We present a new model of multi-product firms (MPFs) and flexible manufacturing, and explore its implications in partial and general oligopolistic equilibrium. Globalization affects the scale and scope (or intensive margin and intra-firm extensive margin) of MPFs through a competition effect and a demand effect. The model highlights a new source of gains from trade: productivity increases as firms become "leaner and meaner", concentrating on their core competence; but also a new source of losses from trade: product variety may fall. Our results also hold under free entry, which allows in addition for adjustment along the traditional inter-firm extensive margin.
Product scope adjustment is a key mechanism through which multi-product firms achieve efficient resource allocations. In this paper, we take a novel perspective to study firms’ product scope adjustment behavior through the lens of asset pricing. Using a unique panel scanner data set containing detailed information on products, matched with the financial information of their manufacturers, we find that multi-product firms with higher product turnover have lower financial risks and lower risk premia. To understand this channel, we propose a stylized model with a time-dependent (Calvo-type) product turnover rate to highlight the ’risk absorption channel’ of product scope adjustment. In response to an economy-wide shock, a firm that can adjust its product scope more flexibly shows lower excess equity returns and lower asset volatility.
We develop a new model of multi-product firms which invest to improve both the quality of their individual products and of their brand. Because of flexible manufacturing, products closer to firms' core competence have lower costs, so they produce more of them, and also have higher incentives to invest in their quality. These two effects have opposite implications for the profile of prices. Mexican data provide robust confirmation of the model's key prediction: firms in differentiated-good sectors exhibit quality-based competence (prices fall with distance from core competence), but export sales of firms in non-differentiated-good sectors exhibit the opposite.
What conclusions can be drawn from recent advances in international trade and international macroeconomics? New datasets, theoretical models, and empirical studies have resulted in fresh questions about the world trade and payment system. These chapters--six on trade and six on international macroeconomics--reveal the richness that researchers have uncovered in recent years. The chapters on foreign trade present, among other subjects, new integrated multisector analytical frameworks, the use of gravity equations for the estimation of trade flows, the role of domestic institutions in shaping comparative advantage, and international trade agreements. On international macroeconomics, chapters explore the relation between exchange rates and other macroeconomic variables; risk sharing, allocation of capital across countries, and current account dynamics; and sovereign debt and financial crises. By addressing new issues while enabling deeper and sharper analyses of old issues, this volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the global economy. Systematically illuminates and interprets recent developments in research on international trade and international macroeconomics Focuses on newly developing questions and opportunities for future research Presents multiple perspectives on ways to understand the global economy
Handbook of Industrial Organization, Volume Four highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters written by an international board of expert authors. Presents authoritative surveys and reviews of advances in theory and econometrics Reviews recent research on capital raising methods and institutions Includes discussions on developing countries
This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavior during trade liberalization. Firm productivity in a given product is modeled as a combination of firm-level "ability" and firm-product-level "expertise", both of which are stochastic and unknown prior to the firm's payment of a sunk cost of entry. Higher firm-level ability raises a firm's productivity across all products, which induces a positive correlation between a firm's intensive (output per product) and extensive (number of products) margins. Trade liberalization fosters productivity growth within and across firms and in aggregate by inducing firms to shed marginally productive products and forcing the lowest-productivity firms to exit. Though exporters produce a smaller range of products after liberalization, they increase the share of products sold abroad as well as exports per product. All of these adjustments are shown to be relatively more pronounced in countries' comparative advantage industries.
Theoretical and empirical perspectives on the fragmentation of production processes across borders, shedding light on global sourcing decisions and their economic effects. Recent decades have seen a fragmentation of production processes across borders, as firms find it increasingly profitable to organize production on a global scale. This fragmentation occurs across national borders as well as across firm boundaries; companies must decide not only the location of production but also how much control to exert over the different production stages. Economists have responded to this shift by developing new models of global sourcing, generating important insights into the driving forces and economic effects of this new form of globalization. Many questions, however, remain unanswered. This book tries to fill this gap. The contributors ask new questions or offer new modeling approaches to fragmentation of production, focusing in particular on time and uncertainty. They examine global sourcing in firms' multinationalization strategies, including offshoring, product scope, managerial incentives, supplier search, and contractual issues; and explore the interactions of global sourcing, exports, and economic development, investigating such topics as the complementarity of offshoring and exporting, product diversification, and the relationship between vertical linkages and development. Each chapter presents recent research that further develops existing models or documents new empirical patterns related to global sourcing. Contributors Pol Antràs, Sasan Bakhtiari, Sebastian Benz, Giuseppe Berlingieri, Johannes Boehm, Jeronimo Carballo, Huiya Chen, Alejandro Cuñat, Fabrice Defever, Swati Dhingra, Harald Fadinger, Ana P. Fernandes, Christian Fischer, Wilhelm Kohler, Bohdan Kukharskyy, Luca Marcolin, Antonio Minniti, John Morrow, Alireza Naghavi, Han (Steffan) Qi, Jens Suedekum, Deborah L. Swenson, Edwin L.-C. Lai, Anders Rosenstand Laugesen, Ngo Van Long, Heiwai Tang, Erdal Yalcin
This book examines driving factors and the effects of globalisation on economic development through firm and product-level data. The book is organised into four themes, i.e., productivity, innovation, wage and income gap, and within-firm reallocation of resources. The comprehensiveness and richness of firm and product-level data shed light upon the channels through which trade and investment affect firms’ competitiveness and unveil factors shaping firms’ heterogeneous responses towards globalisation. The book looks at Asian economies as well as Australia and how they have experienced substantial structural change and become more integrated into the global economy and will be a useful reference for those who are interested in learning more about the relationship between globalisation and firm performance. This book will appeal to policy makers and researchers interested in the impact of globalisation on firm performance.
Global trade is of vital interest to citizens as well as policymakers, yet it is widely misunderstood. This compact exposition of the market forces underlying international commerce addresses both of these concerned groups, as well as the needs of students and scholars. Although it contains no equations, it is almost mathematical in its elegance, precision, and power of expression. Understanding Global Trade provides a thorough explanation of what shapes the international organization of production and distribution and the resulting trade flows. It reviews the evolution of knowledge in this field from Adam Smith to today as a process of theoretical modeling, accumulation of new empirical data, and then revision of analytical frameworks in response to evidence and changing circumstances. It explains the sources of comparative advantage and how they lead countries to specialize in making products which they then sell to other countries. While foreign trade contributes to the overall welfare of a nation, it also creates winners and losers, and Helpman describes mechanisms through which trade affects a country's income distribution. The book provides a clear and original account of the revolutions in trade theory of the 1980s and the most recent decade. It shows how scholars shifted the analysis of trade flows from the sectoral level to the business-firm level, to elucidate the growing roles of multinational corporations, offshoring, and outsourcing in the international division of labor. Helpman’s explanation of the latest research findings is essential for an understanding of world affairs.
