Organization and Trade

组织与贸易

• 批准号: 0211748
• 负责人: Gene Grossman
• 金额: --
• 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: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-07-15 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0211748&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Organization; Trade

The nature of international trade has been changing. Historically, trade has consisted largely of an exchange of raw materials and finished goods. But now, "international production sharing is becoming more the norm. Improvements in technology have made possible the division of the production process into an ever finer set of activities, so that specialized components and business services can be produced in various locations before being combined into a final product. Meanwhile, falling trade barriers, declining communication and transportation costs, and improvements in the legal conditions in many countries have made the internationalization of economic activity increasingly viable. Indeed, the process of international production sharing may well be the essential feature of modern "globalization." Globalization encompasses a variety of organizational arrangements, including the outsourcing of various components and business services in arms-length relations, the establishment of foreign subsidiaries to undertake activities such as assembly and marketing, the entry into long-term and possibly exclusive licensing agreements, and the establishment of joint ventures for production and marketing. In this project, the principal investigators are developing theoretical models of foreign investment and trade that incorporate decisions about organizational form. They are studying firms' choices about whether to obtain a component or service by self-provision or subcontracting together with their choices about where might be the best place to source or manufacture components. As the project progresses, the authors also will consider hybrid organizational forms, such as "relational contracts" (self-enforcing long-term agreements) and joint ventures (where decision-making authority may reside with one party or the other depending on the contingencies that arise). After developing their new models of trade and foreign investment, the authors will use them to address important policy issues, such as whether international production sharing has contributed to the adverse trends in income distribution in the United States and Europe and whether globalization hinders the ability of governments to regulate industry. Further, they will investigate whether the internationalization of economic activity necessitates greater intergovernmental cooperation in the WTO (or elsewhere) in non-traditional areas such as standards and regulation.

国际贸易的性质一直在变化。从历史上看，贸易主要由原材料和制成品的交换组成。但现在，"国际生产共享正变得越来越普遍。 技术的进步使得有可能将生产过程划分为一组更精细的活动，这样，在组合成最终产品之前，可以在不同的地点生产专门的组件和商业服务。与此同时，贸易壁垒的减少、通信和运输成本的下降以及许多国家法律的条件的改善，使经济活动的国际化越来越可行。事实上，国际生产分享的过程很可能是现代"全球化"的基本特征。"全球化包括各种组织安排，包括在保持一定距离的情况下外包各种组件和商业服务，设立外国子公司从事组装和销售等活动，签订长期和可能的独家许可协议，以及建立生产和销售合资企业。 在这个项目中，主要研究人员正在开发外国投资和贸易的理论模型，其中包括有关组织形式的决定。 它们正在研究公司选择是自行提供还是分包获得部件或服务的问题，以及它们选择何处可能是采购或制造部件的最佳地点的问题。 随着项目的进展，作者还将考虑混合组织形式，如"关系合同"（自我执行的长期协议）和合资企业（决策权可能属于一方或另一方，取决于出现的突发事件）。 在开发了新的贸易和外国投资模型之后，作者将用它们来解决重要的政策问题，例如国际生产共享是否导致了美国和欧洲收入分配的不利趋势，以及全球化是否阻碍了政府监管产业的能力。 此外，他们将调查经济活动的国际化是否需要在世贸组织（或其他地方）在标准和监管等非传统领域加强政府间合作。