International Trade and Macroeconomic Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms

异质企业的国际贸易和宏观经济动态

• 批准号: 0417757
• 负责人: Marc Melitz
• 金额: $ 29.95万
• 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: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-07-15 至 2012-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0417757&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: International; Trade; Macroeconomic; Dynamics; Heterogeneous

This research attempts to bridge the gap between modern models of international macroeconomics and international trade. International macroeconomic models do not typically study the decisions of firms to serve export markets while international trade theory does not consider business cycles. This research introduces firm-level features into an international macroeconomic model. Firms in each country must make an irreversible investment when entering their domestic market; they then produce with different productivity levels. Firms also face both per-unit and fixed (independent of export volume) trade costs. This explains why only a subset of relatively more productive firms export, while less productive firms only serve their domestic market. The research then studies how macroeconomic shocks affect the pattern of firm entry across countries, and the firms' export decision. Improvements in a country's business environment induce higher rates of firm entry. Similarly, when export conditions improve, more firms start exporting; conversely, some firms exit the export market when those conditions deteriorate. These firm-level decisions alter the range of goods available for consumption in both countries. The model captures the aggregate implications of this firm-level structure, as well as the feedback loop from the induced changes in the macroeconomic environment back to the firm-level decisions. Incorporating firm-level decisions provides very important insights into the behavior of key macroeconomic variables. The model explains why more productive countries (or less regulated economies) exhibit higher relative prices than their trading partners (through the impact of entry on labor costs). It also explains why productivity improvements can be associated with improvements in a country's terms of trade. These explanations critically rely on the new firm-level structure that is introduced (which implies that firms will predominantly choose to enter the market that provides the more attractive business environment). The firm-level dynamics also imply that the responses to macroeconomic shocks are very persistent, much more so than the shocks themselves. This provides some new explanations for the high persistence levels that are commonly observed in empirical work. This research also highlights some potential problems with the measurement of international relative prices. These relative prices are used to adjust important international statistics such as income per capita. However, the methods used may not properly account for the effect of firm entry and product variety, leading to biased cross-country comparisons. The policy implications of this issue are apparent, as these comparisons are used to make decisions such as the allocation of international aid. The researchers will explore this question in future theoretical and empirical work. In addition, the PIs will extend their model to incorporate nominal rigidity and a role for monetary policy. This extension will improve the empirical performance of the model and allow for the study of how changes in monetary policy regime affect the economy (and consumer welfare) by altering firm entry and exit decisions.

这项研究试图弥合国际宏观经济学现代模型与国际贸易之间的差距。 国际宏观经济模型通常不会研究公司为出口市场服务的决策，而国际贸易理论不考虑商业周期。 这项研究将公司级特征引入了国际宏观经济模型。 每个国家的公司在进入国内市场时必须进行不可逆的投资；然后，它们生产不同的生产率水平。 公司还面临每个单位和固定（独立于出口量）贸易成本。 这就解释了为什么只有一部分相对生产力的公司出口，而生产力较低的公司只为其国内市场服务。 然后，该研究研究了宏观经济冲击如何影响整个国家 /地区的公司进入模式以及公司的出口决定。 一个国家的商业环境的改善会导致更高的公司进入率。 同样，当出口条件改善时，越来越多的公司开始出口；相反，当这些条件恶化时，一些公司退出出口市场。这些公司级别的决定改变了两国可供消费的商品范围。该模型捕获了该公司级结构的总含义，以及从宏观经济环境中诱发的变化回到公司级决策中的反馈回路。结合公司层面的决策为关键宏观经济变量的行为提供了非常重要的见解。 该模型解释了为什么比其贸易伙伴（通过对劳动力成本的影响）相比，更有生产力的国家（或受监管的经济体）表现出更高的相对价格。 这也解释了为什么提高生产力可以与一个国家的贸易条款的改善相关联。 这些解释在非常依赖于引入的新公司级结构（这意味着公司将主要选择进入提供更具吸引力的商业环境的市场）。公司层面的动态还暗示，对宏观经济冲击的反应非常持久，比冲击本身的反应要多得多。 这为经验工作中通常观察到的高持久性水平提供了一些新的解释。这项研究还强调了国际相对价格的衡量问题。这些相对价格用于调整重要的国际统计数据，例如人均收入。 但是，所使用的方法可能无法正确解释公司进入和产品品种的影响，从而导致越野比较。 这个问题的政策影响很明显，因为这些比较被用来做出诸如国际援助分配之类的决策。 研究人员将在未来的理论和经验工作中探索这个问题。 此外，PI将扩展其模型以纳入名义僵化和货币政策的作用。 这项扩展将改善模型的经验绩效，并允许研究货币政策制度的变化如何通过改变公司进入和退出决策来影响经济（以及消费者福利）。