The Impact of 3D Printing on Trade and FDI

This paper analyzes the effects of 3D printing technologies on the volume of trade and on the structure of FDI. A standard model with firm-specific heterogeneity generates three main predictions. First, 3D printers are introduced in areas with high economic activity that also face high transport costs. Second, technological progress related to 3D printing machines leads to a gradual replacement of FDI that relies on traditional production structures with FDI based on 3D printing techniques. At this stage international trade stays unaffected. Finally, at later stages, with 3D printing machines being widely used, further technological progress in 3D printing leads to a gradual replacement of international trade. Empirical evidence indicates that countries subject to higher transport costs and with high levels of economic activity are indeed among the ones that import more 3D printers. Anecdotal evidence also supports the second and third predictions of the model

Hungry Children Age Faster

We analyze how childhood hunger affects human aging for a panel of European individuals. For this purpose, we use six waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset and construct a health deficit index. Results from log-linear regressions suggest that, on average, elderly European men and women developed about 20 percent more health deficits when they experienced a hunger episode in their childhood. The effect becomes larger when the hunger episode is experienced earlier in childhood. In non-linear regressions (akin to the Gompertz-Makeham law), we obtain greater effects suggesting that health deficits in old age are up to 40 percent higher for children suffering from hunger. The wedge of health deficits between hungry and and non-hungry individuals increases absolutely and relatively with age. This implies that individuals who suffered from hunger as children age faster

How We Fall Apart: Similarities of Human Aging in 10 European Countries

We analyze human aging, understood as health deficit accumulation, for a panel of European individuals. For that purpose, we use four waves of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE dataset) and construct a health deficit index. Results from log-linear regressions suggest that, on average, elderly European men and women develop about 2.5 percent more health deficits from one birthday to the next. In non-linear regression (akin to the Gompertz-Makeham model), however, we find much greater rates of aging and large differences between men and women as well as between countries. Interestingly, these differences follow a particular regularity (akin to the compensation effect of mortality). They suggest an age at which average health deficits converge for men and women and across countries

Digital technology and international trade: Is it the quantity of subscriptions or the quality of data speed that matters?

Information and communication technologies affect global trade patterns through transaction costs on the supply and demand sides. The relevant transaction costs are affected by both the number of telecommunication subscriptions and the speed of the available bandwidth. We test for the differential effects of telecommunication quantity (data subscriptions per capita) and quality (bandwidth data speed per subscription) of fixed and mobile telephony and internet services on countries’ bilateral exports of goods. We use an augmented Gravity Model and control for multilateral resistance. Regression results for 122 countries over 1995–2008 show a significant effect on export performance of both variables. In the sub-sample analysis we find that data speed quality is what matters most for developing countries, while the quantity of subscriptions is more relevant for developed ones. We explain this by the disadvantage developing countries derive from being far from the technological communication frontier in terms of data speed, while the diffusion of additional high speed subscriptions in developed countries open up new markets there. This illustrates the importance of going beyond the traditional assessment of telecommunication infrastructure in terms of the number of subscriptions, and urges both scholars and policy-makers to start considering bandwidth quality