The "new" economic theories

This paper has two main goals. The first is to study the links between the “new” economic theories, this is, the “new” trade theory, the “new” growth theory and the “new” economic geography. These are three apparently distinct strands of economics, yet they have a common motivation: the role of increasing returns and the consequent market structure (imperfect/monopolistic competition). The second goal is to present the “new” economic theories as case studies in what concerns the debate over modelling and its role in the progress of economics. Since these theories contribute fundamentally by applying new modelling techniques to old real world problems, they add something to economic knowledge to the extent that we accept formalisation as a source of progress in economics

Migration creation and diversion in the EU: Are CEECs immigrants crowding-out the rest?

This paper applies the concept of trade creation and diversion to immigration into the EU-15 in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, the 1990s process of East-West integration, culminating in the May 2004 enlargement, could potentially create immigration from the new member countries and at the same time divert migration from non-EU countries. In this context, the question this paper tries to answer is fundamentally whether the extension of the EU Single Market to the new member countries has the potential to crowd-out non-EU immigrants. The analysis is carried out using trend analysis, Truman shares, and panel data gravity models. The results are quite robust to a range of regression methods, model specifications, dependent variables, and time periods. They broadly support the migration creation hypothesis, but the evidence on the migration diversion hypothesis is mixed. There is evidence of some diversion away from other non-member European countries, such as ex-USSR and ex-Yugoslavia countries, in favour of the new Central and Eastern European members. However, the evidence of diversion away from non-European countries is much weaker, if at all existent. The high impact of a common language, when compared to distance or even a common border, may help preserving migration channels from outside Europe. Within Europe, shorter distances and common borders become more relevant

The skilled U-shaped Europe: is it really and on which side does it stand?

This paper derives from a New Economic Geography model, and estimates, a quadratic sectoral real wage equation for the member countries of the enlarged EU. When significant, the real wages U-shaped curve is increasing and concave with respect to market access, but decreasing and convex with respect to access to skilled labour. Real wages in Chemicals, Wood Products, Leather Products and Textiles do not react to market access, and only those sectors with low degree of scale economies and low-skill intensity are U-shaped with respect to access to skilled labour. At the present GDP levels, EU geography is still in the divergence-inducing side of the U-curve. In addition, EU real wages are significantly determined by country-specific characteristics other than geography that push Northern real wages upward and pull Eastern real wages downward

The EU’s New Economic Geography after the Eastern Enlargement

Using a centre-two periphery new economic geography model we study the location and real wage effects of the EU’s Eastern enlargement on current and future EU member countries under pure trade integration and with migration of skilled labour. The quality of final and intermediate products differs across countries according to their effective endowments of human capital engaged in R&D. Allowing for migration prevents the relocation of firms into the integrating periphery. Moreover, the location of firms differs according to the sectors’ skill and R&D intensity, low skill and low R&D firms tending to locate in the Eastern and Southern peripheries

Wage gradients in an enlarged EU.

In this paper we estimate a sectoral real wage equation for three regional blocs of the enlarged EU that we defined as North (wealthiest EU), South (Greece, Portugal and Spain) and East (acceding Central and Eastern European countries). The estimation results show that real wages react differently in each of the blocs to the impact of market size, location and factor endowments across a range of industrial sectors which differ by their degrees of economies of scale and skill-intensities in the presence of transport costs

Extending EU Single Market eastwards: sectoral trade and real wage effects

In this paper we address the question of the impact of permitting free migration in an enlarged trading bloc. We estimate two sectoral equations for trade flows and real wages of three regional blocs of the enlarged EU that we defined as North (wealthiest EU), South (Greece, Portugal and Spain) and East (acceding Central and Eastern European countries). We then use the estimated coefficients to compute potential trade flows and real wages for these three groups under the two alternative scenarios of an enlargement with and without free movement of labour. A fully-fledge Single Market allows the North, with good market access and human capital endowments, to consolidate its current hub position by attracting more firms and skilled workers. Thus its net exports of high scale economy, skill-intensive goods increase and so do overall real wages, though they decrease in low scale economies sectors. The South, with poor market access and human capital endowments, retains competitiveness in low scale economies, low skill-intensity sectors and sees an overall reduction in real wages, except in high scale economies, low skill-intensity sectors. The East, with poor market access but well endowed in human capital, has a marginal gain in trade terms but suffers a real wage loss. Moreover, skilled migration would cause a brain drain that, if of sufficiently large proportions, could have very damaging consequences in the long-term

What determines sectoral trade in the enlarged EU?

In this paper we estimate a sectoral gravity model for trade within a heterogeneous trade bloc, the enlarged EU, comprised of a high-income group (wealthiest EU), a middle-income group (Greece, Portugal and Spain), and a low-income group (acceding Central and Eastern European countries). The estimation was conducted on sectors with different degrees of scale economies and skill-intensities in the presence of transport costs. The results offer support for the call to incorporate trade theories based on both endowments and scale economies. In addition, whilst integrating poorer countries is beneficial for all of the participants in the bloc, there is still a role for redistribution policy. However, the EU’s Regional Policy, for example, should not be individual initiatives but should be a mix of policies, focussing on both income and education/skills, together with infrastructure development

An empirical investigation of the determinants of the location of foreign direct investment in the Central and Eastern European countries using multilevel data

This paper employs a novel multi-level data set and a multinomial logit model - to examine the factors explaining 1,223 foreign investment location decisions by firms in the EU(15), Japan, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and the US in 12 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). The highly significant empirical results, based on a general underlying model of imperfect competition, show that the responsiveness of foreign direct investment in the CEECs to country-level variables differs significantly both across sectors and across firms of different sizes and profitability. In particular, in addition to the traditional importance of market size and distance, firm size and the effective corporate tax rate are also important for the location of investment

Sectoral exchange rate pass-through: a tale of two policy regimes in India

This paper uses panel data to analyse the extent to which the prices of India's imports and exports in nine product groups react to exchange rate changes before (1980-1990) and (1991-2001) a change in policy that included the option of a flexible exchange rate regime and an acceleration of trade liberalisation. It finds that for all the nine groups of Indian industries the null hypothesis of complete pass-through from exchange rate changes into import prices cannot be rejected. On the contrary, the results suggest that Indian exporters appear to have to some degree passed through exchange rate changes into import prices into foreign currency export prices in three industry groups in the 1980s and in six groups of industries in 1990s. The increase in the number of sectors exhibiting some degree of pass-through in the 1990s, relative to the 1980s, may be partly attributable to the elimination of currency and trade controls. Whilst the pass-through into import prices does not exhibit a structural break aronund 1991, a Chow test revealed the existence of such structural break in pass-through into export prices. The pass-through to import prices seems to be exogenous (determined by external factors), but the pass-through to export prices appears to be enogenous (driven by internal factors, mostly trade and exchange rate policies)