Foreign Trade Review

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-08-12

ISBN:: 0015-7325

Issue Number

No. 60-1, February 2025

Latest documents

Distributional Effects of Trade Liberalisation on Wages in India
There is a high level of policy interest on the effect of trade liberalisation on inequality, especially in developing countries, because of their large vulnerable populations. India also initiated the process of liberalisation as a response to the severe balance of payments crisis of 1991. However, both rural and urban inequality has been increasing since the period 1993–1994, with urban inequality increasing at a higher rate. This study empirically examines the impact of trade openness on wage inequality using panel data for Indian states (separately for rural and urban areas). The results of this study indicate that trade openness does not lead to decrease in the wage inequality in the states and their rural areas. However, urban wage inequality is found to be increasing due to trade openness. These results are analysed and explained by various factors present in the Indian economy such as, skill biased technological changes; trade in intermediate goods; barriers to domestic labour mobility; and pattern and composition of India’s exports. An interesting aspect emerging is that higher education levels lead to increase in wage inequality as returns to education and inequality are increasing and the increase is also attributed to liberalisation. JEL Codes: F16, O18, C23
Foreign Direct Investment and Technology Spillovers: An Analysis of Indian Manufacturing
Using a rich firm-level panel dataset of Indian manufacturing over 2010–2018, this study aims to identify the spillover effects associated with foreign direct investment (FDI). To this end, we distinguish spillover effects into horizontal (Intra-industry linkage) and vertical (backward or downstream and forward or upstream Inter-industry linkages) FDI channels. We employ various semi-parametric methods to tackle the endogeneity issues in productivity estimation. We find that backward spillover from the downstream multinational enterprises is the only source of total factor productivity gains. However, the magnitude of negative forward–vertical linkage is larger than the positive backward–vertical effect. The analysis also broadly compares technology spillovers for domestic and all firms in the sector. Finally, we investigate productivity spillover across industries based on their technology intensity. Our findings suggest that industry heterogeneity is a key driver of FDI spillover. JEL Codes: F23, D24, O33, L1
The Potential Impact of Tariff Liberalisation on India’s Automobile Industry Global Value Chain Trade: Evidence From an Economy-Wide Model
The impact of tariff barriers affecting participation in global value chain (GVC) trade has received attention in recent literature. However, the empirical evidence in the context of mega-regional trade agreements, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), from which India opted out recently, remains non-existent. Our study contributes to the empirical literature by undertaking an economy-wide modelling exercise, augmenting it to the automobile sector trade in GVC goods in the Indian context. We conduct two policy simulations with an aim to analyse how India’s auto-industry and auto-parts trade, involving forward and backward linkages in GVCs, have been affected by its decision to opt out of RCEP compared to a hypothetical scenario of not doing so. Our results suggest that a potential RCEP membership would have created net trade in both the finished automobile and intermediate auto-parts sectors, although imports would exceed exports. Further, we infer that both backward linkages and forward linkages in this industry will be adversely affected by opting out of RCEP, as there is export diversion in the auto-parts sectors globally, with India facing terms of trade losses due to higher import prices. This informs policymakers that developing domestic resilience and improving productivity are critical for India to improve its long-run export competitiveness while contemplating future trade agreements, including those with RCEP members. JEL Codes: F15, F61, O53
Book review: Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ramesh Chandra Das, and Achintya Ray (Eds.), COVID-19 Pandemic and Global Inequality: Reﬂections in Labour Market, Business and Social Sectors
Rajib Bhattacharyya, Ramesh Chandra Das, and Achintya Ray (Eds.), COVID-19 Pandemic and Global Inequality: Reﬂections in Labour Market, Business and Social Sectors (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2023), 333 pp. €128.39 (Hardcover), ISBN 978-981-99-4404-0.
The Necessity of New Versions of Bilateral Trade Balances and COVID-19: The Nonlinear ARDL Approach for the USA and Japan
This study aims to reveal the need to reformulate new forms of Bilateral Trade Balances (BTBs) for a country rather than a traditional BTB. This is because the traditional BTB ratio, based on total exports and defined as the total exports/total imports ratio, cannot classify and quantify a BTB based on its economic impact content. It fails to classify because countries also export goods already imported (denotes re-export) besides exporting their domestic goods produced within the country (denotes domestic export). It also fails to quantify because, while domestic goods undergo a value-added process within a country, re-exported goods do not. In this context, for the first time, this study attempts to reformulate/reinvestigate new forms of BTBs as production-related BTB, based on domestic export and non-production-related BTB, based on re-export for the USA with Japan. Empirical findings confirm the necessity and cruciality of the proposed methodology in this study. JEL Codes: F10, F14
Effect of Trade and Industrialisation on Environmental Sustainability: The Case of African Countries
This study explores the effect of trade and industrialisation on environmental sustainability in Africa. To achieve the study objective, the pooled mean group estimation strategy was employed on data from 1990 to 2019 for 38 selected African countries. Findings are indicative that trade has a negative and significant effect on ecological footprint in the long run. It is iemplied that trade enhancement has the tendency to enhance environmental sustainability in African countries. In addition, industrialisation has a positive and significant effect on ecological footprint. Implied is that industrialisation dampens environmental sustainability in African countries. Similarly, foreign direct investment inflows into African countries exert a positive but insignificant effect on ecological footprint. The result further depicts that economic growth positively and significantly impacts ecological footprints in African countries. Also, renewable energy consumption has a negative and significant effects on ecological footprint, suggesting that the adoption of renewable energy plays a crucial role in enhancing environmental sustainability in African countries. The short-run result reveals no significant relationship between trade, industrialisation, foreign direct investment and ecological footprints. Population growth has a positive effect on ecological footprint, albeit not a statistically significant effect. Furthermore, the result depicts that renewable energy consumption has a negative and significant effect on ecological footprints in African countries. On the strength of the findings, we recommend the stimulation of domestic trade and the strengthening of industrial policies to ensure environmental sustainability in African countries. JEL Codes: C33, F14, F18, R11
Impact of Food Standards on Patterns of International Trade in Marine Products
Over the past two and half decades, rising non-tariff barriers, such as SPS and TBT measures appear to negate any benefits accruing from declining tariffs. The adoption of higher standards reflects efforts, generally by developed nations, towards protecting both human and environmental health. However, the burden of compliance falls on the upstream players of the supply chain, mostly located in the Global South. In this article, we explore if imposing food standards has a differential impact on the exporters of marine products from high-income and low-income countries. Using panel data analysis based on bilateral trade between 50 exporters and 188 importers of marine goods at HS6 level codes from 1995 to 2018, we conclude that imposing food standards has a significantly negative impact on exports of marine industries. Moreover, it appears that after 2008, food standards have become relatively more stringent, and their impact has varied based on economic size of the exporter. Relatively richer countries were able to expand their exports in the presence of standards. However, marine exports of poorer nations reduced. This contrasting impact of food standards on the high- and low-income countries significantly changed the pattern of global marine trade. JEL Codes: F1, F14, Q17
The Link Between Aid-for-Trade and Contingent Protection
Foreign aid, in theory, is expected to mitigate constraints that impede the economic development of recipient countries. At the same time that help is committed, donors are seemingly taking actions that are harmful to developing economies in obvious ways. An example is the tacit circumvention of the putative rules-based global trading system through contingent protection activities. In this article, it is postulated that, on one hand aid-for-trade (AfT) is expected to have positive impact on the exports of aid recipients by better integration into the global trading order, on the other hand, aid provider (donor) curtails access to its own markets by actuating contingent protection against the recipient (exporter). Using contingent protection cases data from 2003 to 2018 (a 15-year period) against 106 recipient countries of the United States of America’s AfT, this study finds a significant and positive impact of AfT on the surge in contingent protection activities. This effect is entirely driven by the aid for economic infrastructure and services, while the other main category of AfT-production sector, has no discernible effect on the rise in protection against the recipient. To examine the heterogeneity in donor decisions, this study is expanded to other traditional donors like Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) and New Zealand. This article finds that Australia behaves similar to the USA; however, for Canada and the EU, the relationship between aid and market access is not statistically significant. JEL Codes: F1, F35, O19
Impact of Trade Liberalisation on Wage Inequality and Skill Formation: A Theoretical Analysis
We consider a small open economy with three sector and four factors. Agricultural sector produces output with unskilled labour and land. Manufacturing sector and skill formation sector produce output with skilled labour and capital. Skill formation sector transforms the unskilled labour into skilled labour. We also consider an extended version of this model where agricultural sector also uses capital. So capital is mobile between all three sectors. Both change in the price of manufacturing sector and capital stock alter skill formation in a similar direction. But change in the price of manufacturing sector leads to change in skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the same direction whereas due to change in capital stock it changes in opposite direction. In our extended study, where capital is mobile between all three sectors, the results of the basic model are unaltered. JEL Codes: F13, J31
Understanding Pandemic Crisis in a Dependent Economy: A Structuralist Analysis
The pandemic crisis and associated lockdown have led to diminution in demand on one hand and different types of supply side bottlenecks on the other. The article makes a theoretical attempt to assess macroeconomic dimensions of COVID-19 along with consequences of such crisis using a two-sector dependent economy model. In particular, the article investigates the implications of unanticipated adverse shock such as COVID-19 and wage cut for the dynamic interaction of Tobin’s q, price of non-traded goods and the exchange rate and sectoral composition of output and level of employment. The effects of expansionary fiscal policy and increase in risk premium are also highlighted as the part of concluding remarks. The results in this article critically depend on the difference in the speeds of adjustments in the Tobin’s q, exchange rate and price of non-traded goods and different types of cross effects emanating from changes in interconnected macroeconomic variables. While the pandemic crisis leads to contraction of all the sectors and decrease in level of employment in the short-run with uncertain medium-run implications, the wage cut somewhat arrests the fall in employment. JEL Codes: E24, F41, G12