Search Results
Journal Article
Synchronization of Business Cycles and the Extensive Margin of Trade
The business cycle is more highly synchronized between countries that trade more differentiated intermediate products with each other.
Working Paper
Cross-border Patenting and the Margins of International Trade
This paper investigates the impact of cross-border patenting on the margins of international trade using disaggregated data on international patenting and trade flows. We develop a theoretical framework of trade and firms' patenting decisions that motivates our empirical analysis. The main results reveal that cross-border patenting has a larger effect on the extensive margin of trade compared to the intensive margin. This finding suggests that firms tend to seek patent protection in international markets prior to entering those markets with new products, rather than with their existing ...
Working Paper
International Trade of Essential Goods During a Pandemic
This paper studies the role of international trade of essential goods during a pandemic. We consider a multi-country, multi-sector model with essential and non-essential goods. Essential goods provide utility relative to a reference consumption level, and a pandemic consists of an increase in this reference level. Each country produces domestic varieties of both types of goods using capital and labor subject to sectoral adjustment costs, and all varieties are traded internationally subject to trade barriers. We study the role of international trade of essential goods in mitigating or ...
Journal Article
Domestic Innovation and International Technology Diffusion as Sources of Comparative Advantage
Productivity differences across countries determine patterns of international trade?hence, comparative advantage. We use a multi-industry model of international trade to estimate a measure of industry productivity. We then quantify the effect that domestic innovation and technology diffusion have in explaining differences in productivity across countries and industries. Consistent with standard growth theories, we find the following: (i) Higher-income countries benefit more from domestic innovation than lower-income countries, whereas lower-income countries benefit more from technology ...
Working Paper
International Technology Licensing, Intellectual Property Rights, and Tax Havens
This paper investigates the determinants of international technology licensing using data for 41 countries during 1996-2012. A multi-country model of innovation and international technology licensing yields a dynamic structural gravity equation for royalty payments as a function of fundamentals, including: (i) imperfect intellectual property protection and (ii) tax havens. The gravity equation is estimated using nonlinear methods. The model’s fundamentals account for 56% of the variation in royalty payments. Counterfactual analysis sheds light on the role of intellectual property rights ...
Working Paper
Managing Macroeconomic Fluctuations with Flexible Exchange Rate Targeting
We show that a monetary policy rule that uses the exchange rate to stabilize the economy can outperform a Taylor rule in managing macroeconomics fluctuations and in achieving higher welfare. The differences between the rules are driven by: (i) the paths of the nominal exchange rate and the interest rate under each rule and (ii) external habits in consumption, which leads to deviations from uncovered interest parity. These differences are larger in economies, which are very open, which are more exposed to foreign shocks, or in which domestic and foreign goods are highly substitutable.
Journal Article
Rethinking Global Value Chains During COVID-19: Part 1
GVCs can make final goods production less costly and more efficient, but they are not without risks.
Combining Economics with Policy Research
Before she was studying international trade, economist Ana Maria Santacreu was going to be an engineer. But she kept drifting to her parents’ area of study.
Journal Article
The Economic Fundamentals of Emerging Market Volatility
Countries with weaker economic fundamentals experienced higher currency volatility and capital flows.
Journal Article
What Does China’s Rise in Patents Mean? A Look at Quality vs. Quantity
Using three measurements of patent quality, we argue that there is still room for China to improve its innovative activities. Comparing the number of patent applications and patent grants across countries, we see that although the United States and Japan have been global leaders in innovation for a long time, South Korea and China are catching up fast. If China sustains its large innovation investment and shifts its focus from quantity to quality, together with an improvement in intellectual property rights, the likelihood of becoming one of the next innovation leaders could be much higher.