World trade evolves at two margins. Where a bilateral trading relationship already exists it may increase through time (intensive margin). But trade may also increase if a trading bilateral relationship is newly established between countries that have not traded with each other in the past (extensive margin). We provide an empirical dissection of post-World-War-II growth in manufacturing world trade along these two margins. We propose a corner-solutions-versionʺ of the gravity model to explain movements on both margins. A Tobit estimation of this model resolves the so-called distance-puzzleʺ. It also finds more convincing evidence than recent literature that WTO-membership enhances trade.

The Melitz model highlights the importance of the extensive margin (the number of firms exporting) for trade flows. Using the World Bank’s Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD) featuring firm-level exports from 50 countries, we find that around 50 percent of variation in exports is along the extensive margin—a quantitative victory for the Melitz framework. The remaining 50 percent on the intensive margin (exports per exporting firm) contradicts a special case of Melitz with Pareto-distributed firm productivity, which has become a tractable benchmark. This benchmark model predicts that, conditional on the fixed costs of exporting, all variation in exports across trading partners should occur on the extensive margin. We find that moving from a Pareto to a lognormal distribution allows the Melitz model to match the role of the intensive margin in the EDD. We use likelihood methods and the EDD to estimate a generalized Melitz model with a joint lognormal distribution for firm-level productivity, fixed costs and demand shifters, and use “exact hat algebra” to quantify the effects of a decline in trade costs on trade flows and welfare in the estimated model. The welfare effects turn out to be quite close to those in the standard Melitz-Pareto model when we choose the Pareto shape parameter to fit the average trade elasticity implied by our estimated Melitz-lognormal model, although there are significant differences regarding the effects on trade flows.

Changing Patterns of Global Trade outlines the factors underlying important shifts in global trade that have occurred in recent decades. The emergence of global supply chains and their increasing role in trade patterns allowed emerging market economies to boost their inputs in high-technology exports and is associated with increased trade interconnectedness.The analysis points to one important trend taking place over the last decade: the emergence of China as a major systemically important trading hub, reflecting not only the size of trade but also the increase in number of its significant trading partners.

International trade is vital in today’s world; international trade can be affected by a number of issues such as terrorism, economic crises, and pandemics such as COVID-19. It is crucial to understand the impact these global issues have on international trade and what happens to trade when global issues arise. A comprehensive guide of these issues is needed to provide background and understanding about international trade and its relationship with global issues. Global issues occasionally dominate a continuing theme of the international globalized world: global crises, war, security issues, global pandemics such as COVID-19, and trade wars. Global cooperation is required to solve such problems. Economically intellectual thinking will enable the development of guiding policies in solving these global problems. In this book, the effects of global issues on international trade will be evaluated, and policy recommendations will be made for the solution of the global issues. Impact of Global Issues on International Trade is a critical reference source that uses analytic research to analyze the effects of global economic and financial crises as well as global health crises and their impact on international trade. Pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economic crisis, and trade wars are discussed, and political suggestions are made to mitigate negative impacts. Covering a wide range of topics such as financial fragility and trade fairs, it is ideal for trade specialists, policymakers, government officials, managers, executives, economists, academicians, researchers, students, and industry professionals.

This volume is a collection of papers that apply general equilibrium theory in order to obtain policy relevant insights on topical issues of international trade and migration. The first set of papers focuses on European integration, applying dynamic numerical general equilibrium methods to quantify the effects of geographic extension of the European Union, including the effects of Eastern enlargement of the EU on incumbent Western member countries. The second set of papers deals with the trade effects of WTO membership, with special focus on the so-called extensive country margin, where new international trading relationships are formed. The third set of papers focuses on immigration, offering a rigorous theoretical analysis of the so-called immigration surplus as well as an econometric estimation of the gains and pain that Germany has forgone by initially restricting immigration from new EU member countries after the EU''s Eastern enlargement in 2004. And finally, the book contains a set of theoretical papers on the distributional effects of offshoring. Contents: Introduction; Modeling EU-Type Economic Integration: Eastern Enlargement of the EU: Eastern Enlargement of the EU: Jobs, Investment and Welfare in Present Member Countries (Ben J Heijdra, Christian Keuschnigg and Wilhelm Kohler); Eastern Enlargement of the EU: A Comprehensive Welfare Assessment (Wilhelm Kohler); The Role of Distance and WTO Membership for Trade: Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade (Gabriel J Felbermayr and Wilhelm Kohler); WTO Membership and the Extensive Margin of World Trade: New Evidence (Gabriel J Felbermayr and Wilhelm Kohler); Offshoring: A New Form of Trade, Conventional Mechanisms?: The Distributional Effects of International Fragmentation (Wilhelm Kohler); Aspects of International Fragmentation (Wilhelm Kohler); International Outsourcing and Factor Prices with Multistage Production (Wilhelm Kohler); The Bazaar Effect, Unbundling of Comparative Advantage, and Migration (Wilhelm Kohler); International Migration: Gains and Pains?: Immigration and Native Welfare (Gabriel J Felbermayr and Wilhelm Kohler); Can International Migration Ever Be Made a Pareto Improvement? (Gabriel Felbermayr and Wilhelm Kohler); Restrictive Immigration Policy in Germany: Pains and Gains Foregone? (Gabriel Felbermayr, Wido Geis and Wilhelm Kohler). Readership: Postgraduate students and researchers in the field of international economics.

Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development