Paolo Epifani

Trade, Markup Heterogeneity and Misallocations

Markups vary widely across industries and countries, their heterogeneity has increased overtime and asymmetric exposure to international trade seems partly responsible for this phenomenon. In this paper, we study how the entire distribution of markups affects resource misallocation and welfare in a general equilibrium framework encompassing a large class of models with imperfect competition. We then identify conditions under which trade opening, by changing the distribution of markups, may reduce welfare. Our approach is novel both in its generality and in the emphasis on the second moment of the markup distribution. Two broad policy recommendations stand out from the analysis. First, whenever there is heterogeneity in markups, be it due to trade or other distortions, there is also an intersectoral misallocation, so that the equilibrium can be improved upon with an appropriate intervention. This suggests that trade liberalization and domestic industrial policy are complementary. Second, ensuring free entry is a crucial precondition to prevent adverse effects from asymmetric trade opening.

Trade liberalization, firm performance, and labor market outcomes in the developing world: what can we learn from micro-level data?

reviews the micro-level evidence on the effects of trade and investment liberalization in the developing world. He focuses, in particular, on the effects of the 1991 trade reform in India since it provides an excellent controlled experiment in which the effects of a drastic trade regime change can be measured. His main findings are: 1) There is evidence of trade-induced productivity gains (in this respect, however, India is an exception. 2) These gains mainly stem from intra-industry reallocation of resources among firms with different productivity levels. 3) The gains are larger in import-competing sectors. 4) There is no evidence of significant scale efficiency gains. Unilateral trade liberalization is often associated with a reduced scale efficiency. 5) There is evidence of a pro-competitive effect of trade liberalization. 6) There is no evidence either of learning-by-exporting effects or of beneficial spillover effects from foreign-owned to local firms active in the same sectors. 7) There is evidence, however, of positive vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. 8) There is evidence of skill upgrading induced either by technology imports or by trade-induced reallocations of market shares in favor of plants with higher skill-intensity. 9) There is no evidence of trade-induced increases in labor demand elasticities. But direct evidence suggests that trade exposure raises wage volatility. 10) There is no evidence of substantial employment contraction in import-competing sectors.

Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and Factor Prices

We show how, in general equilibrium models featuring increasing returns, imperfect competition and endogenous markups, changes in the scale of economic activity affect income distribution across factors. Whenever final goods are gross-substitutes (gross- complements), a scale expansion raises (lowers) the relative reward of the scarce factor or the factor used intensively in the sector characterized by a higher degree of product differentiation and higher fixed costs. Under very reasonable hypothesis, our theory suggests that scale is skill-biased. This result provides a microfoundation for the secular increase in the relative demand for skilled labor. Moreover, it constitutes an important link among major explanations for the rise in wage inequality: skill-biased technical change, capital-skill complementarities and international trade. We provide new evidence on the mechanism underlying the skill bias of scale.

On the Dynamics of Trade Patterns

In this paper we analyse the dynamics of trade patterns in the six largest industrialised countries and in eight fast growing Asian economies. For each of these countries we study the shape of the sectoral distribution of an index of trade specialisation and its evolution over time. Our analysis shows a marked difference between the advanced and the emerging countries as far as the degree of persistence is concerned: the former have in fact a highly persistent trade pattern, whereas the latter show a rapidly changing trade specialisation. However, the two groups of countries are more similar as far as the evolution of the degree of specialisation is concerned. Although emerging countries are still more specialised than the industrialised countries, both groups show a tendency toward a reduced polarisation and a more symmetric distribution of the specialisation index. This evidence is in line with the traditional trade theory, in which changing comparative advantage is the determinant of a changing trade pattern. Contrarily, this evidence does not support the idea that self-reinforcing mechanisms are prominent in international trade specialisation.

Gatt-Think with Asymmetric Countries

We argue that, in the presence of asymmetric countries, a trade agreement that conforms to GATT’s reciprocity rule allows the (stronger) less trade dependent country to improve its welfare relative to both the free trade and the trade war. Conversely, the (weaker) more trade dependent country cannot reach the free trade welfare level under reciprocity, although its welfare improves relative to the trade war. Reciprocity is so unfavorable to the weaker country that it may be worse off under reciprocity than under the Nash bargaining solution, a ‘power-based’ approach to trade negotiations that reflects power asymmetries among trading partners. Our results question Bagwell and Staiger (1999, 2000)’s view of reciprocity as a rule that “serves to mitigate the influence of power asymmetries on negotiated outcomes”.

Geography, Migrations and Equilibrium Unemployment

We study the effects of trade integration on the regional coevolution of income, migrations and unemployment in a dynamic core-periphery model with limited labor mobility and frictions in the job matching process. Our model can help explain a recently documented empirical puzzle, i.e., the divergence of unemployment rates, together with low migrations and modest income convergence experienced by European regions over the last twenty years. By studying explicitly the transitional dynamics of the model, we also highlight a contrast between short run and long run effects of trade and policy shocks on a geographically differentiated economy.

Procompetitive Losses from Trade

We argue that the procompetitive eect of international trade may bring about signif- icant welfare costs that have not been recognized. We formulate a stylized general equilib- rium model with a continuum of imperfectly competitive industries to show that, under plausible conditions, a trade-induced increase in competition can actually amplify monopoly distortions. This happens because trade, while lowering the average level of market power, may increase its cross-sectoral dispersion. Using data on US industries, we document a dramatic increase in the dispersion of market power overtime. We also show evidence that trade might be responsible for it and provide some quanti…cations of the induced welfare cost. Our results suggest that, to avoid some unpleasant eects of globalization, trade integration should be accompanied by procompetitive reforms (i.e., deregulation) in the nontraded sectors.

Effetto di scala ed effetto proporzioni fattoriali nel commercio inter-industriale

Trade theory predicts that increasing returns to scale and factor proportions are the main determinants of international trade. Yet, it does not give a precise answer on the relative importance of each of these causes of world trade, and on their joint interaction in determining interindustry specialisation. In this paper we formulate a model which allows us to integrate in a very simple way the two main causes of international specialisation. We then use this model as a benchmark for quantifying empirically the relative importance of scale economies and factor proportions in interindustry trade. We find that both have a non negligible effect in the manufacturing sectors. In particular, factor proportions are the main source of international trade in the sectors whose factor intensities are extreme. On the contrary, increasing returns turn out to be the main determinant of world trade in the sectors characterised by intermediate factor intensities.