Findings

Shipping

Kevin Lewis

July 03, 2023

Exporting Ideology: The Right and Left of Foreign Influence
Pol Antràs & Gerard Padró I Miquel
NBER Working Paper, June 2023 

Abstract:

We present an economic rationale for countries resorting to foreign influence to export their ideology to other nations. Our model incorporates two fundamental elements: redistribution of the tax burden between capital owners and workers, and international capital mobility. The model highlights the role of ideology in shaping both the taxes implemented by governments and the cross-border externalities of these policy choices. Pro-capital governments set lower capital taxes than pro-labor governments. Importantly, pro-capital governments benefit from other countries setting low capital taxes, while pro-labor governments' efforts to shift the tax burden onto capital owners are facilitated by higher capital taxes abroad. These cross-border externalities create strong incentives for engaging in foreign influence activities. We solve for a political equilibrium in which incumbent governments may exert costly actions that probabilistically affect the electoral outcome in other countries. In equilibrium, pro-capital parties exert influence aimed at promoting pro-capital parties and policies worldwide, while pro-labor governments carry out foreign influence activities aimed at boosting pro-labor parties and policies in other countries.


Can Evidence-Based Information Shift Preferences Towards Trade Policy?
Laura Alfaro, Maggie Chen & Davin Chor
NBER Working Paper, May 2023 

Abstract:

We investigate the role of evidence-based information in shaping individuals' preferences for trade policies through a series of survey experiments that contain randomized information treatments. Each treatment provides a concise statement of economics research findings on how openness to trade has affected labor market outcomes or goods prices. Across annual surveys from 2018-2022, each administered to a representative sample of the U.S. general population, we find that information influences trade policy preferences in complex ways. Information highlighting the link between trade and manufacturing job losses significantly raises expressed preferences for more limits on trade. Strikingly, information on the price benefits of trade (or the cost of tariffs) also induces protectionist policy choices, indicating that these preferences do not respond symmetrically to information on the gains versus losses from trade. We find evidence that these expressed preferences are driven in part by how the received information interacts with one's political identity, resulting in prior-biased belief updating, as well as by pre-existing concerns over the impact on American jobs and over trade with China. Information that solely communicates the benefits of trade is thus unlikely to succeed unless it addresses these prior beliefs and concerns.


Foreign Direct Investment, Global Value Chains, and Labor Rights: No Race-to-the-Bottom?
Hyejoon Im & John McLaren
NBER Working Paper, June 2023 

Abstract:

In a stylized model of multinational firms choosing host locations for their global value chains, host-country governments choose the strength of collective-bargaining rights that allow their workers to receive a share of the resulting quasi-rents. Each government must trade off the direct benefit of stronger bargaining rights against both the effect of chasing multinationals away to rival countries and general-equilibrium effects of discouraging investment in the industry altogether. We find that an increase in globalization in the sense of lower transaction costs has no effect on equilibrium workers' rights, but adding more countries to the global trading system tends, in the limit, to weaken them. Thus, as a matter of theory, the effect of globalization on labor rights is ambiguous. Empirically, we find little evidence that globalization drives movements in labor rights in either direction.


Global Value Chains and Labor Standards: The Race-to-the-Bottom Problem
Hyejoon Im & John McLaren
NBER Working Paper, June 2023 

Abstract:

We ask how globalization affects a government's incentives to set labor standards for its workers. In a stylized equilibrium model of global value chains, we find two contrasting results. First, each country chooses stricter labor standards with globalization than it would under autarky, because labor standards are a normal good and the general increase in incomes from globalization increases demand for them. We call this the effect of `globalization in the large.' Second, if more countries join the world economy so that globalization increases at the margin, labor standards worsen (improve) at the margin if a country is competing with countries that are very similar to (different from) itself. We call this the effect of `globalization at the margin.' In equilibrium, labor standards are actually stricter than optimal because each country is able to pass some of the costs of its improved labor standards onto other countries (consumers of the final good, for example).


The local technology spillovers of multinational firms
Robin Kaiji Gong
Journal of International Economics, forthcoming 

Abstract:

This study examines how innovation by U.S. multinational firms affects the productivity of domestic Chinese firms in the same counties as the U.S. subsidiaries. After manually matching U.S. multinational firms with their manufacturing subsidiaries in China, I use citation-weighted patent stock to measure U.S.-produced external knowledge in Chinese counties and employ an instrumental variable strategy based on U.S. R&D tax credit policies to address potential endogeneity concerns. Findings suggest that innovation by U.S. multinational firms improves the productivity of domestic Chinese firms co-located with their subsidiaries, indicating a local technology spillover effect. Domestic firms with high-wage workers, high innovation capacity, and private ownership are better equipped to absorb these spillovers. In addition, domestic firms in industries with closer technological ties to U.S. multinational firms benefit more from their innovation, suggesting that technological proximity amplifies the spillover effect.


Why Is Dollar Debt Cheaper? Evidence from Peru
Bryan Gutierrez, Victoria Ivashina & Juliana Salomao
Journal of Financial Economics, June 2023, Pages 245-272 

Abstract:

In emerging markets, a significant share of corporate loans are denominated in dollars. Using novel data that includes loan-level currency and the cost of credit, in addition to several other transaction-level characteristics, we re-examine the reasons behind dollar credit popularity. We find that a dollar-denominated loan has an interest rate that is 2 percentage points lower per year than a loan in local currency. Expectations of exchange rate movements do not explain this difference. We show that this interest rate differential for lending rates is closely matched by the differential in the deposit market. Our results suggest that the preference for dollar loans is rooted in the local depositors preference for dollar savings, and a banking sector that is strongly incentivized to closely match its foreign-currency assets and liabilities. Cross-borrower variation points to competitive pressure among banks to explain the significant pass-through of this differential.


Long Live friendship? The long-term impact of Soviet aid on Sino-Russian trade
Zhi-An Hu, Jinghong Li & Zhuo Nie
Journal of Development Economics, forthcoming 

Abstract:

This study examines the long-term effect of aid on bilateral trade and provides a new mechanism that aid fosters intergroup affinity. Our empirical setting is the Soviet aid to China during the 1950s under the 156 Program, which allowed numerous large industrial plants to be constructed. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that Chinese cities which received more aid through the program, trade more with Russia than with other countries in the 2000s, despite the Sino-Russian split. We then provide a rich set of evidence suggesting that the relationship between aid and trade can be explained by the affinity mechanism.


Does the U.S. Congress Respond to Public Opinion on Trade?
Boram Lee, Michael Pomirchy & Bryan Schonfeld
American Politics Research, forthcoming 

Abstract:

Are U.S. legislators responsive to public opinion on trade? Despite the prevalence of preference-based approaches to international trade, not much work has directly assessed the relationship between constituency opinion and positioning by members of Congress on trade bills. We assess dynamic responsiveness (whether shifting constituency opinion on trade yields corresponding changes among legislators) by exploiting an original dataset on the positions of members of Congress on the North American Free Trade Agreement at various points leading up to the November 1993 roll-call vote. We find no evidence of dynamic responsiveness to shifting constituency opinion on even a highly salient piece of trade legislation. We provide qualitative evidence that interest group influence may instead be the predominant source of shifting legislator positioning on trade.


The Macroeconomic Consequences of Exchange Rate Depreciations
Masao Fukui, Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson
NBER Working Paper, May 2023 

Abstract:

We study the consequences of "regime-induced" exchange rate depreciations by comparing outcomes for peggers versus floaters to the US dollar in response to a dollar depreciation. Pegger currencies depreciate relative to floater currencies and these depreciations are strongly expansionary. The boom is not associated with an increase in net exports, or a fall in nominal interest rates in the pegger countries. This suggests that expenditure switching and domestic monetary policy are not the main drivers of the boom. We develop a financially driven exchange rate (FDX) model in which multiple shocks originating in the financial sector drive exchange rates and households and firms can borrow in foreign currencies. Following a depreciation, UIP deviations lower the costs of borrowing from abroad and stimulate the economy, as in the data. The model is consistent with (unconditional) exchange rate disconnect and the Mussa facts, even though exchange rates have large effects on the economy.


Cross-border Spillovers: How US Financial Conditions affect M&As Around the World
Katharina Bergant, Prachi Mishra & Raghuram Rajan
NBER Working Paper, May 2023 

Abstract:

We find that financial conditions in the core have significant spillover effects on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). On average, a 1 percentage point easing of the IMF US Financial Conditions Index is associated with approximately a 10% higher volume of cross-border M&As. The spillovers are stronger for countries with more liabilities denominated in foreign currency (or in US dollars). We find that the spillovers are driven by changes in US financial conditions, rather than changes in Euro Area conditions. Deals that happen when financial conditions in the US are tighter (and therefore acquisitions fewer) add more value for the acquirers, as reflected in higher acquirer excess stock returns around the announcement.


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