Intra-Industry Trade and Revealed Comparative Advantage: An Inverted-U Relationship

This paper investigates the relationship between all types of intra-industry trade (IIT) and comparative advantage. The paper finds strong evidence of an inverted-U relationship.The results also suggest that relative autarky costs is a common determinant for any type of IIT, which contradicts the prediction made by theory for separating the determinants of horizontal and vertical IIT.intra-industry trade; horizontal intra-industry trade; vertical intra-industry trade; comparative advantage.

A Many-Core Overlay for High-Performance Embedded Computing on FPGAs

In this work, we propose a configurable many-core overlay for high-performance embedded computing. The size of internal memory, supported operations and number of ports can be configured independently for each core of the overlay. The overlay was evaluated with matrix multiplication, LU decomposition and Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT) on a ZYNQ-7020 FPGA platform. The results show that using a system-level many-core overlay avoids complex hardware design and still provides good performance results.Comment: Presented at First International Workshop on FPGAs for Software Programmers (FSP 2014) (arXiv:1408.4423

Using the Gravity Equation to Explain the Portuguese Immigration-trade Link

This paper tests the relation between immigration and Portuguese bilateral trade. Using a panel data analysis, the results show that the stock of immigrants has a positive effect on Portuguese exports, imports and bilateral intraindustry trade. The underlying assumption is that immigration contributes to decrease the costs of transactions, which in turn promotes trade flows. The results do not confirm the hypothesis of a negative effect of immigration on Portuguese exports. Our findings suggest that when immigrants to Portugal come from a Latin partner-country, the effects on trade are stronger than in the case of immigrants from non-Latin countries. The study is based on an extended gravitational model, in order to incorporate the qualitative factors as control variables.intra-industry trade; immigration; gravity model; panel data.

Effects of Immigration on Intra-Industry Trade: A logit analysis

This study estimates the effects of the immigration stock, as well as those of immigrants’ characteristics, such as having the same language as that of the host country and the level of qualification or entrepreneurship, on Portuguese intra-industry trade (IIT) by types, controlling for the effects of other socio-economic factors, like economic dimensions, price indexes and distance. In addition to the member-countries of the EU-27, the group of countries studied includes five African countries with Portuguese as their official language, known as the PALOPs, and the BRIC countries. Since indexes are fractional variables, the pseudo-likelihood Logit estimator was used on the panel data to obtain the empirical results. The study found that an increase of the immigrant stock will produce an increment in the trade indexes considered and this effect is enhanced if immigrants originate from a country where Portuguese is the official language, or if they are highly qualified, whereas immigrant entrepreneurs have no significant effect.Immigration; trade; skills; entrepreneurship; panel data; Portugal. Classification-C33, F11, F12, F22.

Intra-industry trade and labor costs: The smooth adjustment hypothesis

According to the smooth adjustment hypothesis (SAH), the labor-market adjustment costs in the form of unemployed resources will be lower if trade expansion is intra-industry rather than inter-industry in nature. This is what we attempt to test empirically using the Brulhart (1994) marginal intra-industry trade (MIIT) index and a dynamic panel data analysis. Considering the contemporaneous effect the results do not support the SAH. However, if we consider the one- year and-two years lags effects, the conclusion is different and it is sensitive to the size of the lag. Comparing with other empirical studies our results suggest that the validity of SAH depends on the variable choose as adjustment labor cost index, the time lag structure and the set of control variables. KEY Words: Adjustment costs; labor market; marginal intra-industry trade.

Immigration-Trade Links: The Impact of Recent Immigration on Portuguese Trade

This study analyzes Portuguese immigration during the period 1995-2006 and estimates the effects of an increase in the stock of immigrants and of the increased percentage of highly-skilled immigrants employed in manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the effects are estimated of immigrant entrepreneurs active in manufacturing industry on Portugal’s bilateral trade with 38 countries. The latter group includes, in addition to the member-countries of the EU27, five African countries with Portuguese as their official language, and known as PALOPs. In 2006, these two blocs combined accounted for 83% of Portugal’s trade in goods and 89% of its immigrant stock. Panel data is used to conduct an econometric analysis. The study finds that a 10% increase in the immigrant stock will produce the following effects on Portugal’s bilateral trade with these countries: an increase of 2.8% in exports, an increase of 2.66% in imports, an increase of 1.87% in IIT, an increase of 4.01% in HIIT and an increase of 1.48% in VIIT. In addition, we conclude that higher percentages both of highly skilled immigrant workers and immigrant employers in manufacturing industry have a positive effect on exports, IIT and VIIT Key words: Immigration; trade; skills; entrepreneurship; panel data; Portugal

Portuguese Foreign Direct Investments Inflows: An Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the link between Portugal’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows from European Union (EU-15) countries using panel data and country specific variables for the period 1996-2006. This study applies a static and dynamic panel data approach (Fixed effects and GMM system estimators) to estimate the regression equations. Portugal’s FDI inflows from EU are found to have significant associations with size market, macroeconomic stability, and geographical distance. The inflation seems to have a positive effect on attracting FDI inflows. This result was not expected.FDI; Fixed Effects; GMM-SYS; Portugal.

The Intra Industry Trade between Portugal European Union, Portugal Spain, Portugal-France, Portugal Germany, Portugal-Ireland, Portugal-Greece and Portugal-Netherlands - a Dynamic Panel Data Analysis (1996 2000)

Portugal’s main trade partners have been Spain, Germany and France. In this paper we analyse the intra industry trade in the manufacturing industry between Portugal Spain, Portugal-France, Portugal Germany, Portugal-Ireland and Portugal-Greece. We also present the results of intra industry trade (IIT) between Portugal and the European Union. The innovation, technological progress, human capital, and scale economies are some of the explicative variables of the intra industry trade phenomena. This type of trade is associated with the product differentiation. We consider the panel data models, which are commonly used in the literature, and the recent GMM estimator. One of the objectives of this paper is to verify the estimated models of intra industry trade (IIT), horizontal intra industry trade (HIIT), and vertical intra industry trade (VIIT), and to also verify if the results obtained are different for the partners in analysis. The second objective is to test if the relationship between HIIT and VIIT is determinate by comparative advantages. The third propose is to analyse the results for IIT,HIIT and VIIT with the GMM estimator, and to observe if the models have autocorrelation or specification problems. We will use the m statistics test of Arellano and Bond (1991) and the methodology of Blundell and Bond (1998,2000) to estimated the models.

The Effects of Globalisation on OECD Income Inequality: A static and dynamic analysis

Using the World Income Inequality Database and a static and dynamic panel data analysis, this paper analyses the correlation between income inequality in the OECD countries and economic globalization, measured by trade openness and foreign direct investment, for the period 1995-2007. The static analysis, conducted by means of the fixed-effects estimator, suggests that trade openness reduces inequality, whereas FDI is positively linked to inequality. Some control variables, such as unemployment and inflation, also have a positive effect on inequality. When we control for endogeneity, using the system GMM estimator with the Windmeijer correction for small samples, the results also show that trade openness decreases income inequality and that the FDI effect on inequality is not significant. The country’s economic growth causes inequality to increase, according to the findings of both our static and dynamic analyses.Globalisation, Income inequality, Panel data. Classification-C23; D30; D63; F02.

Country-Specific Determinants of Intra-Industry Trade in Portugal

Based on the theoretical models of Helpman and Krugman (1985), Falvey and Kierzkowski (1987) and Flam and Helpman (1987) and on the empirical studies of Greenaway, Hine and Milner (1994) and Hummels and Levinsohn (1995), we use a static and dynamic panel data approach to test the country-specific determinants of Portuguese intra-industry trade (IIT). We include income variables together with supply-side variables in order to test the demand similarity and factor endowments difference hypotheses. The results suggest that the Linder hypothesis is confirmed and that differences in income levels have a positive (negative) effect on vertical IIT (horizontal IIT and IIT). However, our findings only partially confirm Helpman and Krugman’s theoretical predictions.intra-industry trade; horizontal intra-industry trade; vertical intra-industry trade; Linder hypothesis; dynamic panel data.