Intra-industry Trade of Transition Countries: Trends and Determinants

This paper analyzes trends in different components of trade of transition countries. To explain the cross-country differences, the paper points out the important distinction between the determinants of inter-industry trade and intra-industry trade (IIT), and horizontal and vertical IIT. Using varieties of gravity models, it is shown that variables from Increasing Returns Trade Theory, such as scale economies, similarity of income levels, and number of varieties produced play important roles in IIT, especially in horizontal IIT, whereas factors such as comparative advantage, dissimilarity in income levels, and having more developed trade partners of Heckscher-Ohlin Trade Theory are crucial in determining inter-industry trade and vertical IIT to a lesser degree.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39952/3/wp566.pd

Technological Progress Through Trade Liberalization in Transition Countries

Trade liberalization increases competitive pressures on domestic firms, and thus creates incentives for reducing costs of production through technological progress. Through this channel, backward countries get a chance to narrow their technological gap with more advanced countries. In this paper, the case of transition countries is analyzed. A simple model of oligopolistic firms’ strategic decision on R&D is developed to motivate the empirical analysis. The results suggest that some initial conditions such as size of the initial technological gap, and initial openness to international trade, as well as the stage of the market reforms, in particular, rate of liberalization and structure of domestic markets are important factors in narrowing the technology gap.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39953/3/wp567.pd

Falling Walls and Lifting Curtains: Analysis of Border Effects in Transition Countries

Since McCallum’s (1995) finding of surprisingly high border effect on trade between US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to accurately measure this effect. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976-2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57201/1/wp821 .pd

DEMOCRACY’S SPREAD: Elections and Sovereign Debt in Developing Countries

I carry out a power analysis of changes in voting weights and rules in the Nice Treaty of the EU on the widening and deepening of European integration, by applying methods that use Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices. Significant decrease in voting power of small countries makes widening of integration more acceptable to incumbent members due to small size of the applicants. Relative increase in the conciliatory power of smaller members, and relative increase in the independent power of bigger members make smaller members compromise more in the coalitions they form, and improve the position of large members for further deepening of the integration. Lastly, the fairness analysis reveals a more federalist face for the EU in the way votes are distributed in Nice.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39962/3/wp576.pd

Trade Creation and Diversion Effects of Europe’s Regional Liberalization Agreements

After a short background on recent developments in gravity modelling and liberalization agreements in Europe, this paper measures the trade creation and diversion effects of major European agreements based on the results of a correctly specified triple-indexed gravity model with bilateral fixed effects. For each agreement and partner country, welfare implications are discussed in sectors of different factor intensities with emphasis on the role of similarity in income or relative factor endowments between partners, as well as the date and the reciprocity of the agreement. This is followed by a description of the characteristics of the non-partner countries that are affected by these agreements in each sector.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40132/3/wp746.pd

TDoes Product Differentiation Explain The Increase in Exports of Transition Countries?

The paper analyzes the increase in transition countries’ exports to their non-traditional trade partners. It uses four different measures of product differentiation to find out the extent that the increase in product variety explains this phenomenon. It is found that opening up to new trade partners first increases the number of sectors in which trade occurs. This is followed by a brief period of specialization in some select sectors, and finally an increase in the number of varieties of products in these sectors. Lastly, the increase in product variety in CEEC has been much more substantial than in CIS.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39985/3/wp599.pd

How Much Restructuring did the Transition Countries Experience? Evidence from Quality of their Exports

The increase in exports to market economies is a good sign, but it is not conclusive about the extent of restructuring of production technologies experienced in transition countries. This paper explores the source of the increase with an analysis of their exports’ quality, interprets the results for the extent of restructuring, and discusses the potential factors behind them. Changes in factor intensity and unit values of both CEEC and CIS exports in different manufacturing sectors during 1992-1999 are analyzed. Although CEEC are in a significantly better position than CIS due to Europe Agreements, there is still large number of products with structural problems in CEEC. Insufficient FDI, the OPT in the Europe Agreements, and not fully exploited human capital are suggested as possible factors.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40023/3/wp637.pd

Maximising Survival, Growth, and Goal Reaching Under Borrowing Constraints

In this paper, we consider three problems related to survival, growth, and goal reaching maximization of an investment portfolio with proportional net cash flow. We solve the problems in a market constrained due to borrowing prohibition. To solve the problems, we first construct an auxiliary market and then apply the dynamic programming approach. Via our solutions, an alternative approach is introduced in order to solve the problems defined under an auxiliary market

How Much Restructuring did the Transition Countries Experience? Evidence from Quality of their Exports

The increase in exports to market economies is a good sign, but it is not conclusive about the extent of restructuring of production technologies experienced in transition countries. This paper explores the source of the increase with an analysis of their exports’ quality, interprets the results for the extent of restructuring, and discusses the potential factors behind them. Changes in factor intensity and unit values of both CEEC and CIS exports in different manufacturing sectors during 1992-1999 are analyzed. Although CEEC are in a significantly better position than CIS due to Europe Agreements, there is still large number of products with structural problems in CEEC. Insufficient FDI, the OPT in the Europe Agreements, and not fully exploited human capital are suggested as possible factors.Unit values, Restructuring, Eastern Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe Agreements.

Technological Progress Through Trade Liberalization in Transition Countries

Trade liberalization increases competitive pressures on domestic firms, and thus creates incentives for reducing costs of production through technological progress. Through this channel, backward countries get a chance to narrow their technological gap with more advanced countries. In this paper, the case of transition countries is analyzed. A simple model of oligopolistic firms’ strategic decision on R&D is developed to motivate the empirical analysis. The results suggest that some initial conditions such as size of the initial technological gap, and initial openness to international trade, as well as the stage of the market reforms, in particular, rate of liberalization and structure of domestic markets are important factors in narrowing the technology gap.Technology gap; Trade Liberalization; Transition; Market reforms