Collaborative Research: Fixed Costs of Exporting, Trade Relationships and Real Exchange Rates

一些国家的贸易关系比其他国家更密切。例如，2003年，美国与加拿大和墨西哥的商品贸易--进口加出口--比与欧盟所有15个成员国的贸易总和高出57%以上。尽管15个欧盟国家的GDP总和比加拿大加墨西哥的GDP总和大6倍以上，但仍是如此。数据显示，美国的商业周期与加拿大和墨西哥的商业周期相比，与欧盟的商业周期协调程度要高得多。数据还显示，与美国-欧盟双边实际汇率的波动相比，美国-加拿大实际汇率和美国-墨西哥实际汇率的波动与经济基本面的波动更具相关性。该提案提出了一项开发模型的计划，以分析宏观总量的跨国特征如何与国家之间的贸易量相关联。拟议的研究将调查在国际商业周期和实际汇率波动模型中模拟建立贸易关系的成本所产生的影响。具体地说，这个项目将把公司建模为面临向特定国家出口特定商品的固定成本，例如在该国建立分销网络。该项目计划使用为分析国际商业周期、实际汇率波动以及国际贸易和投资政策对总生产率的影响而开发的模型。20世纪90年代初建立的分析北美自由贸易协定(NAFTA)经济影响的模型，在预测该协定之后实际发生的贸易模式变化方面做得很差。拟议的研究将有助于我们开发更好的模型来分析贸易和外国投资自由化的影响。这些模型还旨在帮助我们理解为什么国际资本流动突然逆转而产生的金融危机会导致严重的经济危机。在1994-1995年的墨西哥和2001-2002年的阿根廷，突然的停滞都造成了严重的危机和生产力的大幅下降。更广泛的影响：对该提案中提出的各种问题提供令人满意的答案，对于政策分析和提高国内外政治辩论的水平都是至关重要的。目前，美国正在与拉美多个国家谈判自由贸易协定。为了建立更好的模型来分析此类协议的潜在影响，经济学家需要理解为什么为分析北美自由贸易协定而建立的模型表现得如此之差。关于贸易集团内部和跨贸易集团汇率波动的工作将有助于建立模型，分析自由化后宏观经济相互依存度的提高。它还将衡量北美自由贸易协定成员国与欧洲联盟之间未来贸易增加的潜在收益。这项工作提供了一个潜在的解释，为什么最近美元对欧元的贬值并没有导致美国和欧洲之间的贸易流动发生重大变化。对金融危机以及贸易和外国投资政策进行建模的工作将提供贸易和外国投资政策自由化的潜在代价和好处的衡量标准，特别是在贸易和外国投资政策自由化的发展中国家。经济学家要想让政策制定者、媒体成员和公众放心，就必须更好地了解墨西哥和阿根廷过去十年发生的事件，因为他们对此类自由化政策还在三思。

Some sets of countries have closer trade relationships than others. In 2003 the United States, for example, had more than 57 percent more merchandise trade - imports plus exports - with Canada and Mexico than it did with all of the 15 members of the European Union combined. This was in spite of the fact that the combined GDP of the 15 EU countries was more than 6 times larger than that of Canada plus Mexico. The data show that business cycles in the United States are far more coordinated with business cycles in Canada and Mexico than they are with the business cycles in the European Union. The data also show that fluctuations in the U.S.- Canada real exchange rate and the U.S.-Mexico real exchange rate are more correlated with fluctuations in economic fundamentals than are fluctuations in U.S.-EU bilateral real exchange rates. This proposal lays out a plan for developing models to analyze how the cross-country characteristics of macro aggregates relate to the amount of trade between countries. The proposed research would investigate the implications of modeling the costs of setting up trade relationships in models of international business cycles and real exchange rate fluctuations. Specifically, this project would model firms as facing fixed costs of exporting specific goods to a specific country, for example, in setting up a distribution network in that country. This project plans to use the models developed for analyzing international business cycles, real exchange rate fluctuations and the effects of international trade and investment policy on aggregate productivity. Models constructed in the early 1990s to analyze the economic impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) did a poor job of predicting the changes in trade patterns that actually occurred following this agreement. The proposed research would help us to develop better models for analyzing the impact of trade and foreign investment liberalization. The models are also intended to help us understand why financial crises produced by a sudden reversal of international capital flows result in severe economic crises. In both Mexico in 1994-1995 and in Argentina in 2001-2002, sudden stops produced severe crises and large drops in productivity. Broader Impact: Providing satisfactory answers to the sorts of questions posed in this proposal is essential for both policy analysis and for raising the level of political debate here and abroad. Currently, the United States is negotiating free trade agreements with a number of countries in Latin America. To build better models to analyze the potential impact of such agreements, economists need to understand why the models built to analyze NAFTA did so poorly. The work on exchange rate fluctuations within and across trade blocs will help produce models to analyze the increased macroeconomic interdependence that follows liberalization. It will also provide measures of the potential gains from increased future trade between the countries of NAFTA and the European Union. This work offers a potential explanation of why the recent depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the euro has not resulted is a large change in trade flows between the United States and Europe. The work on modeling financial crises and trade and foreign investment policy will provide measures of the potential costs and benefits of liberalizing trade and foreign investment policy, especially in developing countries that liberalize their trade and foreign investment policies. It is essential that economists develop a better understanding of events in Mexico and Argentina over the past decade if they are to reassure policy makers and the members of the press and the public who are having second thoughts about such liberalization policies.