Comments for Trade Diversion

Comment on Why Americans should check Amazon.ca by Pierre-Louis

Pierre-Louis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:56:20 +0000

I am just wondering if treating amazon.ca and amazon.com as competitors is right. Indeed, Amazon is prevented from operating any headquarters, servers, fulfillment centers or call centers in Canada by that country’s legal restrictions on foreign-owned booksellers. Instead, Amazon’s Canadian site originates in the United States, and Amazon has an agreement with Canada Post to handle distribution within Canada (source: wikipedia). So maybe the evidence using barnes and nobles vs. chapters is more convincing!

Comment on This week in NBER working papers by stillgoingnative » h-1bs for immigrant entrepreneurs

stillgoingnative » h-1bs for immigrant entrepreneurs — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:50:32 +0000

[...] Via Dingel, a paper from NBER regarding immigrant contributions as entrepreneurs, that relates to earlier musings regarding specialization motivated by language-dependent opportunities: Higher H-1B admissions increase immigrant science and engineering (SE) employment and patenting by investors with Indian and Chinese names in cities and firms dependent upon the program relative to their peers. Most specifications find limited effects for native SE employment or patenting. We are able to rule out displacement effects and small crowding-in effects may exist. Total SE employment and invention increases with higher admissions primarily through direct contributions of immigrants. [...]

Comment on Tidbits on immigration by Japanese Kimonos

Japanese Kimonos — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:10:42 +0000

Great site I�m happy I stumbled onto it through my friend�s blog. Going to need to add another blog to the morning routine

Comment on Is the US likely to double its exports? by David Smith

David Smith — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:23:26 +0000

Can’t argue with Dan Griswold. He wrote the book!

I am glad to see people reality-checking the SOTU, the banking reform measures, the budget. They’re full of nonsense from somewhere between a dreamworld and a humanities department faculty common room.

In the reality based community, there’s not a lot of belief that doubling exports out of this recession and with the reduced manufacturing base we now have is possible.

Comment on The WTO’s new interactive tariff database by Pierre-Louis

Pierre-Louis — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:15:26 +0000

It’s excellent! too bad they dont have NTBs also!

Comment on Is the US likely to double its exports? by Pierre-Louis

Pierre-Louis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:39:22 +0000

Will this policy come with variation across industries/products/regions? if so, it gives us an opportunity for easy and interesting papers!

Comment on Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms by ault

ault — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:25:40 +0000

Makes sense that once a manufacturer is exposed to competing in a open marketplace that they will increase productivity to remain competitive or to increase profits (in addition to economies of scale). As so many sub-Saharan African markets are closed (by transport barriers if not governmental ones) the effect should be more pronounced for firms in that region.

Comment on Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodriguez-Clare: “New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?” by Agent Continuum

Agent Continuum — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:34:09 +0000

Sorry, my fault.

I can’t imagine, though, what it would mean to cut most countries off from world oil markets.

Comment on Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodriguez-Clare: “New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?” by jdingel

jdingel — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:19:01 +0000

They say:

“We then use our assumption that epsilon is constant across equilibria to integrate small changes in real income between the initial trade equilibrium and the autarky equilibrium. This allows us to establish that the total size of the gains from trade, i.e. the percentage change in real income necessary to compensate a representative consumer for going to autarky, is equal to lambda^(1/epsilon)-1.”

Comment on Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodriguez-Clare: “New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?” by Agent Continuum

Agent Continuum — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:15:03 +0000

The thing that might be a bit misleading… they’re looking at a change in trade costs at the margin and they find small gains from it. That doesn’t tell us anything about the gains from trade in a larger context, i.e. versus autarky.