The Global Trade Slowdown

The Global Trade Slowdown
Author: Cristina Constantinescu
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2015-01-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498399134

This paper focuses on the sluggish growth of world trade relative to income growth in recent years. The analysis uses an empirical strategy based on an error correction model to assess whether the global trade slowdown is structural or cyclical. An estimate of the relationship between trade and income in the past four decades reveals that the long-term trade elasticity rose sharply in the 1990s, but declined significantly in the 2000s even before the global financial crisis. These results suggest that trade is growing slowly not only because of slow growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but also because of a structural change in the trade-GDP relationship in recent years. The available evidence suggests that the explanation may lie in the slowing pace of international vertical specialization rather than increasing protection or the changing composition of trade and GDP.

Fragmentation

Fragmentation
Author: Sven W. Arndt
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2001-02-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191589063

"Fragmentation" is a term used in this volume to describe cross-border component specialization and production-sharing. Examination of recent trade data suggests that offshore sourcing of parts and components, as well as offshore assembly, are assuming an increasing role in the world economy. The theoretical implications of this type of specialization are examined in several chapters with the aid of both Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin trade models. Production is first decomposed ("fragmented") into its constituent parts and activities, and then it is at this level that factor-intensities and technologies are calibrated. The implications of intra-product specialization and component trade are investigated under conditions of free, restricted, and preferential trade. The role of multinationals is explored and the importance of cross-border service-links among component activities is examined. Overall, extension of the principle of comparative advantage beyond products to the realm of parts and components is welfare-enhancing. Industries take advantage of offshore sourcing in order to reduce costs and increase competitiveness. Component specialization offers new and additional opportunities for the exploitation of scale economies. Across a broad range of conditions, it raises output and employment. Its effects on wages are spelled out. Trade between advanced, high-wage and developing low-wage countries is an obvious candidate for the two-way application of component specialization. The empirical part of the volume presents an evaluation of new data which allow the separation of trade in components and in final products. It also provides assessments of the role of component specialization in the trade of several countries and regions. In addition to their relevance for trade theorists and country specialists, the studies collected in this volume have interesting implications for the conduct of trade policy. They contradict claims that trade with low-wage countries must be welfare-reducing and they suggest new approaches to industrialization and economic development.

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation
Author: Alan V. Deardorff
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2001
Genre: Comercio internacional
ISBN:

The author examines the special role that trade liberalization in services industries can play in stimulating trade in both services, and goods. International trade in goods requires inputs from such trade services as transportation, insurance, and finance, for example. Restrictions on services across borders, and within foreign countries add costs, and barriers to international trade. Liberalizing trade in services could also facilitate trade in goods, providing more benefits than one might expect from analysis merely of the services trade. To emphasize the point, the author notes that the benefits for trade are arguably enhanced by the phenomenon of fragmentation. The more that production processes become split across locations, with the fragments tied together, and coordinated by various trade services, the greater the gains from reductions in the costs of services. The incentives for such fragmentation can be greater across countries, than within countries, because of the greater differences in factor prices, and technologies. But the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if regulations, and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a result, trade liberalization in services can stimulate the fragmentation of production of both goods, and services, thus increasing international trade, and the gains from trade even further. Since fragmentation seems to characterize an increasing portion of world specialization, the importance of service liberalization is growing apace.

Geopolitics, Trade Blocks, and the Fragmentation of World Commerce

Geopolitics, Trade Blocks, and the Fragmentation of World Commerce
Author: Uri Dadush
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1666929379

The global economic edifice built after World War II is a source of unprecedented prosperity. It cannot function without open and predictable international trade, and the peaceful international relations that are its foundation. The rules that enable trade are under attack. Social divisions and great power rivalry have eroded the political support for open trade. The consequence is fragmentation of world trade, its separation into blocks that advance domestic producers or favored nations nearby. These blocs are themselves often pulled apart by competing agendas. The prospects are for vastly reduced economic efficiency and - most ominously - heightened geopolitical tensions. The questions about why this is happening, how economic fragmentation will evolve, and how to respond to it, are uppermost in the minds of policymakers and businesses across the world. These are the questions that Uri Dadush seeks to answer. Since the uncertainty cannot be dispelled, it must be better managed.

Global Trade Fragmentation

Global Trade Fragmentation
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre:
ISBN: 9789276296300

The risk of global trade fragmentation has increased significantly. Rising geopolitical tensions, a growing number of trade restrictions and a weakening of multilateral institutions have been important geopolitical drivers. These trends have been accompanied by a drastic rise in trade-inhibiting policy measures, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In this context, the EU's integration in the global economy via trade and value chains remains resilient thus far. Yet, a more fragmented world trade in the future would result of selected decoupling between countries, a general re-balancing towards resilience of value chains and efforts to secure access to key raw materials in lieu of efficiency. This would come at a significant cost. Global trade fragmentation in the form of an increase in trade barriers and higher trade policy uncertainty could lead to significant reduction in global output in the long-term, with low-income countries likely to be more negatively affected.

Divided We Fall: Differential Exposure to Geopolitical Fragmentation in Trade

Divided We Fall: Differential Exposure to Geopolitical Fragmentation in Trade
Author: Shushanik Hakobyan
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 51
Release: 2023-12-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This paper assesses differences in countries’ macroeconomic exposure to trade fragmentation along geopolitical lines. Estimating structural gravity regressions for sector-level bilateral trade flows between 185 countries, we find that differences in individual countries’ geopolitical ties act as a barrier to trade, with the largest effects concentrated in a few sectors (notably, food and high-end manufacturing). Consequently, countries’ exposure via trade to geopolitical shifts varies with their market size, comparative advantage, and foreign policy alignments. Introducing our estimates into a dynamic many-country, many-sector quantitative trade model, we show that geoeconomic fragmentation—modelled as an increased sensitivity of trade costs to geopolitics and greater geopolitical polarization—generally leads to lower trade and incomes. However, emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) tend to see the largest impacts: real per-capita income losses for the median EMDE in Asia are 80 percent larger, and for the median EMDE in Africa 120 percent larger, than for the median advanced economy. This suggests that the costs of trade fragmentation could fall disproportionally on countries that can afford it the least.

Fragmentation in Global Trade: Accounting for Commodities

Fragmentation in Global Trade: Accounting for Commodities
Author: Marijn A. Bolhuis
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2023-03-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

We construct a new database which covers production and trade in 136 primary commodities and 24 manufacturing and service sectors for 145 countries. Using this new more granular data, we estimate spillover effects from plausible trade fragmentation scenarios in a new multi-country, multi-sector, general-equilibrium model that accounts for unique demand and supply characteristics of commodities. The results show fragmentation-induced output losses can be sizable, especially for Low-Income-Countries, although the magnitudes vary according to the particular scenarios and modelling assumptions. Our work demonstrates that not accounting for granular commodity production and trade linkages leads to underestimation of the output losses associated with trade fragmentation.

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation
Author: Alan V. Deardorff
Publisher:
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

By reducing the costs of such trade services as transport, insurance, and finance, liberalizing trade in services can generate benefits in the markets for every kind of trade they facilitate. It can also stimulate the fragmentation of production of both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from trade even further. Deardorff examines the special role that trade liberalization in services industries can play in stimulating trade in both services and goods. International trade in goods requires inputs from such trade services as transportation, insurance, and finance, for example. Restrictions on services across borders and within foreign countries add costs and barriers to international trade. Liberalizing trade in services could also facilitate trade in goods, providing more benefits than one might expect from analysis merely of the services trade. To emphasize the point, Deardorff notes that the benefits for trade are arguably enhanced by the phenomenon of fragmentation. The more that production processes become split across locations, with the fragments tied together and coordinated by various trade services, the greater the gains from reductions in the costs of services.The incentives for such fragmentation can be greater across countries than within countries because of the greater differences in factor prices and technologies. But the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if regulations and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a result, trade liberalization in services can stimulate the fragmentation of production of both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from trade even further. Since fragmentation seems to characterize an increasing portion of world specialization, the importance of service liberalization is growing apace.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to improve trade policy in goods and services.

The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization's Rules on Agriculture

The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization's Rules on Agriculture
Author: Rhonda Ferguson
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018-01-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004345302

In The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization’s Rules on Agriculture: Conflicting, Compatible, or Complementary?, Rhonda Ferguson explores the relationship between the human right to food and agricultural trade rules. She questions whether States can adhere to their obligations under both regimes simultaneously. These two regimes are frequently portrayed to be in tension with one another. The content and contours of the right to food under international human rights law and WTO rules on domestic supports, export subsidies, and market access are considered through the lens of norm conflict theories. The analysis is situated within the context of the debate surrounding the fragmentation of international law.

International Trade Theory and Competitive Models

International Trade Theory and Competitive Models
Author: Ronald Winthrop Jones
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: International trade
ISBN: 9789813200661

World-renowned economist Ronald W. Jones gets to the essence of international trade theory in this collection of articles that span over half a century of his published work. As the global economy has grown, so too has the need for a deeper rooted understanding of trade -- and its assorted benefits. With clear, simplifying prose, Jones elucidates the Ricardian, Heckscher-Ohlin, and Specific-Factors models of general equilibrium theory. Jones' pioneering work anticipates, among other changes in our time, the creation of far-flung supply chains brought about by the falling costs of service links. The theoretical, technical, and historical insights in the text are peppered with personal notes that capture modern intellectual development in the field, providing a bedrock foundation in international trade for students and practitioners alike.