Taiji Furusawa

Free Trade Networks

The paper examines the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as a network formation game. We consider a general n-country model in which countries trade differentiated industrial commodities as well as a numeraire good. Countries may be different in the size of the industrial good industry (measure of firms) and the market size (population size). Their incentives to sign an FTA depend on these characteristics of their own countries and those of their partner countries. We show that if all countries are symmetric, a complete global free trade network is pairwise stable and it is the unique stable network if industrial commodities are not highly substitutable. We also compare FTAs and customs unions (CUs) as to which of these two regimes facilitate global trade liberalization, emphasizing the fact that unlike in the case of a CU, each country signing an FTA can have a new FTA with an outside country without consent of other member countries.

Adjustment costs and gradual trade liberalization

Abstract This paper analyzes dynamic bilateral trade liberalization between two large countries. Trade liberalization causes the importable sector of each country to shrink and thereby causes reallocation of labor between sectors. Assuming that each moving worker must pay a fixed adjustment cost, a country has to bear a total adjustment cost which is linear in the amount of moving workers. We derive the most-cooperative, self-enforcing trade liberalization path, and find that in general trade liberalization is gradual. We also find that trade adjustment assistance that compensates workers for relocation out of the protected sector will accelerate the pace of trade liberalization.

Strategic delegation and delay in negotiations over the bargaining agenda

This paper develops a game‐theoretic model that endogenizes the items included in the bargaining agenda. The models equilibria suggest two possible sources of inefficiency: (1) exclusion of items from the bargaining agenda and (2) delay to agreement due to negotiations over the bargaining agenda. Evidence from union contract negotiations is provided to demonstrate the relevance of these sources of inefficiency. The model also allows strategic delegation by the union. In certain equilibria, the surplus‐maximizing union selects wage‐maximizing delegates (such as senior union members) to negotiate the contract.

What information is needed for welfare-enhancing policies under international oligopoly?

Abstract In the framework of international Cournot oligopoly, we analyze welfare-enhancing policies when policymakers have only limited information on demand and cost structures. We show that even if policymakers have no idea about costs and demand, they can raise welfare by introducing a small production subsidy. If the government knows that demand is not very convex, a small tariff can be used to enhance welfare. With strategic complements, a small import reduction by an import quota deteriorates welfare while a small increase in the number of domestic firms improves welfare. In other cases, some more information is required to determine right policies.

Dynamic Free Trade Networks: Some Numerical Results

To help predict whether the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) continues until global free trade is effectively attained, this paper investigates dynamic paths of FTAs, generated by numerical simulations of a model of an FTA network formation game with many countries. The characteristics of the final FTA network naturally depend on how the proposer of an FTA is chosen in each period. The paper finds that if the country that has the largest incentive to form an FTA is chosen as a proposer in each period, the network evolution always leads to a unique final FTA network, which may or may not be the complete network of FTAs. FTA networks often evolve to a partition of the world into a small number of groups of asymmetric size owing to the negative network externality caused by preference erosion.

Bargaining with stochastic disagreement payoffs

AbstractWe study a bargaining model where (i) players’ interim disagreement payoffs are stochastic and (ii) in any period, the proposer may postpone making an offer without losing the right to propose in the following period. This bargaining model has a generically unique perfect equilibrium payoff for each player, and the equilibrium outcome is inefficient in some cases, featuring a stochastically delayed agreement. We show that both the variation of players’ interim disagreement payoffs and the proposer’s ability to postpone making an offer without losing the right to propose are necessary for the existence of such a unique and inefficient perfect equilibrium outcome.

Disagreement points in trade negotiations

Abstract This paper analyzes trade negotiations between two large countries in the framework of an alternating-offer bargaining model with endogenous interim disagreement actions. Despite of the flexibility in disagreement tariff selection, the countries would keep the status quo tariffs in disagreement periods as far as the country which benefits from keeping the status quo tariffs compensates for the other country’s foregone gains from deviating in disagreement actions. Each equilibrium outcome converges to a corresponding Nash bargaining solution whose disagreement point reflects the status quo tariff rates as well as the threat of raising the tariff to the Nash tariff rate.

Globalization, Financial Development and Income Inequality

We analyse the effect of financial development and globalization (i.e. the reduction of trade costs) on income distribution when a financial institution is imperfect. Financial imperfection creates income inequality, by benefiting borrowers (entrepreneurs) and harming lenders through its effect of lowering the capital rental rate. We show that globalization changes income for both borrowers and lenders in the same direction. However, the poorer is the financial institution, the greater its effect for entrepreneurs and the smaller for lenders. We also examine the effect of financial development and globalization in an enriched model where individuals are different in their abilities as well as their capital endowments. We show that financial development mitigates capital misallocation while the reduction of trade costs will not improve efficiency.

Firm Heterogeneity under Financial Imperfection: Impacts of Trade and Capital Movement

The paper examines the impacts of trade and capital movement between North and South, which differ in the quality of financial institution, on the productivity distribution and other characteristics of a financially-dependent industry. We find that financial imperfection causes firm heterogeneity and that trade and capital movement are complements in the sense that trade in goods affects the productivity distribution only when accompanied by international capital movement (trade induces capital outflow from South when capital has been internationally mobile). We also find that an international difference in financial development induces reciprocal foreign direct investment.

WTO as Moral Support

International cooperation in trade policies under the auspices of the WTO makes countries “feel” more obliged to uphold agreements. The paper emphasizes the role of the WTO to give moral support: countries incur “psychological costs” when they renege on the agreements that are formally signed under the WTO. Using the concept of Kandoris (2003) “morale equilibrium,” we formalize this idea and show that countries can agree on a cooperative level of the binding tariffs but they occasionally deviate from the agreement, which lowers the morale and invites further deviations in the future.