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The editors are pleased to announce that the winner of the best paper prize for 2023 is Addis Yimer for his paper titled, 'The effects of FDI on economic growth in Africa', published in volume 32, issue 1, pages 2–36. We congratulate Dr. Yımer, who will receive a prize of 500 pounds. [Extracted from the article]

This paper assesses the genealogy of competitive indices in international trade and theoretically develops a measure of export threat which estimates direct competition in vertical market segments. We identify the assumption of homogeneity in these export threat measures as a weakness that undermines accuracy. Hence, we develop a new measure of export threat, the direct intra-market threat (DIMT), which incorporates relative vertical and market share changes over time to accurately estimate a country’s direct threat to other exporters in a third market. We argue that the market segmentation method applied in complement to the DIMT estimate provides an all-encompassing methodology in the estimation of export threat, which we argue is superior to the Dynamic Index of Competitive Threat (DICT) and Direct Threat methodologies. The paper uses the case of China and India (CHINDIA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to assess the empirical estimates of the DIMT relative to DICT and Direct Threat over the period 2000–2021. Our study is motivated by a research gap in the estimation of the competitive threat posed by a large, diversified exporter on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines how exports respond to exchange rate movements (exchange rate and exchange rate volatility) at the micro and macro levels using Turkey’s bilateral export data with 65 partner countries. Panel data contaninig 65 cross-sectional dimensions and 60 monthly time series dimensions from 2018:01 to 2022:12 are used. The empirical results of the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) technique show that the negative effect of exchange rate volatility on micro export flows is amplified. Moreover, the potential positive effect of the exchange rate on micro export flows is weaker. Our findings are robust against the alternative method of exchange rate volatility and nominal exchange rate volatility. Our results are also intact under alternative robustness tests. The paper provides notable policy implications. Policymakers should be aware of the potential structural differences between micro and macro exports. Therefore, policymakers should also consider other aspects such as cross-border e-commerce when formulating economic policies on microexports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the database of China Migrants Dynamic Survey from 2011 to 2018, this paper explores the impact of trade openness on migrants’ marriage, and reveals that trade openness increases migrants’ divorce rate significantly. The potential mechanism analysis finds that trade openness affects migrants’ divorce rate through the channel of their marriage value. Besides, the heterogeneity test indicates that the impacts of trade openness on migrants’ marriage are heterogeneous across different regions, social and cultural environments, gender groups, and migration circles. Furthermore, the moderating effect analysis reveals that Confucian culture can weaken the impact of trade openness on migrants’ divorce rate, which has a negative moderating effect on the relation between trade openness and migrants’ divorce rate. Finally, this paper provides supporting evidence for the fact that trade openness does affect migrants’ marriage and thus offers a possible explanation for the continuously increasing divorce rate in China from the perspective of trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital finance is reshaping trade credit. This study investigates the influence of digital finance on trade credit among A-share listed companies in China from 2011 to 2020. The paper matches this data with city-level digital finance index (DFI) data. Empirical results indicate that digital finance significantly benefits trade credit. This impact occurs through bank competition, regulatory penalties, and disclosure quality channels. Different levels of digital finance development and financing constraints of companies have a varying impact on trade credit. This paper provides a new perspective on trade credit in the firm's supply chain that enriches theoretical research on digital finance. The research results can help the country to implement digital finance development strategy better and offer relevant guidance and reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much effort has been devoted to understanding how trade openness is linked to technological progress. Less documented is the effect on green technology, which is particularly important as it is green technological progress that alleviates environmental degradation while improving economic growth. To fill the void, this paper empirically examines whether trade openness drives green technology development and whether the effect depends on the extent of trade openness and environmental policy stringency. In a sample covering both advanced and developing countries, the paper finds that green technology first decreases and then rises with increased trade openness, meaning that a sufficient level of trade openness is required for green technological progress. Tighter environmental policy is also found to weaken the beneficial effect of trade openness on green technological progress, implying that lax environmental policy creates a better environment for more open countries to develop green technology. However, these effects vary across countries, depending on the origin and destination of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between digital economy and signal information on firms‘ markup has been overlooked and not well explained, especially in the emerging economies. When there is information asymmetry or too much information, the export decisions of firms are not completed independently, but the result of the comprehensive trade-off of the export signals issued by the 'neighbors'. This paper discusses the impact of the development of digital economy on the markup of export firms by distinguishing two perspectives of export signal, namely herd behavior and peer effect. We find that the digital economy has a positive impact on firm markup. There is substitution effect in digital economy and export signals, and digital economy acts price bonus by influencing export signals. The growing popularity of market signals could offset some of the advantages of the digital economy on export markup for companies. In addition, our paper finds that foreign-owned firms, large-scale firms, highly competitive industries and non-digital economy industries adjust their markups more significantly when they were affected by export signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of exchange rate (ER) movements on the trade balance has been extensively debated in the literature, with conflicting views on the nature and magnitude of this effect. This paper investigates the relationship between ER movements and trade balance in developing economies, with a specific focus on bilateral analysis involving Pakistan. Employing the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model, our results reveal a symmetric relationship between positive and negative ER changes and the trade balance, showing significant long-term and short-term effects across the panel of developing economies. However, country-specific asymmetries are observed, especially in the cases of India and China, and are more pronounced in each bilateral analysis, whether in the short run or long run. The study findings highlight the critical importance of maintaining a stable exchange rate policy, which can provide policymakers with precise insights into the money market and the broader economy while preventing high volatility and continuous depreciation of domestic currencies. Such measures can mitigate the long-term adverse effects of ER movements on trade agreements. The study offers valuable insights for policymakers and investors in developing economies, aiding them in making informed decisions about exchange rate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of capital flight on economic growth in Africa using 54 African countries from 2000 to 2021. The study employed the GMM and the dynamic panel threshold regression estimation techniques. GMM results revealed that capital flight negatively and significantly affects economic growth in Africa. The study also revealed that external debt repayment and outward foreign direct investment, proxies of capital flight, have a negative and significant effect on economic growth in Africa, except foreign portfolio investment outflow, which positively and insignificantly influences economic growth. Again, the dynamic panel threshold estimation results also revealed that capital flight negatively affects economic growth at all levels of capital flight in Africa. The study also revealed that all the proxies of capital flight, external debt repayments, foreign portfolio investment outflows, and outward foreign direct investment negatively and significantly affect economic growth above a certain threshold. However, external debt repayment has an insignificant negative effect on economic growth below the threshold in Africa. Based on the findings, African countries should implement stringent policies to curb capital flight and regulate external debt repayments and outward foreign direct investment to enhance economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new way to estimate the constant elasticity of substitution $ (\sigma ). $ (σ). We show that the link between $ \sigma $ σ and Divisia index numbers gives rise to a revealing way to obtain preliminary estimates of $ \sigma $ σ. This approach, which is related to stochastic index numbers, is illustrated with time-series and cross-country data. Using consumption data for 12 commodities over time from 23 European countries, we obtain 400 + estimates of $ \sigma $ σ, which mostly lie between 0 and 1. The cross-country estimates are broadly similar. Extensions of the approach to deal with endogenous prices and non-homothetic demand are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Migration Report 2020 shows that the number of international migrants increased from 84 million in 1970–272 million in 2019, accounting for 3.5% of the world’s population. This paper investigates the aggregated effect of emigration on the tax revenue of sending countries with a focus on developing nations. Using a gravity approach, we construct a time-varying exogenous instrument out of measures of changes in transportation technology from geographic time-invariant dyadic characteristics. Then, we follow an instrumental variable approach where we use our predicted emigration rate as an instrument of the observed migration rate. The results show that the predicted emigration rate is a good instrument of the current emigration rate for developing countries, and that there is a positive aggregated effect of emigration on tax revenue of sending countries. The results vary depending on the type of tax: emigration increases goods and services tax revenue, but it decreases income, profit, and capital gains tax revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial spillover of R&D activities in transitional economies depends not only on distorted institutional gains caused by government policies, but also, to a large extent, on market-oriented corrections. This paper estimates the effect of policy-induced distortions and market-oriented corrections on R&D spatial spillovers using dynamic panel data from Chinese industry between 2000 and 2019. It is found that policy-induced distortion hinders the diffusion of elements of innovation into efficient R&D spaces and it reduces the spatial correlation between innovation elements. In addition, it does not have a significant effect on the improvement of R&D spatial spillover. Market-oriented correction optimizes the regional spatial distribution of factors involved in innovation and has a significant positive effect on R&D spatial spillover. The potential policy implications of the above conclusions lie in the improvement of the amount of R&D spatial spillover. This also includes the elimination of the fetters of policy-induced distortions and it depends to a great extent on the coordination of the development of regional innovation through the improvement of market-oriented innovation mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks two main research questions. First, what is the relationship between firm-level innovation and export performance? Second, what is the direct effect of innovation on employment, while accounting for the indirect innovation-export link? I use a novel longitudinal administrative dataset of all firms registered to pay tax in South Africa, over 2010–2016. The first main result suggests a positive and significant relationship between innovation and export performance. Second, the fixed effects results show that direct innovation positively impacts employment growth in manufacturing firms, however, R&D-induced exports – the indirect channel – negatively impacts employment growth. This points to the notion that productivity enhancements necessary for South African manufacturing exporters to compete internationally might promote labor-saving innovations. Nonetheless, the overall innovation effect on firm employment growth is positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the transition of workers in the MENA region between formal and informal jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and investigates whether trade policy could be adopted as a measure to enhance the transition of workers from the informal to the formal sector. We use the combined COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Survey constructed by the Economic Research Forum for 5 MENA countries and 11 sectors. This topic is timely and critical for the MENA region where informal employment is widespread, applied tariffs are still high, and female labor participation is low. Our results show that: first, fewer trade restrictions are associated with an increased probability for the worker to become formal and this effect is more pronounced post-pandemic. Second, fewer trade restrictions are linked to an increase in the probability of becoming formal for blue collars only, with an insignificant effect on white collars. Third, fewer trade restrictions are associated with an increase in the probability of men to become formal, with an insignificant effect on women. Finally, the effect of trade policy on job formality depends on the sectoral occupation of the individual with this effect being more pronounced in agriculture and manufacturing relatively to services sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We take the establishment of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones as the quasi-natural experiment, based on China’s General Administration of Customs Database, China Customs Online Inquiry Platform, ‘Cross-Border E-Commerce Retail Import Commodity List’ and other data. By employing the staggered DID method, this paper systematically investigates the potential of cross-border e-commerce to enhance the quality of imported products. The research findings reveal the following: Since the introduction of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, there has been a significant improvement in the quality of imported products in China. These effects, however, vary across different product types and regions, suggesting heterogeneous impacts. The cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones have facilitated the development of import trade in China through three main avenues: reducing search costs, resolving financing challenges, and lowering tariffs. These measures have collectively contributed to the reduction of trade costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries have more than 1300 investment treaties with developed countries. Investment treaties are often alleged to constrain developing countries' climate policies. This paper examines four treaty reforms that are often suggested as remedies to such regulatory chill. It considers an investment treaty that protects a stranded developed country investment in a developing country. The reforms are compared with regard to whether they can induce the developing country to regulate the investment, and their political attractiveness. The reforms are shown to have features that seem to have gone unnoticed in the debate. Exclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) may be ineffective due to a hold-up problem, and if effective requires unlawful regulation by the host country. A shortening of a sunset period applicable to unilateral withdrawal can postpone regulation. A reduction in the amount of stipulated compensation can induce the developing country to phase out the stranded investment, but will require a compensation payment from the developing country to the developed country investor. The reform with best potential to address stranded investment problems appears to be an increase in a carve-out from the compensation requirement for measures with sufficiently positive climate effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and consumption activities are cross-border and therefore, it is important to understand the role of Global Value Chains (GVCs) in fulfilling a country’s specific climate commitments. This study examines the causal relationship between selected GVC indices and CO2 emissions. We use the GVC position index, considered robust in comparison to the frequently used GVC participation index, for determining the impact on emissions. The forward and backward participation indices are considered in the analysis. The paper presents an analysis of 62 developing and developed economies from 1995 to –2018 using the Juodis A., Y. Karavias, and V. Sarafidis [2021. “A Homogeneous Approach to Testing for Granger non-Causality in Heterogeneous Panels.” Empirical Economics 60 (1): 93–112] approach, which is an improvement over the traditional approaches to analysing causality. The results show that the overall position in GVCs positively affects CO2 emissions for developing countries but a causal relationship does not exist for the developed countries. The developed countries attain a higher participation index but a lower position index. On the other hand, developing countries with fewer stringent environmental regulations may opt for an upstream position (more export-oriented) and by design specialize in more pollution-intensive industries. Noteworthy, production-based emissions in developed countries are reduced because of an increase in imports of emission-intensive products from developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on analysing the effects of sector orientation and the origin of FDI on the types of corruption. The GMM technique and the IV-2SLS on a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries were used. Globally, we find that FDI increases political corruption in SSA. Moreover, the study shows that sector orientation and the origin of FDI have significant effects on each type of corruption. Primary sector FDI enhances public sector corruption and reduces judicial corruption. Secondary sector FDI increases executive, public, and judicial corruption. In the tertiary sector, executive and public corruption are enhanced while judiciary corruption is reduced. Regarding the origin, FDI from France increases public sector corruption whereas FDI from China and the USA reduces it. Executive corruption is reduced by FDI, regardless of its origin. FDI from France and the USA discourages judiciary corruption while FDI from China increases it. FDI from China reduces legislative corruption, while FDI from the USA tends to increase it. Furthermore, the analysis of the transmission channels shows education and development levels as important channels through which FDI could reduce corruption in SSA. Relevant policy implications derived from this study include the necessity for policy-makers to combat all types of corruption and mostly public corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way that intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection as a moderator variable affects firm-level productivity gains through innovation (filing patents) and diffusion (importing goods). Applying the estimation method of conditional average treatment effect by Lee, Okui, and Whang (2017) to Chinese firm data, I show the graphic representation of the non-linearity that characterizes the heterogeneous average treatment effects of patenting and importing activities on firm productivity. The graphic results suggest that the productivity effect of patenting is positively influenced by local IPRs protection, while that of importing is initially negatively and subsequently positively affected by IPRs protection. I also find that overstrict protection of IPRs may diminish the productivity impact of both channels, and private-owned firms rely more on IPRs protection to enhance productivity through filing patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of export diversification on income inequality in Central Africa through the employment channel. The sample consists of 9 countries over the period 2000–2019. A quadratic regression is applied to a panel data model using the random effect and the two stages least squares methods. The results show that export diversification increases income inequality in Central Africa. However, this effect is non-linear with the form of an inverted U. Increasing the number of wage workers reduces the marginal effect of export diversification on income inequality while increasing the number of unpaid workers increases this effect. Moreover, diversification is less likely to reduce income inequality when it increases male employment than when it increases female employment. The effect of diversification on income inequality remains non-linear in an inverted U-shape for CEMAC countries' members (CEMAC: Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States) and oil-producing countries, while it is non-linear in a U-shape for non-CEMAC countries and non-oil-producing countries. We recommend that Central African countries promote the diversification of exports while encouraging new productive activities to generate more paid jobs and to favor female employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how firm heterogeneity plays a role in trade deflection effects when exporters exit trading partners' markets with trade-restrictive measures and deflect exports toward third markets with less stringent ones. We develop a Cournot-type three-country theoretical framework that highlights the role of firm productivity in trade deflection effects of trade-restrictive measures and empirically examine research hypotheses using a firm–product–destination level panel data of Korean exporting firms during the 1996–2010 period. We find that highly productive firms facing higher tariffs are more likely to deflect export to new third-country markets with lower tariffs as alternatives. However, once they enter the third destination, the positive effect of tariffs on the deflection of trade volume is less prominent for highly productive firms due to a lower trade destruction effect for them. Our results imply that the magnitude of trade deflection at both the intensive and extensive margins can be heterogeneous across firm productivity and multi-destination status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, sales tax was replaced in China with value-added tax (VAT). This study evaluates the effect of this change on service exports. VAT reform was introduced across provinces and service sectors at different times. Hence, our paper identifies the impacts of VAT reform on firms' export behavior by utilizing a difference-in-difference (DID) estimation methodology and finds that VAT reform significantly increases service exports in intensive and extensive margins. The export-enhancing effects are larger for non-state-owned enterprises and firms of larger scale and higher productivity levels. VAT reform alleviates tax magnification and double taxation and effectively promotes the competitiveness of China's service exports. With the complete implementation of VAT reform, alongside the full refund of VAT on exported products, China's service exports would increase by approximately two-and-a-half times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, digital services not only provide important intermediate inputs for manufacturing but they also affect the availability of other potentially ICT-enabled high-quality services as intermediate inputs. Therefore, it is particularly important and meaningful to explore the relationship between the liberalization of trade in digital services and manufacturing exports. This paper uses a panel dataset of bilateral exports of 15 manufacturing sectors in 54 countries, from 2014 to 2018, to examine the impact of digital services trade policy restrictions on exports of manufactured goods. The main results suggest that the impact of trade policy restrictions on manufacturing exports is mixed but mainly negative. Moreover, regulatory differences in digital services industries between bilateral country pairs also have a significant negative impact on the export performance of manufacturing industries. In addition, we further examine the heterogeneity of this impact mechanism across different policy areas, manufacturing sectors, and bilateral country-pair groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a depth index of the regional trade agreement (RTA) digital trade terms based on text data from 2000–2021 in the TAPED database and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission data from the Eora database since 2000. We construct a gravity model between the depth index of digital trade terms and carbon CO2 emissions to analyze the impact of digital trade terms in RTAs on the CO2 emissions of member countries. The results show that the depth of digital trade clauses in RTAs significantly reduces the CO2 emissions of member countries. Still, the impact of different clause depth indexes on CO2 emissions is different on the supply and consumption sides. The results of the heterogeneity analysis based on the types of trade agreements show that the depth of RTAs has the most significant impact on the CO2 emissions among members of South–North trade agreements. The analysis of results based on industry heterogeneity shows that digital trade terms significantly impact manufacturing CO2 emissions. The article proposes that more attention be paid to the negotiation of digital trade rules in RTAs, the construction of South–North trade agreements, and the impact of digital trade on the CO2 emissions of different industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a quantitative trade model, this paper evaluates the trade and welfare effects of deep trade agreements in an application to China joining the RCEP and CPTPP. By feeding trade cost shocks from the changes in RTA deepness into the model, we find substantial gains from incorporating legal enforceability and dispute settlement provisions in both agreements. With the CPTPP being deeper than the RCEP, our counterfactual exercise of China joining the CPTPP shows that 69% of its welfare gains come from deepening RCEP provisions to the CPTPP level. For the RCEP members, the gains from deepening non-tariff-related core provisions are quantitatively important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds an open country theoretical model to analyse the spillover impact of the US monetary policy tightening shock on China's economy. GVAR empirical model is employed combined with 22 countries and obtain three main results. First, the US monetary tightening shock causes the rise of the international risk index and the bilateral real exchange rate (the appreciation of the US dollar and the depreciation of the RMB). Second, both China's current account and China's capital outflow show the increased trends combined with the weighted role of foreign economies. Third, as the negative effect of China's capital outflow is higher than the positive effect of China's current account, China's real output declines caused by the US monetary tightening shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the impact of financial inclusion on the instability of household consumption remains controversial. In this article, we considered the possibility that countries follow different regimes of household consumption instability and tested the hypothesis of whether financial inclusion is countercyclical or procyclical to a country's regime of consumption instability. Thus, relying on recent works that used the finite mixture regression method, we identify the different regimes of household consumption instability. Drawing on a sample of 28 developing countries over the period 2011–2020, the paper highlights that the impact of financial inclusion on consumption instability differs across classes and a three-class model best describes the sample. Specifically, we show that financial inclusion is positively associated with consumption instability in the first class, while financial inclusion significantly reduces consumption instability in the second class. Financial inclusion does not have a significant impact on the third class. Furthermore, exploring the potential role of democracy in determining class affiliation, the results emphasize that developing countries would fully benefit from financial inclusion by undertaking strong reforms to improve democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs a unique dataset of Chinese firm-level bilateral cross-border e-commerce exports using the back-end online logistics database of a famous Chinese logistics platform to study the impact of destination country’s institutional quality on Chinese cross-border e-commerce export. Our results show that the institutional quality of destination countries significantly boosts China’s cross-border e-commerce exports. Institutional quality has a more significant effect on the extensive margin than the intensive margin. Mechanism analysis shows that institutional quality significantly stimulates export entry, export survival, and continuous exports. Furthermore, destination country’s institutional quality has a greater impact on cross-border e-commerce export than on traditional export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Export product diversification accelerates economic growth by helping the nations to escape the commodity dependence trap, reducing the volatility of terms of trade, and stabilizing export revenues. Creative industries are the emerging and evolving industrial sectors that affect the export basket's composition of nations and its growth effects. In this paper, for the first time, we calculated the diversification level of creative products’ export basket using three measures including Theil and GINI inequality indices and Herfindahl–Hirschman concentration index for the top ten exporters including China, the US, France, Italy, the UK, Germany, India, Switzerland, Singapore, and the Netherlands. In addition, we analyzed the effects of diversification of creative products’ export basket on the economic growth of the countries over the period 2002–2020. Our results indicate the diversification level of the creative products’ basket in Switzerland, the US, France, and China decreased over the period, while for Germany and the Netherlands, it increased over recent years. For other countries, the indexes do not show significant fluctuations. By estimating a Barro-type growth regression model and also panel Granger non-causality test, we found creative products’ diversification acts as a pro-growth factor in the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of English as a lingua franca on FDI by using the bilateral FDI data between China and 36 OECD countries. We find that English as a lingua franca significantly promotes FDI between China and OECD countries; the impact of English proficiency on outward FDI is greater than that on inward FDI in China; the improvement of English proficiency is more conducive to promoting China's FDI with non-English-speaking countries than with English-speaking countries. Our findings suggest that English can be an effective lingua franca to remove language barriers in FDI for developing countries, especially when the investing partners are high-income and non-English-speaking countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of official visits by U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State on foreign direct investment inflows. The key difficulty in determining a causal effect is the issue of endogeneity. To address potential endogeneity, we use the Endogenous Treatment model (ETM). The estimation results provide evidence that the official visits of U.S. Presidents have a statistically significant positive effect on both foreign investment inflows from the U.S. and on total foreign direct investment inflows. This is robust even after the inclusion of other control variables identified by the literature as confounding factors for foreign direct investment. When we examine the effect of different types of visits, the results show that bilateral meetings during the official visits of U.S. Presidents have a statistically significant positive effect on both foreign investment inflows from the U.S. and total foreign direct investment. These results imply that the visits of U.S. Presidents offer a signal of the confidence of American administrations in the host country, which may in turn encourage American and non-American firms to invest in that country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how foreign direct investment inflows in agriculture affect the agricultural exports of developing countries. The main objective of our analysis is to identify and quantify the export effects of foreign direct investment in the sector, as well as the effects of other relevant export determinants, and to explore the possible long-run relationship between the variables. Using panel data on 80 developing countries observed in the period 2005-2017, we employ the system-generalised method of moments and the method of quasi-maximum likelihood to estimate a dynamic agricultural exports model. Additionally, we test for the cointegration between exports and foreign direct investment using the Pedroni and Kao approaches. We find that foreign direct investment inflows have a positive impact on agricultural exports in the analysed countries in both the short run and the long run. Thereby, we identified the significance of both direct and spillover export effects. This implies that the liberalisation and promotion of foreign investment in agriculture could alleviate the problems of capital scarcity and constraints in developing countries and increase their agricultural export competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For developing economies, exporting broadens the horizon for facilitating effective integration into the global economy and improving overall competitiveness. While small developing states are particularly at high risk given their fundamental characteristics, the expected impact of these exogenous shocks on small resource dependent economies are amplified given the high possibility of lower levels of diversification. This paper therefore assesses the determinants of exports and exporting potential of SIDS (small island developing states) with a focus on Caribbean resource-based countries. Using non resource exports, in an aggregate and disaggregate form, as the dependent variable, the traditional gravity model was augmented to include a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index, the real effective exchange rate (REER) of the exporter and the export sophistication (EXPY) index. The main findings indicate that an appreciation of the REER has an inverse impact on exports of non-resource commodities and that trade according to comparative advantage and differences in export sophistication occurs mainly in the agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at investigating the influence of the institutional quality of the host country on China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from a binary margin perspective. The quality of the host country's system is assumed to have a positive impact on the extensive margin of OFDI in terms of political stability (PS), regulatory quality (RQ), the rule of law (RL), and the control of corruption (CC); however, such system quality inhibits the growth of the intensive margin via RQ, voice and accountability (VA). We further find that institutional differences and the extensive margin of OFDI have a negative relationship. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the host country's institutional quality significantly contributes to the extensive margin of investment when the host country is a non-low-income country, the investment is nongreenfield investment, and the industry invested in is the real estate industry. There is a moderating effect of investment motives on the relationship between host country institutional quality and OFDI where host country institutional quality positively affects the extent of investment when the investment motive is market seeking and negatively affects the extent of investment when the investment motive is natural resource seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data from CHIP and IPUMS, this paper examines the impact of export servitization of Chinese cities on individuals’ marriage and childbearing performance. The results show that the deepening of export servitization may lead to a decline in the odds of getting married and having babies, resulting in a decrease in marriage and fertility levels. The heterogeneity analysis finds that the negative effect of increased export servitization leading to a decrease in individuals’ marriage and childbearing behaviors is more pronounced for individuals in eastern and central cities with more prosperous economies and better development of service and education, as well as individuals with lower income and education, females, women aged 20–34 and men aged 22–36, the Han ethnicity, and individuals of rural hukou. Furthermore, we investigate the channels through which export servitization affects individuals’ marriage and childbearing performance, and the results confirm that export servitization promotes income growth and the improvement of economic conditions reduces the demand for marriage and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pilot free trade zones (PFTZs) is a significant result of China's institutional innovation. The analysis examines the role of PFTZs in narrowing economic gap in China using provincial data from 2000 to 2019. This paper firstly measures the current situation and trend of economic development gap in China, and sorts out the mechanism of the institutional innovation on narrowing the economic gap. Secondly, the empirical test is conducted by difference in differences method and finds as follows. (1) PFTZs have positive effect on narrowing the economic gap. (2) PFTZs have more significant effect on the northern provinces and provinces with better business environment. (3)PFTZs narrow the economic gap by saving transaction costs. Based on the results of this test, this study proposes corresponding countermeasures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between international linkages (i.e. exporting, importing, and foreign direct investment) and the share of skilled, unskilled, and total female workers employed in Indonesian manufacturing plants. We utilize plant-level panel data and estimation procedures that account for endogeneity and selection issues to achieve the study objective. Our analysis suggests that foreign ownership and exporting activities lead to a higher share of both skilled and unskilled female employment. However, these effects are more substantial for skilled female workers than for unskilled female workers. The results are robust to the use of different econometric methods and empirical specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the determinants of ICT-enabled service trade, in particular, the relative importance of human and physical capital. The analysis is carried out for 45 major service trading countries as well as for separate country groups classified based on ICT-service trade balance. It is found that mobile connectivity, foreign investment, world demand, growing manufacturing sector, and more favourable business environment are important determinants of net ICT-enabled service exports. The result is in contrast with traditional services like travel and transportation. Broadband connection, as well as mobile, has a significant impact on net export of travel and transportation. Better human capital is favourable for services overall whereas, travel-transport sector engages low-skilled workers. The results have important policy implications for developing countries constrained by the availability of human and physical capital. The service sector, especially ICT-enabled services, can play a critical role in the post-pandemic recovery by generating employment opportunities and ensuring stable foreign exchange earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theoretically examines the effect of an expansionary monetary policy on export quality and its ramifications on the aggregate employment of the unskilled workers in a competitive general equilibrium framework of a small open economy. Monetary policies are often pursued by the central bank of an economy to manage exchange rate fluctuations under a managed float regime, which may have adverse consequences for export-quality choices and thereby for export growth given the growing preference of buyers in richer nations for higher qualities of imports. Under optimal allocation of wealth over a portfolio of cash, domestic assets and foreign assets, we show that an increase in the domestic money supply affects the choice of export-quality through larger investment, capital formation and consequent endowment effect and through changes in the nominal exchange rate. Under less price-elastic demand for a non-traded good, export quality is upgraded when quality upgrading is relatively capital (than skill) intensive. The expansionary monetary policy may raise aggregate employment of unskilled workers due to larger investment and capital formation, but may lower it through changes in the quality of the export good. The overall effect is thus ambiguous. A larger initial size of bequests has a similar effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the effect of anti-dumping investigations on export firm innovation performance using Chinese firm-level patent filings data and anti-dumping case from 2000 to 2013. By employing the staggered difference-in-differences strategy, our empirical evidence shows that anti-dumping investigations imposed on firms lead to an improvement in innovation rather than suppression. Further examination identifies that the trade diversion effect is a crucial mechanism through which anti-dumping investigations affect firm innovation. We find that firms are experiencing a significant increase in exports of investigated products to non-involved countries, while also expanding their export destinations and diversifying the range of exported products. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that anti-dumping charges significantly promote innovation in high-productivity firms and multi-product exporting enterprises, while financial constraints are identified as a crucial factor restricting innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]