IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26468.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade Wars, Technology and Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Ching-mu Chen
  • Wan-Jung Cheng
  • Shin-Kun Peng
  • Raymond Riezman
  • Ping Wang

Abstract

If international trade is strictly trade in intermediate goods, would the common presumption, that small, less developed economies (the South) lose from trade wars still be true? We address this question by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium model in which the North and the South trade technology-embodied intermediate goods. We show that the detrimental effects of the trade war are mitigated by the fact that producers in the South can adjust their choice of imported intermediate goods and their investment in domestic technologies. We establish sufficient conditions under which the steady-state trade equilibrium length of the production line and the range of domestic production in the South both expand in response to a tariff war. It thereby creates a novel channel of scale-scope trade-off: The South counters the losses from trade protection in the volume and value of trade (scale) with an upward movement along the value chain (scope). As a result, average productivity in the South and aggregate technology used by the South both turn out to be higher.

Suggested Citation

  • Ching-mu Chen & Wan-Jung Cheng & Shin-Kun Peng & Raymond Riezman & Ping Wang, 2019. "Trade Wars, Technology and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 26468, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26468
    Note: EFG ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26468.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keller, Wolfgang, 2000. "Do Trade Patterns and Technology Flows Affect Productivity Growth?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(1), pages 17-47, January.
    2. Vanessa Alviarez & Javier Cravino & Natalia Ramondo, 2019. "Accounting for Cross-Country Productivity Differences: New Evidence from Multinational Firms," 2019 Meeting Papers 1188, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    4. Ralph Ossa, 2014. "Trade Wars and Trade Talks with Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4104-4146, December.
    5. Joaquin Blaum & Claire Lelarge & Michael Peters, 2018. "The Gains from Input Trade with Heterogeneous Importers," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 77-127, October.
    6. Joaquin Blaum & Claire LeLarge & Michael Peters, 2015. "The Gains from Input Trade in Firm-Based Models of Importing," NBER Working Papers 21504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Peng, Shin-Kun & Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Wang, Ping, 2006. "Economic integration and agglomeration in a middle product economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 1-25, November.
    8. Giammario Impullitti & Omar Licandro, 2018. "Trade, Firm Selection and Innovation: The Competition Channel," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 189-229, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lekfuangfu, Warn N. & Nakavachara, Voraprapa, 2021. "Reshaping Thailand's labor market: The intertwined forces of technology advancements and shifting supply chains," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Shuzhong Ma & Xueyao Guo & Hongsheng Zhang, 2021. "New driving force for China’s import growth: Assessing the role of cross‐border e‐commerce," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3674-3706, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carsten Eckel & Florian Unger, 2023. "Credit Constraints, Endogenous Innovations, And Price Setting In International Trade," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1715-1747, November.
    2. Peter Schott & Justin Pierce & Georg Schaur & Sebastian Heise, 2017. "Trade Policy Uncertainty and the Structure of Supply Chains," 2017 Meeting Papers 788, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Esposito, Federico, 2022. "Demand risk and diversification through international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    4. Malgouyres, Clément & Mayer, Thierry & Mazet-Sonilhac, Clément, 2021. "Technology-induced trade shocks? Evidence from broadband expansion in France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Jonathan EATON & Samuel KORTUM & Francis KRAMARZ, 2016. "Firm-to-Firm Trade: Imports, exports, and the labor market," Discussion papers 16048, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. von Graevenitz, Kathrine & Rottner, Elisa & Richter, Philipp M., 2023. "Is Germany becoming the European pollution haven?," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-069, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Paola Conconi & Manuel García-Santana & Laura Puccio & Roberto Venturini, 2018. "From Final Goods to Inputs: The Protectionist Effect of Rules of Origin," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2335-2365, August.
    8. Bianconi, Marcelo & Esposito, Federico & Sammon, Marco, 2021. "Trade policy uncertainty and stock returns," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Federico Esposito, 2017. "Entrepreneurial Risk and Diversification through Trade," Working Papers w201714, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    10. Ha, Le Thanh & Dung, Hoang Phuong & Thanh, To Trung, 2023. "Bribery, global value chain decisions, and institutional constraints: Evidence from a cross-country firm-level data," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 119-142.
    11. Shen, Leilei & Silva, Peri, 2018. "Value-added exports and U.S. local labor markets: Does China really matter?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 479-504.
    12. Boehm, Christoph E. & Flaaen, Aaron & Pandalai-Nayar, Nitya, 2020. "Multinationals, Offshoring, and the Decline of U.S. Manufacturing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    13. Patrick Alexander, 2021. "Vertical specialisation and gains from trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 1110-1140, April.
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4b7tooefh48jlq7oktt0tbn8om is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Huang, Hanwei & Manova, Kalina & Perelló, Oscar & Pisch, Frank, 2024. "Firm Heterogeneity and Imperfect Competition in Global Production Networks," CEPR Discussion Papers 19408, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Dominick Bartelme & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Linkages and Economic Development," NBER Working Papers 21251, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Laura Alfaro & Alejandro Cuñat & Harald Fadinger & Yanping Liu, 2017. "The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Asymmetries and Hysteresis," Harvard Business School Working Papers 18-044, Harvard Business School, revised May 2018.
    18. Halmai, Péter, 2024. "Mélyintegráció-paradigma [Deep-integration Paradigm]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 514-558.
    19. Sara Formai & Filippo Vergara Caffarelli, 2016. "Quantifying the productivity effects of global sourcing," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1075, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    20. Mary Amiti & Mi Dai & Robert C. Feenstra & John Romalis, 2017. "How did China’s WTO entry benefit U.S. prices?," Staff Reports 817, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    21. Paola Conconi & Glenn Magerman & Afrola Plaku, 2020. "The Gravity of Intermediate Goods," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 57(2), pages 223-243, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.
    pFad - Phonifier reborn

    Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

    Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


    Alternative Proxies:

    Alternative Proxy

    pFad Proxy

    pFad v3 Proxy

    pFad v4 Proxy