We derive a new formula for the optimal uniform tariff in a small-country, heterogeneous-firm model with roundabout production and a nontraded good. Tariffs are applied on imported intermediate inputs. First-best policy requires that markups on domestic intermediate inputs are offset by subsidies. In a second-best setting where such subsidies are not used, roundabout production and the monopoly distortion in the traded sector create strong incentives to lower the optimal tariff on imported inputs. In a quantitative version of our two-sector small open economy, we find that the optimal tariff is lowered under nearly all parameter values considered, and can be negative.
We review theoretical and empirical work on the economic effects of the United States and China trade relations during the past 20 years. We first discuss the origins of the China shock and its measurement and present methods used to study its economic effects on different outcomes. We then focus on the recent US–China trade war. We review methods used to evaluate its effects, describe its economic effects, and analyze whether this increase in trade protectionism reverted the effects of the China shock. The main lessons learned in this review are that (a) the aggregate gains from US–China trade created winners and losers; (b) China's trade expansion seems not to be the main cause of the decline in US manufacturing employment during the same period; and (c) the recent trade war generated welfare losses, had small employment effects, and was ineffective in reversing the distributional effects due to the China shock.
We model the world economy as one system of endogenous input-output relationships subject to frictions and study how the world's input-output structure and world's GDP change due to changes in frictions. We derive a sufficient statistic to identify frictions from the observed world input-output matrix, which we fully match for the year 2011. We show how changes in internal frictions impact the whole structure of the world's economy and that they have a much larger effect on world's GDP than external frictions. We also use our approach to study the role of internal frictions during the Great Recession of 2007–2009.
Using employer-employee matched and firm production quantity and input data for Portuguese firms, we study the endogenous response of productivity to firm reorganizations as measured by changes in the number of management layers. We show that, as a result of an exogenous demand or productivity shock that makes the firm reorganize and add a management layer, quantity-based productivity increases by about 6%, while revenue-based productivity drops by around 3%. Such a reorganization makes the firm more productive but also increases the quantity produced to an extent that lowers the price charged by the firm and, as a result, its revenue-based productivity as well.
We evaluate the quantitative effects of trade policy on the location of firms across space and over time. We develop a multi-country, multi-sector dynamic general-equilibrium trade and spatial model with forward-looking decisions of workers on where to supply labor, forward-looking decisions of firms on where to locate produc-tion, endogenous capital structure accumulation, and trade in intermediate goods with sectoral linkages. We bring the model to data using trade, production, and data on firm demographics across sector and locations. We use the model to study if trade protectionism can revert the declining trend in the U.S. manufacturing em-ployment and firms; and its impact on the location of production across space and over time. We feed into the model the raise in import tariffs between the U.S. and its major trade partners in the year 2018. We find that these changes in trade policy can result in a persistent increase on manufacturing employment and firms. However, these effects do not revert the long run decline in manufacturing employment and firms. Importantly, the relocation of production comes at the cost of higher prices, lower welfare for households, and heterogeneous effects on firm entry across space.
We use a comprehensive dataset of French manufacturing firms to study their internal organization. We first divide the employees of each firm into ‘layers’ using occupational categories. Layers are hierarchical in that the typical worker in a higher layer earns more, and the typical firm occupies less of them. In addition, the probability of adding (dropping) a layer is very positively (negatively) correlated with value added. We then explore the changes in the wages and number of employees that accompany expansions in layers, output, or markets (by becoming exporters). The empirical results indicate that reorganization, through changes in layers, is key to understand how firms expand and contract. For example, we find that firms that expand substantially add layers and pay lower average wages in all pre-existing layers. In contrast, firms that expand little and do not reorganize pay higher average wages in all pre-existing layers.