Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms

New developments in the world economy have triggered research designed to better understand the changes in trade and investment patterns, and the reorganization of production across national borders. Although traditional trade theory has much to offer in explaining parts of this puzzle, other parts required new approaches. Particularly acute has been the need to model alternative forms of involvement of business firms in foreign activities, because organizational change has been central in the transformation of the world economy. This paper reviews the literature that has emerged from these efforts. The theoretical refinements have focused on the individual firm, studying its choices in response to its own characteristics, the nature of the industry in which it operates, and the opportunities afforded by foreign trade and investment. Important among these choices are organizational features, such as sourcing strategies. But the theory has gone beyond the individual firm, studying the implications of firm behavior for the structure of industries. It provides new explanations for trade structure and patterns of FDI, both within and across industries, and has identified new sources of comparative advantage.

Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms

New developments in the world economy have triggered research designed to better understand the changes in trade and investment patterns, and the reorganization of production across national borders. Although traditional trade theory has much to offer in explaining parts of this puzzle, other parts required new approaches. Particularly acute has been the need to model alternative forms of involvement of business firms in foreign activities, because organizational change has been central in the transformation of the world economy. This paper reviews the literature that has emerged from these efforts. The theoretical refinements have focused on the individual firm, studying its choices in response to its own characteristics, the nature of the industry in which it operates, and the opportunities afforded by foreign trade and investment. Important among these choices are organizational features, such as sourcing strategies. But the theory has gone beyond the individual firm, studying the implications of firm behavior for the structure of industries. It provides new explanations for trade structure and patterns of FDI, both within and across industries, and has identified new sources of comparative advantage.

Macroeconomic Effects of Price Controls: The Role of Market Structure

Price controls were part of Israel's stabilization program of July 1985. Some results of the program seem to be inconsistent with competitive macroeconomic models. It is suggested that these results are consistent with an economy that has an oligopolistic market structure. The paper explores the effects of market structure on macroeconomic performance in the presence and absence of price control.

Endogenous Macroeconomic Growth Theory

The paper focuses on the innovation-based approach to endogenous growth. It begins by spelling out conditions for sustained long-run growth in neoclassical economies and uses these conditions as a standard of comparison for the conditions required to sustain long-run growth in economies with product innovation. It presents two models of product innovation that can sustain growth in the long run. The models share the same fundamental mechanism of economic growth. They are used to derive a variety of implications relating structural features to long-run growth rates and they are then applied to a number of policy issues. The usefulness of the approach represented by these models is examined by considering a number of issues, such as unemployment and trade relations.

The Simple Analytics of Debt-Equity Swaps

Recent attempts to resolve the international debt crisis have lead some countries to engage in debt-equity swaps. The paper explores conditions under which such transactions are beneficial to the debtor as well as the creditors. It identifies a market failure that may prevent the emergence of actually beneficial swaps and analyzes the effects of swaps on the investment level in the debtor country. The latter helps to evaluate the contribution of this policy to future difficulties with debt service payments.

Global Sourcing

We present a North—South model of international trade in which differentiated products are developed in the North. Sectors are populated by final-good producers who differ in productivity levels. Based on productivity and sectoral characteristics, firms decide whether to integrate into the production of intermediate inputs or outsource them. In either case they have to decide from which country to source the inputs. Final-good producers and their suppliers must make relationship-specific investments, both in an integrated firm and in an arm’s-length relationship. We describe an equilibrium in which firms with diferent productivity levels choose diferent ownership structures and supplier locations, i. e. , they choose different organizational forms. We then study the efects of within-sectoral heterogeneity and variations in industry characteristics on the relative prevalence of these organizational forms. The analysis sheds light on the structure of foreign trade within and across industries.

Labor Market Rigidities, Trade and Unemployment

We study a two-country two-sector model of international trade in which one sector produces homogeneous products while the other produces differentiated products. The differentiated-product industry has firm heterogeneity, monopolistic competition, search and matching in its labor market, and wage bargaining. Some of the workers searching for jobs end up being unemployed. Countries are similar except for frictions in their labor markets. We study the interaction of labor market rigidities and trade impediments in shaping welfare, trade flows, productivity, price levels and unemployment rates. We show that both countries gain from trade but that the flexible country -- which has lower labor market frictions -- gains proportionately more. A flexible labor market confers comparative advantage; the flexible country exports differentiated products on net. A country benefits by lowering frictions in its labor market, but this harms the country's trade partner. And the simultaneous proportional lowering of labor market frictions in both countries benefits both of them. The model generates rich patterns of unemployment. Specifically, trade integration -- which benefits both countries -- may raise their rates of unemployment. Moreover, differences in rates of unemployment do not necessarily reflect differences in labor market rigidities; the rate of unemployment can be higher or lower in the flexible country. Finally, we show that the flexible country has both higher total factor productivity and a lower price level, which operates against the standard Balassa-Samuelson effect.

Exchange Rate Management: Intertemporal Tradoffs

The management of the exchange rate is possible only if the government pursues a monetary-fiscal policy mix which is consistent with its exchange rate targets. In this paper with uncertainty concerning the length of individual life the real consequences of exchange rate management depend on the precise time pattern of the accompanying policies. We look at a stylized example of disinflation by means of exchange rate targetting with an initial overvalued currency and a delayed accompanying absorbtion policy. The result will be an intergenerational redistribution of welfare whereby spending rises during the initial period and falls during later periods, while the external debt rises in all periods.

Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics

We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a parliament. The parliament will set two types of policies: ideological and non-ideological. The parties have fixed positions on the ideological issues, but choose their non-ideological platforms to attract voters and campaign contributions. In this context, we ask: How do the equilibrium contributions from special interest groups influence the platforms of the parties? We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

Stabilization with Exchange Rate Management under Uncertainty

Stabilization programs in open economies typically consist of two stages. In the first stage the rate of currency devaluation is reduced, but the fiscal adjustment does not eliminate the fiscal deficit which causes growth of debt and loss of reserves, making a future policy change necessary. Only later, at a second stage, is this followed by either an abandonment of exchange rate management or by a sufficiently large cut in the fiscal deficit. We study how different second-stage policy changes affect economic dynamics during the first stage. These changes include tax increases, budget cuts on traded and nontraded goods, and increases in the growth rate of money. Under certainty about the timing and nature of a switch, current account developments provide information about which policy instrument is expected to be used for stabilization. Uncertainty about the timing of a stabilization is shown to be important in explaining phenomena such as continuous reserve losses and the possibility that a policy change is accompanied by a surprise discrete devaluation rather than a run on reserves.