravity equation has been replaced by a gravity model; and it has dominated the literature on trade policy evaluation. In this chapter we show how some of the issues raised by Tinbergen have been the step stones of a 50-year long research agenda, and how the numerous empirical and theoretical contributions that followed dealt with old problems and highlighted new ones. Some future promising research issues are finally indicated.

Making global value chains work for development

Economic, technological, and political shifts as well as changing business strategies have driven firms to unbundle production processes and disperse them across countries. Thanks to these changes, developing countries can now increase their participation in global value chains (GVCs) and thus become more competitive in agriculture, manufacturing and services. This is a paradigm shift from the 20th century when countries had to build the entire supply chain domestically to become competitive internationally. For policymakers, the focus is on boosting domestic value added and improving access to resources and technology while advancing development goals. However, participating in global value chains does not automatically improve living standards and social conditions in a country. This requires not only improving the quality and quantity of production factors and redressing market failures, but also engineering equitable distributions of opportunities and outcomes - including employment, wages, work conditions, economic rights, gender equality, economic security, and protecting the environment. The internationalization of production processes helps with very few of these development challenges. Following this perspective, Making Global Value Chains Work for Development offers a strategic framework, analytical tools, and policy options to address this challenge. The book conceptualizes GVCs and makes it easier for policymakers and practitioners to discuss them and their implications for development. It shows why GVCs require fresh thinking; it serves as a repository of analytical tools; and it proposes a strategic framework to guide policymakers in identifying the key objectives of GVC participation and in selecting suitable economic strategies to achieve them.

Protectionist Responses to the Crisis - Global Trends and Implications

In this paper we take a systematic look at recent trends in global protectionism and at the potential implications of a protectionist backlash for economic growth, using results from the recent economic literature and new model simulations. We find that there has so far been a moderate increase in actual protectionist measures to restrict trade through tariff and non-tariff barriers. At the same time, evidence from surveys shows that public pressure for more economic protection has been mounting since the mid-2000s, and has possibly intensified since the start of the financial crisis. However, no World Trade Organization (WTO) member has retreated into widespread trade restrictions or protectionism to date. Our model-based simulations suggest that the impairment of the global flow of trade would hamper the recovery from the crisis, as well as the long-term growth of the global economy. At the same time, it is unlikely that protectionism would help to correct existing current account imbalances. Moreover, the countries implementing protectionist measures should expect a deterioration of their international competitiveness, which would further affect the potential for longer-term real GDP growth.

Firms in the Great Global Recession: The Role of Foreign Ownership and Financial Dependence

This paper investigates the channels through which the global crisis of 2008-2009 spread to economic activity of an emerging, fast growing economy with sound macroeconomic fundamentals. On the basis of Polish firm-level data we find that a number of individual firm characteristics account for a heterogeneous response. In particular, foreign ownership appears to have provided a higher degree of resilience to the crisis. Our results indicate that this effect might be due to intra-group lending mechanisms supporting affiliates facing external credit constraints.

Exporter Dynamics, Firm Size and Growth, and Partial Year Effects

Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and one in December, will report dramatically different annual sales for the first calendar year of operations. This partial year effect in annual data leads to downward biased observations of the level of activity upon entry and upward biased growth rates between the year of entry and the following year. This paper examines the implications of partial year effects using Peruvian export data. The partial year bias is very large: the average level of first-year exports of new exporters is understated by 65 percent and the average growth rate between the first and second year of exporting is overstated by 112 percentage points. This paper re-examines a number of stylized facts about firm size and growth that have motivated rapidly expanding theoretical and empirical literatures on firm export dynamics. Correcting the partial year effect eliminates unusually high growth rates in the first year of exporting, raises initial export levels, and shifts 10 percent of market entrants from below to above the median size. Revisiting an older set of facts on firm size and growth, the paper finds that correcting for partial year biases reduces the number of small firms in the firm size distribution and weakens the negative relationship between firm growth and firm size.

In the Wake of the Global Crisis: Evidence from a New Quarterly Database of Export Competitiveness

Over the past two decades, international trade has become a privileged engine of growth for much of the developing world. With the global economy evolving continuously and rapidly, countries must pay close attention to their positioning on the map of global trade and production. Within this framework, countries must also become aware of how they fare relative to competitors and to their past export performance. Of particular importance is the extent to which their performance is driven by exporter own supply-side capacity as opposed to external or compositional factors, including product and geographical specialization and how these trends compare across countries. This paper describes a new initiative that uses quarterly data for 2005q1-2013q1 to compute comparable indicators of export performance for 228 countries and territories. The database, the Export Competitiveness Database, reveals interesting patterns in trade performance. Export performance, stripped of compositional effects, was strongest for countries from the Asia and Pacific region, on average. Moreover, such performance was almost entirely driven by exporting country specific factors, with changes reflecting growth in volume rather than price developments. All emerging and developing regions have, on average, improved export performance. The indicators in the database trace the legacy of supply-side capacity and the overall export performance of the double-dip recession in the euro area. An illustrative set of results suggests that the papers measure of competitiveness correlates to a countrys nominal and real effective exchange rate, factors that are commonly perceived as important determinants of competitiveness.

Market Shares in the Wake of the Global Crisis: The Quarterly Export Competitiveness Database

Over the past two decades, international trade has become a privileged engine of growth for much of the developing world. In the wake of the global crisis, countries must pay close attention to their positioning on the global map of trade and production and become aware of how they fare relative to competitors and to their past export performance. To which extent changes in their market shares are driven by exporter own supply-side capacity as opposed to external or compositional factors, dues to their product and geographical specialization? This paper uses quarterly data, covering all exchanges flows at the product level since 2005, to compute indicators of export performance stripped of compositional effects. The resulting Export Competitiveness Database (ECD) reveals that emerging and developing regions, particularly the Asia and Pacific one, had strongest capacity to gain market shares in the most recent period, with changes reflecting growth in export volumes rather than price developments (once controlled for the composition effects). In contrast, ECD indicators also trace the legacy of the double-dip recession in the euro area, which have turned into negative the geographical effects of the traditional intra-zone specialization, despite the generally positive effects of sectoral structure. These measures of competitiveness correlate to nominal and real effective exchange rates, factors that are commonly perceived as important determinants of a country’s export competitiveness.

Innocent bystanders: how foreign uncertainty shocks harm exporters

The failure of trade economists to anticipate the extreme drop in trade post Lehman Brothers bankruptcy suggests that the behavior of trade in exceptional circumstances may still be poorly understood. This paper explores whether uncertainty shocks have explanatory power for movements in trade. VAR estimations on United States data suggest that domestic uncertainty is a strong predictor of movements in imports, but has little effect on exports. Guided by these results, the paper estimates a bilateral model with focus on the impact of importer uncertainty on foreign suppliers. It finds that there is a strong negative relationship between uncertainty and trade and that this relationship is non-linear. Uncertainty matters most when its levels are exceptionally high. The paper does not find evidence of learning from past turmoils, suggesting that prior experience with major uncertainty shocks does not reduce the effect on trade. In line with the expectations, the negative effect of uncertainty shocks on trade is higher for trade relationships more intensive in durable goods. Surprisingly, however, the effect of durability is non-linear. Supply chain considerations or the possibility that the relationships with the highest durability lead to important compositional effects may have a bearing on the results. The results are robust to excluding the post Lehman shock, suggesting that the trade response during the 2008-2009 crisis has been similar to past uncertainty events.

Vietnam at a crossroads : engaging in the next generation of global value chains

Vietnam has emerged as an Asian manufacturing powerhouse, carving out a role for itself within global value chains (GVCs). By specializing in assembly functions on behalf of primarily foreign firms, Vietnam has markedly increased its domestic value added, as reflected by its gross exports, which have grown by 16.6 percent annually between 1995 and 2011. This export-oriented development strategy has created jobs, propelled economic growth, and reduced poverty. As successful as Vietnam has been, within the context of GVCs, its specialization has been in low value-added,end-production activities. Its challenge is to move up the value chain into higher value-added functions. Even more ambitious would be to grasp the opportunity to become an originator of products by nurturing a nascent set of domestic firms that have the potential to carve out an “invented in Vietnam” niche in local, regional, and global markets. In short, Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can continue to specialize in low value-added assembly functions, withindustrialization occurring in enclaves with little connection to the broader economy or society; or it can leverage the current wave of growth to diversify and move up the chain into higher value-added functions. Success will require Vietnam’s policy makers to view the processes of development differently and to take new realities of the global economy more fully into account.Vietnam at a Crossroads: Engaging in the Next Generation of Global Value Chains identifies policies and targeted interventions that will drive development by leveraging GVC participation while also taking into account major trade policy shifts and rapid technological advances. Readers will gain a strong understanding of Vietnam’s current and potential engagement with GVCs and will learn about strategic policy tools that can help developing countries achieve economic prosperity in the context of compressed development. Its findings will be of particular interest to policy makers, development practitioners, and academics.

Economic upgrading through global value chain participation: which policies increase the value added gains ?

The emergence of global value chains has opened up new ways to achieve development and industrialization. However, new evidence shows that not all countries have gained from participating in global value chains, and that country-specific characteristics matter for economic upgrading in global value chains. This paper uses two panel data sets of developing and industrialized countries at the sectoral level to relate global value chain participation as a buyer and seller to domestic value added. These are combined with a wide range of policy measures at the country level that can play a role in economic upgrading through global value chains, by targeting global value chain integration or the quality and conditions of input and output factors. First, the study finds that global value chain integration increases domestic value added, especially on the selling side, which holds across all income levels. Second, the results highlight the importance of policy for economic upgrading through global value chain integration. Although the study cannot claim causal evidence, all the assessed policy areas are consistently shown to mediate the effects of global value chains and magnify the gains for domestic value added. Third, a detailed analysis shows that several policy areas mediate the gains from global value chains more through integration as a seller. Finally, the study observes that many of the results are driven by high- and upper-middle-income countries.