Horst Raff

Intra-Industry Adjustment to Import Competition: Theory and Application to the German Clothing Industry

This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industry adjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficient firms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups and profits, and the average productivity of survivors increases. These pro-competitive effects of import penetration on the domestic industry disappear in the long run. The predictions for the short run are confirmed in an empirical study of the German clothing industry.

Firm Productivity and the Foreign-Market Entry Decision

We use Japanese firm-level data to examine how a firm?s productivity affects its choice of foreign-market entry strategy. We study a sequence of decisions, starting with the choice between exporting and foreign direct investment (FDI). In the case of FDI, the firm faces two options: greenfield investment or merger and acquisition (M&A). If it selects greenfield investment, it has two ownership choices: whole ownership or a joint venture. Controlling for industry- and country-specific characteristics, we find that the more productive a firm is, the more likely it is to choose FDI rather than exporting, greenfield investment rather than M&A, and whole ownership rather than a joint venture. We also find that the assumed sequence of decisions fits the data better than alternative specifications.

Income Redistribution with Well-Informed Local Governments

This paper examines the problem of redistributing incomeacross jurisdictions and to mobile workers within jurisdictionswhen local governments have better information than the centralgovernment about local production conditions. Under the centralgovernment‘s optimal policy, the subsidies or taxes that localgovernments provide to mobile workers normally depend on whetherthese governments are net recipients or net donors of interjurisdictionalincome transfers. Moreover, the public-input decisions of somelocal governments are distorted. The analysis demonstrates thatit may not be desirable to harmonize social policies across jurisdictions,even when the beneficiaries are quite mobile.

Tax incentives for import-substituting foreign investment:: Does signaling play a role?

Abstract This paper constructs a game-theoretic model to study host country policy to attract import-substituting foreign direct investment (FDI). Investors are assumed to be incompletely informed about local investment conditions, and taxes and tariffs are determined endogenously. We show that in certain situations countries will offer tax incentives while in others they will impose a tariff wall to induce FDI. Tax incentives are motivated by the need to signal favorable investment conditions. The paper predicts that tax incentives are more likely to be used the larger is the investment risk, the smaller is the local market, the smaller is the stock of previous FDI, and the lower are trade barriers. Moreover, we conjecture that incentives are positively correlated with the number of jobs created by the investment. We test these predictions using data from the US Department of Commerce benchmark survey of US foreign investment and find that they are supported by the empirical evidence.

Foreign Ownership and the Extensive Margins of Exports: Evidence for Manufacturing Enterprises in Germany

We examine how foreign ownership of a firm affects the variety of goods that the firm exports and the number of countries it trades with. We construct a simple theoretical model of how foreign ownership may affect these extensive margins of exports and take this model to data from Germany, one of the leading actors on the world market for goods. In line with theoretical predictions we find that foreign-owned firms do export more goods to more countries after controlling for firm size, productivity and industry affiliation. These differences between foreign-owned firms and domestically controlled firms are highly statistically significant, and they are large from an economic point of view, with foreign-owned firms exporting up to 39% more goods to up to 31% more countries.

Optimal export policy in the presence of informational barriers to entry and imperfect competition

Abstract This paper examines government intervention to help exporters overcome informational barriers to entry into foreign markets. Foreign consumers know the quality of a local good but not that of the imported substitute. An exporter who chooses high quality needs to signal this choice to foreign consumers via a high introductory price. Export policy affects both the signaling distortion and competition between exporter and incumbent. The signaling distortion may call for an export subsidy, competition for an export tax. Which policy is adopted in equilibrium depends on industry characteristics. Over time, the export tax tends to rise as the signaling distortion disappears.

A model of expropriation with asymmetric information

Abstract Incomplete information about a multinational enterprises (MNEs) technology may induce a host country to expropriate the MNEs subsidiary even if other policy instruments are available. The threat of expropriation does not always deter foreign direct investment so that expropriation may actually occur with nonzero probability. Perfect sequential equilibria are derived for vertically and for horizontally integrated MNEs. The model provides predictions regarding the probability of expropriation based on observable MNE and host country characteristics. Countries would be better off if they could commit never to expropriate MNEs.

Imports and the structure of retail markets

We construct a model of trade with heterogeneous retailers to examine the effects of trade liberalization on retail market structure, imports and social welfare. We are especially interested in investigating the transmission of lower import prices into consumer prices and the effects of retail market regulation. The paper shows that changes in import prices may have large effects on consumer prices and import volumes when changes in retail market structure are taken into account, and that restrictions on retailing, as they occur in several countries, may significantly alter this transmission mechanism by reducing imports and raising consumer prices.

Greasing the wheels of international commerce: how services facilitate firms’ international sourcing

We use unique plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. To guide our empirical analysis we develop a monopolistic-competition model of the materials sourcing decisions of heterogeneous firms. The model generates predictions about how the intensity of international sourcing of materials depends on a firms productivity and the availability of local services. These predictions are supported by the data. We find evidence that more productive manufacturing firms tend to have a higher ratio of imported materials to sales. In addition, we find evidence that services grease the wheels of international commerce: A greater availability of services across regions, industries and time increases a firms foreign sourcing of materials relative to sales. Interestingly, this positive impact of local service availability on imports especially applies to stand-alone firms that, unlike multinationals, are less likely to rely on imported or internally provided services.

A theory of trade concessions

Abstract We present a model of tariff disputes and concessions consisting of an infinitely repeated game under bilateral incomplete information. Given potential agreements to be reached through unilateral or reciprocal concessions, we find that an agreement involving reciprocal concessions is reached immediately if the discount factor is large and/or the volume of trade is small. Otherwise prior beliefs about country type matter: when both countries hold pessimistic priors, immediate reciprocal concessions still occur. Very different prior beliefs lead to an immediate unilateral concession of the pessimistic country, whereas optimistic priors coupled with low discount factors may generate delayed agreements.