The Internationalization of Economic Activity

经济活动的国际化

• 批准号: 9904480
• 负责人: Gene Grossman
• 金额: $ 26.58万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-08-15 至 2005-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9904480&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Internationalization; Economic; Activity

An increasingly complex pattern of cross-border activities and transactions characterizes the international economic system, distinguishing it from the earlier predominance of arms length trade in raw materials and finished goods. Over time, technological changes have enabled producers to divide their operations into ever finer segments, allowing greater specialization and efficiencies in each one. As the activities of production are further distinguished and segmented, it becomes increasingly possible to separate them geographically. "Globalization" may be defined as the process by which segments of the production process are carried out in several or many different countries. Globalization encompasses a variety of different organizational arrangements, including the 'outsourcing' of various components in arms-length relations with unrelated producers (trade), the establishment of foreign subsidiaries to undertake activities such as assembly and marketing (direct foreign investment), the entry into long-term and possibly exclusive contractual agreements with foreign entities who might produce under license or distribute a firms' products, and the establishment of joint ventures for R&D and/or production. Research is needed to bring these organizational choices into the corpus of international trade and investment theory. This project develops models of international trade and foreign investment that are underpinned by a richer and more complete theory of the firm. Such models allow them to investigate when firms will decide to undertake activities 'in-house' and when they will 'outsource,' when the in-house activities will be performed locally versus in foreign locations, and when the outsourcing will be domestic and when through foreign trade. A model of trade with a more complete theory of the firm will also allow exploration of other organizational forms, such as long-term contracts, keiretsu relationships, licensing arrangements, and joint ventures. The investigators intend to draw heavily on recent advances in contract theory. By investigating the trade-off between the greater efficiency that arises when each party maintains control of its own special assets and the loss of efficiency that can result from dulled investment incentives in the face of imperfect contracting, contract theorists have developed a framework for investigating the determinants of the boundaries of the firm. Rarely, however, have these tools been applied to study vertical relations in the context of market equilibrium.After introducing a richer theory of the firm into the corpus of general-equilibrium trade theory, the investigators will address a number of important questions. First, why has trade grown so much faster than income in the post-war period, and why has trade in components and producer services grown especially fast? Second, has globalization contributed to the declining relative wage of unskilled workers in the United States and elsewhere? Third, does the internationalization of economic activity hamper governments' ability to regulate industry? Finally, what are the economic motivations for the long-term supplier relationships seen in Japan, and to what extent do these relationships act as an implicit barrier to trade?

国际经济体系的特点是跨界活动和交易模式日益复杂，有别于以前占主导地位的原材料和制成品的公平贸易。 随着时间的推移，技术变革使生产者能够将其业务划分为更细的部分，从而使每个部分都能实现更高的专业化和效率。随着生产活动的进一步区分和分割，在地理上将它们分开的可能性越来越大。 “全球化”可以定义为生产过程的各个部分在几个或许多不同国家进行的过程。 全球化包括各种不同的组织安排，包括与不相关的生产者保持一定距离关系的各种组成部分的“外包”（贸易），建立外国子公司从事组装和销售等活动，（外国直接投资），与外国实体签订长期的、可能是排他性的合同协议，这些实体可以根据许可证生产或分销公司的产品，以及建立研发&和/或生产合资企业。需要进行研究，将这些组织选择纳入国际贸易和投资理论的主体。 该项目开发了国际贸易和外国投资的模型，这些模型以更丰富和更完整的企业理论为基础。这些模型使他们能够调查公司何时决定进行“内部”活动，何时将“外包”，何时将在当地进行内部活动，何时将在国外进行，何时外包是国内的，何时通过外贸进行。一个具有更完整的企业理论的贸易模型也将允许探索其他组织形式，如长期合同、经连会关系、许可安排和合资企业。 调查人员打算大量利用契约理论的最新进展。通过研究各方保持对自己特殊资产的控制时产生的更高效率与面对不完美合同时投资激励减弱可能导致的效率损失之间的权衡，合同理论家开发了一个框架来研究公司边界的决定因素。然而，这些工具很少被用于研究市场均衡背景下的纵向关系。在将更丰富的企业理论引入一般均衡贸易理论之后，研究者将解决一些重要问题。第一，为什么战后贸易增长比收入增长快得多，为什么零部件和生产者服务贸易增长特别快？第二，全球化是否导致了美国和其他地方非熟练工人相对工资的下降？第三，经济活动的国际化是否妨碍了政府管制工业的能力？最后，日本的长期供应商关系的经济动机是什么，这种关系在多大程度上成为了贸易的隐性障碍？