Network Intermediation in International Trade: Theory and Evidence

首席调查员先前由国家科学基金会资助的研究使用了分类的贸易数据，以确定和量化旅行需求以及企业和社会网络在克服国际贸易的信息障碍方面的作用。国际和平研究所还开发了关于存在信息壁垒对世界经济运行的影响的理论模型。这项研究提出了(至少)三个问题。首先，在寻找差异化产品的外国买家或卖家方面，能否找到更直接的微观证据，证明出国旅游相对更重要，以及私人信息比公开信息更重要？其次，能否找到任何直接证据，证明新的信息技术是否正在以及如何影响寻找外国买家或卖家？第三，也是最重要的是，信息贸易壁垒的明显重要性以及跨国网络在克服这些壁垒方面的有用性是否对政策有任何影响？在“网络中介”理论的指导下，对出口管理公司、出口贸易公司、进口商和购买代理等中介机构进行调查，可以帮助回答所有这些问题。国际和平研究所将发展这一理论，并进行一项试点调查，以确定全面调查的可行性。更具体地说，各种研究人员发现，移民、商业团体的外国直接投资以及长期定居的少数族裔(如华侨)对贸易创造的影响表明，现有的中介机构不足以将买家或卖家与外国机会联系起来。然而，属于这些跨国商业和社交网络的明显重要性并不能证明中介供应不足，因为建立这些跨国网络的成本是出于创造贸易以外的目的。建立新中介机构的成本可能会超过它们将创造的额外交易的好处。一个初步的理论模型表明，“网络中介”的提供可能确实存在市场失灵。网络中介实际上是出售对其网络的访问权的代理，这些网络由他们拥有能力和偏好的公司组成，他们拥有必要的“深厚知识”，以便将他们与适当的差异化产品买家或卖家相匹配。据推测，这些代理人积累了他们对其网络中的公司的深入了解，方法是在进入中介职业之前，以非中介的身份与他们合作，当中介变得更有利可图时。然而，这一过程不太可能为其网络覆盖许多产品线的中介机构提供服务，例如，如果客户想要购买许多需要相互匹配的零部件，这些产品线是有价值的。此外，对网络多样化的投资可能达不到社会最优水平，因为中介机构需要其网络成员的深厚知识，以便为其客户找到最佳匹配。他们的发球质量本质上是不可收缩的，这使得他们在每一场比赛的特殊性下都容易受到阻挡问题的影响。因此，该模型(建立在具有内生中介供给的一般均衡框架中)的政策建议之一是特别是对大型、多元化中介机构的补贴。事实上，一些国家(包括美国)已采取政策鼓励建立这种中介机构。试点调查旨在检验从这一模型中得出的一些假设。

The principal investigator's prior NSF-supported research has used disaggregated trade data to identify and quantify the need for travel and the usefulness of business and social networks in overcoming informational barriers to international trade. The PI has also developed theoretical models of the consequences of the existence of informational barriers for the functioning of the world economy. This research has raised (at least) three questions. First, can more direct, microeconomic evidence be found for the relatively greater importance of foreign travel, and of private than publicly available information, in the search for foreign buyers or sellers of differentiated than homogeneous products? Second, can any direct evidence be found on if and how new information technology is affecting the search for foreign buyers or sellers? Third, and most important, does the apparent importance of informational barriers to trade and the usefulness of transnational networks in overcoming them have any implications for policy? A survey of intermediaries such as export management companies, export trading companies, importers, and buying agents, guided by a theory of "network intermediation," could help to answer all these questions. The PI will develop such a theory and perform a pilot survey that will determine the feasibility of a full-scale survey. More specifically, the trade-creating impacts of immigrants, foreign direct investment by business groups, and long-settled ethnic minorities that maintain co-ethnic business societies (such as the Overseas Chinese) found by various researchers suggest that existing intermediaries are inadequate means of connecting buyers or sellers to foreign opportunities. The apparent importance of belonging to these transnational business and social networks does not prove that intermediation is undersupplied, however, because the costs of establishing each of these transnational networks were sunk for purposes other than creating trade. It could be that the costs of setting up new intermediaries would outweigh the benefits of the additional trade they would create. A preliminary theoretical model suggests that market failure may indeed exist in provision of "network intermediation." Network intermediaries are agents who, in effect, sell access to their networks, which consist of firms of whose capabilities and preferences they have the "deep knowledge" necessary to match them to appropriate buyers or sellers of differentiated products. It is hypothesized that such agents accumulated their deep knowledge of the firms in their networks by having worked with them in a non-intermediary capacity before entering careers as intermediaries when this became more profitable. This process is unlikely to supply intermediaries whose networks span many product lines, however, which are valuable if for example clients want to buy many components that need to be matched to each other. Moreover, investment in network diversification may fall short of the socially optimal level because the deep knowledge intermediaries need of the members of their networks in order to find the best matches for their clients. The quality of their service is inherently non-contractible, leaving them vulnerable to the hold-up problem given the specificity of each match. One of the policy recommendations of the model (established in a general equilibrium framework with endogenous supply of intermediation) is thus a subsidy to large, diversified intermediaries in particular. Indeed a number of countries (including the United States) have adopted policies to encourage the establishment of such intermediaries. The pilot survey will be designed to test a number of hypotheses drawn from this model.