Trade, Production Sharing and the International Transmission of Business Cycles

This paper is motivated by three observations about the link between international trade and international business cycle synchronization: (1) a large increase in trade in manufactures over the last 30 years, (2) a larger fraction of trade between core and periphery regions relative to core regions is in the form of production sharing, (3) crosscountry output correlations have increased between core and periphery regions relative to core regions. We examine to what extent these observations can be reconciled in a multi-country version of a standard model of international business cycles. Production sharing is captured in a simple way as trade in intermediate inputs that are complements in production. We find that the model is successful qualitatively in account for these observations. Quantitatively, we find that the direct effects from trade do not generate large divergence in output correlationsacrosscountries. Weextendthemodel to allow for cost reduction spillovers from MNEs in the core country to their affiliates in the periphery. This mechanism increases the impact that product sharing has on output correlations between core and peripheral countries.

Observation of the Production of Three Massive Gauge Bosons at root s=13 TeV

The first observation is reported of the combined production of three massive gauge bosons (VVV with V = W, Z) in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The analysis is based on a data sample recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1). The searches for individualWWW, WWZ, WZZ, and ZZZ production are performed in final states with three, four, five, and six leptons (electrons or muons), or with two same-sign leptons plus one or two jets. The observed (expected) significance of the combinedVVV production signal is 5.7 (5.9) standard deviations and the corresponding measured cross section relative to the standard model prediction is 1.02(-0.23)(+0.26). The significances of the individual WWW and WWZ production are 3.3 and 3.4 standard deviations, respectively. Measured production cross sections for the individual triboson processes are also reported

Search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson in the boosted mu mu tau tau final state in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson (a) decaying from the 125 GeV (or a heavier) scalar Higgs boson (H) is performed using the 2016 LHC proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1), collected by the CMS experiment. The analysis considers gluon fusion and vector boson fusion production of the H, followed by the decay H -> aa -> mu mu tau tau, and considers pseudoscalar masses in the range 3.6 aa -> mu mu tau tau, down to 1.5 (2.0)x10(-4) for m(H) = 125 (300) GeV. Model-dependent limits on B(H -> aa) are set within the context of two Higgs doublets plus singlet models, with the most stringent results obtained for Type-III models. These results extend current LHC searches for heavier a bosons that decay to resolved lepton pairs and provide the first such bounds for an H boson with a mass above 125 GeV.Peer reviewe

Three essays in international economics.

This dissertation integrates several areas within international economics to answer open questions regarding outsourcing and financial integration. Two chapters pertain to outsourcing, while the last chapter studies financial integration in Victorian England. My first chapter concentrates on characteristics differences between outsourcers and non-outsourcers and the productivity related implications of outsourcing. Three main findings result: Only a small amount of empirical work exists for outsourcing firms and plants. I address this deficiency with a plant and firm-level study of manufacturing outsourcing in United States. First, outsourcers are outstanding. With the exception of production worker wages, there are premia for outsourcers over non-outsourcing organizations' characteristics. Second, outsourcing plants and firms have higher productivity. Lastly, firm-level productivity growth is significantly higher for outsourcers, a result that does not hold at the plant level. The second chapter is motivated by three observations regarding the link between international trade and international business cycle synchronization: large increases in manufactures trade, a larger fraction of intra-relative to extra-regional production sharing, and increases in intra-regional-cross-country output correlations. This chapter attempts to reconcile these observations with a standard multi-country model of business cycles. Production sharing is captured as intermediate input trade that involves complements in production. The model is qualitatively successful in accounting for the three observations. Quantitatively, the direct effects from trade do not generate large changes in output correlations across countries. The final chapter answers the question: Why did Victorian Britain send so much capital abroad? Recently collected data allow for the measurement of British and foreign asset returns between 1866 and 1885, in order to investigate the importance of international diversification for British investors. This is the first study to use high frequency data in order to apply modern portfolio choice methodology to historical data. Does the addition of foreign assets expand the mean-variance efficient frontier of 19th century British investors and, if so, how valuable was this expansion in terms of utility? The null hypothesis is rejected that Victorian investors did not benefit from foreign investment. Foreign assets significantly expanded the mean-variance frontier and resulted in utility gains equivalent to large increases in wealth.Ph.D.Economic historyEconomicsFinanceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125416/2/3192688.pd

Outstanding outsourcers: a firm- and plant-level analysis of production sharing

This paper examines the differences in characteristics between outsourcers and non-outsourcers with a particular focus on productivity. The measure of outsourcing comes from a question in the 1987 and 1992 Census of Manufactures regarding plant-level purchases of foreign intermediate materials. There are two key findings. First, outsourcers are "outstanding." That is, all else equal, outsourcers tend to have premia for plant and firm characteristics, such as being larger, more capital intensive, and more productive. One exception to this outsourcing premia is that wages tend to be the same for both outsourcers and non-outsourcers. Second, outsourcing firms, but not plants, have significantly higher productivity growth.Industrial productivity ; Manufactures

Trade, production sharing and the international transmission of business cycles ∗

This paper is motivated by two observations on international trade and business cycles: (1) cross-country correlations between core regions (such as US and the E.U.) are generally lower than the cross-country correlations between core and periphery regions (such as US and its NAFTA trading partners), and (2) trade between core and periphery regions involves more production sharing than trade between core regions. We examine to what extent these observations can be reconciled in a multi-country version of a standard model of international business cycles. Production sharing is captured in a simple way as trade in intermediate inputs that are complements in production. We find that the model is successful qualitatively in accounting for these two observations but, quantitatively, the direct effects from trade do not generate large divergence in output correlations across countries. Extending the model to allow for cost reduction spillovers from MNEs in the core country to their affiliates in the periphery increases the impact that product sharing has on output correlations between core and peripheral countries. ∗ We thank Jon Faust and Kei-Mu for very useful discussions of the paper