Search Results
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 ...
Discussion Paper
Who Pays the Tax on Imports from China?
Tariffs are a form of taxation. Indeed, before the 1920s, tariffs (or customs duties) were typically the largest source of funding for the U.S. government. Of little interest for decades, tariffs are again becoming relevant, given the substantial increase in the rates charged on imports from China. U.S. businesses and consumers are shielded from the higher tariffs to the extent that Chinese firms lower the dollar prices they charge. U.S. import price data, however, indicate that prices on goods from China have so far not fallen. As a result, U.S. wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, and ...
Working Paper
International Trade Policy During a Pandemic
This paper studies international trade policy during a pandemic. We consider a multi-sector small open economy 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 along with higher import and export prices of these goods. The economy produces domestic varieties of both types of goods subject to sectoral adjustment costs, and varieties are traded internationally subject to trade barriers. We find that trade provides limited relief to the increased demand for ...
Report
Uncertainty about Trade Policy Uncertainty
We revisit in this note the macroeconomic impact of the recent rise in trade policy uncertainty. As in the literature, we do find that high trade policy uncertainty can adversely impact domestic and foreign economic activity. In addition, we identify an alternative business sentiment channel that is separate and distinct from the impact of trade policy uncertainty, which provides a complementary explanation of the recent developments in the U.S. and global economic activities. This sentiment channel also implies that subsiding trade policy uncertainty does not necessarily result in a recovery ...
Briefing
How Does Trade Policy Get Decided?
The interests of districts play a crucial role in trade policymaking. Districts with heterogenous political and economic preferences form coalitions and bargain in the legislature to reach an acceptable trade policy. Such complicated process has been overlooked in canonical political economy models of trade. Our work brings to focus the role districts play in the political process by proposing a model that aggregates heterogeneous district preferences into a national trade policy. The approach uncovers districts and sectors that are more influential in the political process and identifies ...
Working Paper
Tariffs and Goods-Market Search Frictions
We study uniform tariffs in a general equilibrium dynamic model with search frictions between heterogeneous exporting producers and importing retailers. We analytically characterize unilateral import tariffs that maximize domestic welfare. Search frictions lower these tariffs because of market thickness effects, which reinforce aggregate production nonconvexities. A calibration using 2016 U.S. and Chinese data suggests that optimal U.S. unilateral and Nash equilibrium tariffs with baseline search frictions are 10 ppt. below those in a model with reduced search frictions. Changes in welfare in ...
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 ...
Report
Would protectionism defuse global imbalances and spur economic activity?: a scenario analysis
In the evolving analysis of global imbalances, the possibility that countries will resort to increased protectionism is often mentioned but rarely analyzed. This paper attempts to fill that gap, examining the macroeconomic implications of a shift to protectionist policies through the lens of a dynamic general equilibrium model of the world economy that encompasses four regional blocs. Simulation exercises are carried out to assess the consequences of imposing uniform and discriminatory tariffs on trading partners as well as the consequences of tariff retaliation. We also discuss a scenario in ...
Journal Article
The Economic Effects of the 2018 U.S. Trade Policy: A State-Level Analysis
We evaluate, empirically, the effect of changes in trade policy during the 2018-19 trade war on U.S. economic activity. We begin by documenting that sectors and states across the United States are heterogeneous in their exposure to international trade. To do that, we construct a measure of exposure that combines the share of a sector’s gross output that is accounted for by trade with the pattern of comparative advantage of each state in that sector. We then exploit cross-state heterogeneity in exposure to international trade and correlate it with measures of economic activity across U.S. ...
Working Paper
The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment
This paper finds a link between the sharp drop in U.S. manufacturing employment beginning in 2001 and a change in U.S. trade policy that eliminated potential tariff increases on Chinese imports. Industries where the threat of tariff hikes declines the most experience more severe employment losses along with larger increases in the value of imports from China and the number of firms engaged in China-U.S. trade. These results are robust to other potential explanations of the employment loss, and we show that the U.S. employment trends differ from those in the E.U., where there was no change in ...