World Bank Policy Research Working Papers
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Carsten Fink, Aaditya Mattoo, Ileana Cristina Neagu
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2002.
No. 2929.
Recent research suggests that trade costs have a strong influence on the pattern
of specialization and trade, but there is limited empirical research on the determinants
of trade costs. The existing literature identifies a range of barriers that separate
nations, but then typically focuses only on transport costs. Although communication
costs figure prominently in intuitive explanations and casual observations, they
have played little role in the formal analysis of trade costs. Fink, Mattoo, and
Neagu seek to examine whether this neglect matters, and whether the inclusion of
the magnitude and variation of communication costs across partner countries can add
value to existing explanations of the pattern of trade.
The authors develop a simple multi-sector model of “impeded” trade that
generates testable hypotheses in a gravity-type estimation framework. The main proxies
for bilateral communication costs are the per-minute country-to-country calling prices
charged in the importing and exporting countries. The use of bilateral variations
in prices yields estimates that are superior to the ones obtained from country-specific
measures of communication infrastructure used in previous studies. The authors find
that international variations in communication costs indeed have a significant influence
on bilateral trade flows—both at the aggregate level and for most individual
sectors disaggregated according to the 2-digit SITC classification.
Since information and communication needs are likely to be much greater for differentiated
goods, the authors test whether trade in these products is more sensitive to variations
in the costs of communication. Using the Rauch classification of product heterogeneity,
the estimates suggest that the impact of communication costs on trade in differentiated
products is as much as one-third larger than on trade in homogenous products. Finally,
the authors verify, to the extent possible, that the significance of communication
costs is not driven by their endogeneity or by omitted variables.
Опубликовано на портале: 17-11-2003
Dominique van de Walle
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
1996.
No. 1670.
В целях изучения влияния общественных расходов на различные аспекты уровня жизни,
необходимо расширить определение благосостояния, развить методы его оценки и сравнить
результаты. Повышение уровня жизни, особенно бедных слоев населения
является одной
из важнейших целей осуществления общественных расходов. Но как наилучшим образом
оценить степень
достижения данной цели? Оценка государственной политики требует анализа не только
результатов ее воздействия, но и характеристики ситуации в условиях отсутствия государственного
вмешательства. Дать количественные оценки практически невозможно. Автор изучил методы,
наиболее
часто используемые для оценки влияния общественных расходов на благосостояние. Их
можно разделить на две группы: изучение сферы действия
выгод и поведенческие подходы. Обе группы методов имеют определенные преимущества
и недостатки. Исследования сферы действия выгод игнорируют поведенческие изменения,
а также второстепенные эффекты. Поведенческие подходы обладают целым рядом недостатков
связанных, прежде всего, с невозможностью точной оценки индивидуальных выгод. В недавних
исследованиях делается попытка совместить оба метода.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-04-2007
Allen N. Berger, George R.G. Clarke, Robert Cull, Leora F. Klapper, Gregory F. Udell
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2005.
No. 3632.
We jointly analyze the static, selection, and dynamic effects of domestic, foreign,
and state ownership on bank performance. We argue that it is important to include
indicators of all the relevant governance effects in the same model. "Nonrobustness"
checks (which purposely exclude some indicators) support this argument. Using data
from Argentina in the 1990s, our strongest and most robust results concern state
ownership. State-owned banks have poor long-term performance (static effect), those
undergoing privatization had particularly poor performance beforehand (selection
effect), and these banks dramatically improved following privatization (dynamic effect).
However, much of the measured improvement is likely due to placing nonperforming
loans into residual entities, leaving "good" privatized banks.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-04-2007
Leora F. Klapper, Inessa Love
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2004.
No. 2818.
We use recent data on firm-level corporate governance (CG) rankings across 14 emerging
markets and find that there is wide variation in firm-level governance in our sample
and that the average firmlevel governance is lower in countries with weaker legal
systems.We explore the determinants of firmlevel governance and find that governance
is correlated with the extent of the asymmetric information and contracting imperfections
that firms face. We also find that better corporate governance is highly correlated
with better operating performance and market valuation. Finally, we provide evidence
that firm-level corporate governance provisions matter more in countries with weak
legal environments.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Jeffrey J. Reimer
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2002.
No. 2790.
As a new round of World Trade Organization negotiations is being launched with greater
emphasis on developing country participation, a body of literature is emerging which
quantifies how international trade affects the poor in developing countries. In this
survey of the literature, Reimer summarizes and classifies 35 trade and poverty studies
into four methodological categories: cross-country regression, partial-equilibrium
and cost-of-living analysis, general-equilibrium simulation, and micro-macro synthesis.
These categories include a broad range of methodologies in current use. The continuum
of approaches is bounded on one end by econometric analysis of household expenditure
data, which is the traditional domain of poverty specialists, and sometimes labeled
the “bottom-up” approach. On the other end of the continuum are computable
general equilibrium models based on national accounts data, or what might be called
the “top-down” approach.
Another feature of several recent trade and poverty studies—and one of the
primary conclusions to emerge from the October 2000 “Conference on Poverty
and the International Economy” sponsored by Globkom and the World Bank—is
the recognition that factor markets are perhaps the most important link between trade
and poverty, since households tend to be much more specialized in income than they
are in consumption. Meanwhile, survey data on the income sources of developing-country
households has become increasingly available. As a result, this survey gives particular
emphasis to the means by which studies address factor market links between trade
and poverty.
The general conclusion of Reimer’s survey is that any analysis of trade and
poverty needs to be informed by both the bottom-up and top-down perspectives. Indeed,
recent “two-step” micro-macro studies sequentially link these two types
of frameworks, such that general equilibrium mechanisms are incorporated along with
detailed household survey information. Another methodology in a similar spirit and
also increasingly used involves incorporating large numbers of surveyed households
into a general-equilibrium simulation model. Although most of these studies have
so far been limited to a single region, these approaches can be readily adapted for
multi-region modeling so that trade and poverty comparisons can be made across countries
within a consistent framework.
Опубликовано на портале: 04-11-2004
James Anderson, Will Martin
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
1998.
No. 1981.
We provide
simple, robust operational rules for evaluating public expenditures in distorted
economies. Our analysis integrates previous treatments of project evaluation as special
cases within a clean unified framework. In particular, the border price rule developed
in
the shadow pricing literature requires very strong assumptions to be valid when
governments must rely on distortionary taxation and are unable or unwilling to cover
the
costs of the project through user charges. We develop general project evaluation
rules that
are more complex than the border price rule, but involve only one additional parameter,
the Marginal Cost of Funds.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Alexander Yeats, Francis Ng
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2003.
No. 3085.
World Bank demographic and country characteristic statistics identify 16 small landlocked
countries that are similar to Lesotho. Ng and Yeats attempt to determine what useful
policy information can be derived from the recent trade performance of these “comparators.”
Among questions they pose are whether the trade profiles of the comparators suggest
potentially promising export ventures for Lesotho, do they indicate directions for
a geographic diversification of trade, or do they suggest products in which Lesotho
might acquire a comparative advantage. The authors also use U.S. partner country
statistics to evaluate Lesotho’s export performance in this major market.
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The U.S. data indicate Lesotho lost competitive export shares for about three-quarters
of its major clothing products during the late 1990s. The data show these losses
were primarily to the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries in the
Caribbean. Lesotho was competing on basically equal terms and did not fare well.
But it is generally held that the most efficient clothing exporters are in the Far
East and not Latin America. Lesotho’s difficulties in competing with the latter
have worrisome implications for its ability to compete with East Asian exporters
when the Multifiber Arrangement is phased out.
The comparative advantage profiles of the landlocked comparator countries suggest
Lesotho’s options for a greatly needed export diversification may be wider
than is assumed. One or more of the comparator countries developed a comparative
advantage in 110 four-digit SITC (non-clothing) manufactures which are generally
labor-intensive in production. Many of these goods should also be suitable for production
and export by Lesotho.
International production sharing often involves the importation and further assembly
of components in developing countries. This activity can significantly broaden the
range of new products in which a country can diversify. Statistics show many landlocked
comparator countries have moved into component assembly operations, and it appears
this activity could contribute to Lesotho’s export diversification and industrialization.
But the quality problems associated with Lesotho’s trade statistics makes it
impossible to determine the extent to which local production sharing is occurring.
A special effort is needed to tabulate reliable statistics on Lesotho’s current
involvement in this activity.
Finally, the authors attempt to determine how the commercial policy environment in
Lesotho compares with that in other countries. Policymakers previously had difficulty
in addressing this issue, but several recent efforts to compile comprehensive cross-country
indices of the quality of governance and commercial policies now provide relevant
information. These statistics suggest domestic commercial policies make Lesotho relatively
less attractive to foreign investment than many other developing countries. Less
than 20 percent of all Latin American countries have a domestic commercial environment
judged to be inferior to that in Lesotho, while the corresponding share for East
Asia is under 30 percent. Overall, almost 70 percent of all developing countries
appear to pursue commercial policies that make them as, or more, attractive to foreign
investment than Lesotho.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Thorsten Beck
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2000.
No. 2609.
Does financial development translate into a comparative advantage in industries that
use more external finance? Yes, it does.
Using industry-level data on firms’ dependence on external finance—data
for 36 industries and 56 countries—Beck shows that countries with better developed
financial systems have higher export shares and trade balances in industries that
use more external finance.
These results are robust to the use of alternative measures of external dependence
and financial development and are not attributable to reverse causality or simultaneity
bias.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Thorsten Beck
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2001.
No. 2608.
Economies with better developed financial sectors have a comparative advantage in
manufacturing industries. A two-sector model shows the sector with large scale economies
profiting more than the other from a well-developed financial sector. In countries
with higher levels of financial development, manufactured exports represent a higher
share of GDP and of merchandise exports—and those countries have a higher trade
balance in manufactured goods.
Beck explores a possible link between financial development and trade in manufactures.
His theoretical model focuses on the role of financial intermediaries in facilitating
large-scale, high-return projects. Results show that economies with better developed
financial sectors have a comparative advantage in manufacturing industries.
He provides evidence for this hypothesis, first proposed by Kletzer and Bardhan (1987),
using a 30-year panel of data for 65 countries. Controlling for country-specific
effects and possible reverse causality, he shows that financial development exerts
a large causal impact on the level of both exports and the trade balance of manufactured
goods.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Carsten Fink, Beata Smarzynska, Mariana Spatareanu
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2003.
No. 3150.
Economists have long recognized that richer countries trade more among themselves
than with poorer economies due to a closer match of exporter supply structures and
importer preferences. In the literature, the closeness of supply and demand has traditionally
been determined by the quality of products—as expressed in the so-called Linder
hypothesis. This paper examines an extension of the Linder hypothesis by also considering
the extent of horizontal product differentiation as another determinant of the closeness
of supply and demand. The empirical analysis employs information on international
trademark registrations to test whether richer countries import more from countries
whose exports are of higher quality and exhibit a greater degree of product differentiation.
The results lend support to the hypothesis in most consumer goods sectors but not
in intermediate goods sectors.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Jacques Morisset, Alejandro Izquierdo, Marcelo Olarreaga
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2003.
No. 3032.
Globalization has been a persistent phenomenon of the post-war period. The gross
volume of cross-border capital flows has grown at an average of 25 percent a year,
and trade in goods and services has also increased, albeit not as dramatically, but
at least twice as fast as world GDP over the past 20 years. Yet, consumers and investors
continue to spend and hold a disproportionate share of their assets in local markets—the
so-called home-bias has been emphasized by many recent empirical studies. For many
researchers, this home bias reflects information asymmetries and the fact that acquiring
information across international borders is relatively costly.
The main objective of the authors is to identify channels through which information
gets disseminated across international markets. They consider three potential channels
through which information can affect import and foreign equity purchase decisions
in 14 OECD countries. The first channel consists of information spillovers from the
commercial to the financial markets and vice-versa. Financial investors and importers
share common information, which is also frequently conveyed to them by the same source—banks
or financial intermediaries. The second and third channels emphasize seller and buyer
reputations in international markets. The seller reputation channel stresses the
importance given by, for example, importers in the United States who are considering
buying products from Italy to the experience that Canadian and Japanese importers
may have accumulated on Italian exporters. The buyer reputation channel examines
to what extent a foreign investor or trader seeks information on the reliability
of the foreign buyer by assessing his reputation in other countries. While the last
two channels are equally important in explaining bilateral import flows, buyer reputation
appears to be of greater importance for equity flows in the sample.
The authors argue that these three channels may help provide some insights about
the recent episodes of contagion across markets and countries that occurred over
the past decade. These information channels can create virtuous or vicious circles
that may, in turn, lead to unexpected changes in investors’ and traders’
behaviors across markets.
Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2004
Tito Boeri, Katherine Terrell
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2001.
The transition process from planned economies to market-oriented economies involves
a substantial reallocation of labor. In the planned economies employment was typically
concentrated in heavy industry, away from consumers preferences. A strong small business
sector was lacking, and private initiative had been tolerated almost exclusively
in agriculture. Patterns of foreign trade were determined by economic planners within
the framework of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In the process of transition,
employment had to flow out of such sectors as state-owned heavy industry into the
new private, mostly small-scale, business sector. The success of transition in a
given country can be assessed in part by how well it has addressed the problem of
reallocating labor.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Paul Brenton
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2003.
No. 3018.
Trade preferences are a key element in industrial countries’ efforts to assist
the integration of least developed countries (LDCs) into the world economy. Brenton
provides an initial evaluation of the impact of the European Union’s recently
introduced “Everything but Arms” (EBA) initiative on the products currently
exported by the LDCs. He shows that the changes introduced by the EBA initiative
in 2001 are relatively minor for currently exported products, primarily because over
99 percent of EU imports from the LDCs are in products which the EU had already liberalized,
and the complete removal of barriers to the key remaining products—rice, sugar,
and bananas—has been delayed. Brenton looks at the role EU preferences to LDCs
in general have been playing and could play in assisting the integration of the LDCs.
He shows that there is considerable variation across countries in the potential impact
that EU preferences can have given current export structures. There is a group of
LDCs for whom EU trade preferences on existing exports are not significant since
these exports are mainly of products where the most-favored-nation duty is zero.
Export diversification is the key issue for these countries. For other LDCs, EU preferences
have the potential to provide a more substantial impact on trade. However, the author
shows that only 50 percent of EU imports from non-ACP (Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific)
LDCs which are eligible actually request preferential access to the EU. The prime
suspect for this low level of use are the rules of origin, both the restrictiveness
of the requirements on sufficient processing and the costs and difficulties of providing
the necessary documentation. More simple rules of origin are likely to enhance the
impact of EU trade preferences in terms of improving market access and in stimulating
diversification toward a broader range of exports.
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Alan V. Deardorff
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2001.
No. 2548.
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.
Major Trade Trends in East Asia: What are their Implications for Regional Cooperation
and Growth? [статья]
Опубликовано на портале: 16-12-2003
Alexander Yeats, Francis Ng
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers.
2003.
No. 3084.
This study’s empirical findings have positive implications for further efforts
to expand East Asian regional trade and cooperation initiatives. Since the mid-1980s
regional intra-trade has grown at a rate roughly double that of world trade, and
at a rate far higher than the intra-trade of the North America Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) member countries or the European Union. Evidence based on intra-industry
trade ratios or statistics on international production sharing show economic linkages
and the interdependence of East Asian economies have considerably strengthened over
the past two decades. On a global scale, East Asia (excluding Japan) now originates
19 percent of world trade, which is approximately the same share as the NAFTA member
countries.
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