EITM: Distribution Networks, International Business Cycle, and the Dynamic of International Trade

虽然过去十年来，该专业对国际宏观经济相互依存的理解取得了很大进展，但标准的开放经济模型未能解释数据的几个突出特征--这些问题可以被定性为国际商业周期之谜和动态国际贸易之谜。 在商业周期维度上，标准的国际宏观经济模型无法解释几个程式化的事实，现在被称为巴克斯·史密斯之谜（BackusSmith puzzle）（相对消费与真实的汇率正交），消费相关性之谜（国内消费与国外消费之间的相关性低于国内产出与国外产出之间的相关性），以及价格之谜（各国之间的相对价格比产出波动大得多，但几乎同样持久）。 在贸易方面，这些同样的模型不能从数量上说明贸易量对世界范围关税削减的弹性，也不能说明贸易商品组合的组成变化。这个项目的动机是标准的理论模型的失败，以说明这些属性的国际商业周期和贸易的增长。 该项目开发了一个统一的框架，以研究过去40年来商业周期的国际传播和贸易增长。 它采用了为商业周期研究开发的定量方法-一种将理论研究和实证研究相结合的方法，将动态随机一般均衡经济体的理论模型的制定和解决方案结合起来，这些模型使用微观基础上的证据和通过模型模拟进行的实证测试进行校准。该项目旨在提高我们对分销部门-一个在国际宏观经济和贸易研究中通常被忽视的经济重要部门-在国际环境下宏观经济运作中的作用的理解。 调查人员利用分类贸易数据集和扫描零售数据集进行了一些探索性的实证工作，目的是就建立分销网络所涉成本和这些关系的持久性提出微观经济证据。他们还对原型模型进行了探索性工作。该框架的扩展将首先用于调查国际商业周期的影响。该项目的继续将侧重于分销部门在了解国际贸易的格局和数量方面的作用，以及分销部门对与关税和非关税壁垒减少有关的贸易自由化的反应。定期改变对部分商品征收的关税和反补贴税），如《北美自由贸易协定》所体现的关税和反补贴税。

While much progress has been made in the profession's understanding of international macroeconomic interdependence over the past decade, standard open economy models have failed to account for several prominent features of the data - issues that can be characterized as international business cycle puzzles and dynamic international trade puzzles. In the business-cycle dimension, standard international macroeconomic models cannot account for several stylized facts, now referred to as puzzles such as the Backus Smith puzzle (relative consumption is orthogonal to the real exchange rate), the consumption correlation puzzle (the correlation between home and foreign consumption is lower than the correlation between home and foreign output), and the price puzzle (relative prices across countries are much more volatile than output but almost as persistent). In the trade dimension, these same models cannot quantitatively account for the elasticity of trade volume with respect to world-wide tariff reductions and for the changing composition of the traded goods basket. This project is motivated by the failure of standard theoretical models to account for these properties of international business cycles and the growth in trade. The project develops a unified framework to study the international transmission of business cycles and the growth in trade over the past 40 years. It employs quantitative methods developed for business-cycle research - an approach that integrates theoretical and empirical research by combining formulation and solution of theoretical models of dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium economies calibrated using evidence on micro-foundations and empirical testing through model simulation. The project seeks to enhance our understanding of the role the distribution sector - an economically significant sector that has generally been ignored in international macroeconomic and trade research - in the workings of the macro economy in an international setting. The investigators have done some exploratory empirical work with a disaggregated trade data set and with a data set of scanner retail sales for the purpose of developing microeconomic evidence about the costs involved in establishing a distribution network and about the durability of these relationships. They have also done exploratory work with a prototype model. Extensions of the framework will be used first to investigate international business cycle implications. A continuation of the project will focus on the role of the distribution sector in understanding the pattern and volume of international trade and their response to trade liberalization associated with reductions in tariffs and nontariff barriers.Broader impacts: This new framework provides a better tool than standard models to study economic and welfare effects of changes in international macroeconomic and trade policy (e.g., periodic changes in tariffs and countervailing duties levied on subsets of goods) such as those embodied in NAFTA.