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This paper examines whether increasing trade intensities among East Asian countries have led to a synchronization of business cycles. It extends the work of Shin and Wang (2004) in two ways: by improving the specification of their business cycle correlation equation and by extending the sample to cover the post-crisis period. The study finds that intra-industry trade, rather than inter-industry trade, is the major factor in explaining business cycle co-movements in East Asia. This result has important implications for the prospects of introducing a single currency in the region.

This article investigates the impact of regional integration on intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and other APEC countries. The study uses pooled cross-sectional and time-series data spanning the period 1980–1999 at a 3-digit Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) level. After accounting for trade imbalance and following Thailand's entry into APEC, intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and countries in Oceania and America decreased, while trade with other Asian countries grew marginally. Results indicate that, in the post APEC era, trade openness stimulated increased intra-industry trade levels with countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia, but decreased trade with countries in America.

Using finely disaggregated data at six-digit harmonized code classification level, this paper examines the patterns and determinants of horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade in the automobile and electrical appliances sectors during the past few decades among the six major Southeast Asian countries. It is found from the analysis of the data that intra-industry trade is much higher than the inter-industry trade in each of these two sectors. Further, the determinants of these two types of trade are found to differ somewhat in terms of sign and magnitude across the sectors, implying the importance of sector-specific factors as influences on the pattern of trade.

In this study, we argue that the conventional intra-industry trade (IIT) index does not directly address the quality issue and propose a methodology to make full use of unit price gap information to deduce quality differences between simultaneously exported and imported products. By applying this measure to German trade data at the eight-digit level, we study the quality change of Chinese export goods in its IIT with Germany. We compare the case of China with those of Eastern European countries, which are also major trading partners of Germany. Our results show that the unit value difference in IIT between Germany and Eastern European countries is clearly narrowing. However, China’s export prices to Germany are much lower than Germany’s export prices to China, and this gap has not narrowed over the last 23 years. This is at odds with the common perception that China’s product quality has improved, as documented by Rodrik [Rodrik, D (2006). Whats so special about China’s exports? China and World Economy, 14(5), 1–19.] and Schott [Schott, P (2008). The Relative sophistication of Chinese exports. Economic Policy, 53, 5–49.]. Our results support Xu [Xu, B (2010). The sophistication of exports: Is China special? China Economic Review, 21(3), 482–493.], which argued that incorporating the quality aspect of the exported goods weakens or even eliminates the evidence of the sophistication of Chinese export goods in Rodrik [Rodrik, D (2006). Whats so special about China’s exports? China and World Economy, 14(5), 1–19.].

The essential question this paper seeks to answer is whether the business cycle co-movement in East Asia are fostered by internal bilateral trade within the region, specifically, intra-industry trade or by external forces like the influence of the world’s largest economy, namely, the United States. This paper examines the extent and robustness of the relationship between trade intensity and business cycle synchronization for nine East Asian countries in the period 1965–2008. Unlike previous studies which assume away the region’s concurrent connection with the rest of the world, in our regressions we control for both the US effect and the exchange rate co-movement in the region. We find that the coefficient estimates for intra-industry trade intensity remain robust and significant even after controlling for the US effect and the exchange rate co-movement. The findings confirm that regional intra-industry trade fosters business cycle correlations among countries in East Asia.

This study examines the intra-industry trade relationship that China has with its 20 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation partners during the 2000–2014 period. By providing both a developing and developed country focus this research examines both the trends and determinants of these trade relationships from inter-industry trade, vertical inter-industry trade, horizontal inter-industry trade, and inter-industry perspectives. This study found that China’s highest levels of inter-industry trade are with Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and that these relationships have been trending upwards from both horizontal inter-industry trade and vertical inter-industry trade perspectives since 2000. While our empirical assessment using country- and industry-specific variables showed that tariff rates, market size, and factor endowments play an important role within the make-up of inter-industry trade. Finally, from a policy perspective, our study highlights the need for China to not only push forward with its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade negotiations, but also branch out by gaining additional support from other Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation partners so as to further enhance its role in the region.

There is a fear among East Asian governments that China’s rapid export driven growth is significantly impairing the export performance of their own countries. The common belief among East Asian economies is that to remain competitive they must improve the quality of their exports relative to those of China. In this paper, we show how the emergence of China has affected the quality of its exports and imports to and from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Specifically, we combine a measure of marginal intra-industry trade (IIT) concerned with the adjustment implications of changes in matched trade, a measure of vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade concerned with the differences in product quality and a new dynamic measure of quality differentiated IIT. Our results suggest that Singapore and Malaysia have managed to maintain and even improve their position as the exporter of high quality varieties in bilateral trade with to China despite China’s rapid development and export orientated growth.

This paper investigates bilateral intra-industry trade between the United States and its major trading partners over the period 1995–2008. Intra-industry trade (IIT) is decomposed into horizontal (HIIT) and vertical (VIIT) components. HIIT dominates the total two-way trade of the United States and its share relative to VIIT has been rising over time, particularly with neighbouring trade partners and with China. Using pooled panel data, country-level determinants of IIT, HIIT and VIIT are investigated. The results, overall, tend to conform with a priori expectations and provide empirical support for a number of propositions suggested by theory. Findings indicate that the relative similarity of the economies of trading partners, their geographical proximity, FDI and overall market size are important influences on bilateral HIIT flows for the United States. VIIT, on the other hand, is found to be driven in large part by economic differences between partners as well as the market size and closeness of trading partners.

The study starts with clarifying the distinction between intra-product and inter-product trade as origins of intra-industry trade. The empirical analysis shows that over the last half century intra-industry trade has strongly intensified, though this trend became less pronounced during the last two decades. Intra-industry trade characterizes the trade flows of Europe distinctly more than of any other major geographical region. It is clearly related to a country’s level of per-capita income; to its size, as measured by aggregate income; to the share of the manufacturing sector in the country’s trade; and, most strongly, to the level of commodity diversification of a country’s trade.

Business cycle synchronization is one of the crucial conditions for a currency union to be successful. Frankel and Rose (1998) argued that increased trade after euro adoption would increase business cycle synchronization ex-ante. However, the fallout of the Eurozone forcefully demonstrated that their optimistic prediction did not turn out to be true. One thing Frankel and Rose (1998) did not examine is how different types of trade (inter vs. intra, vertical vs. horizontal, etc.) intensify/dampens business cycle synchronization. In this light, this paper empirically examines how different types of trade affect business cycle synchronization in what way. This study takes two major economic blocs that have been going under rapid economic integrations: The original Eurozone members and East Asia – integration of former mainly developing by European government initiative and the latter naturally forming by the global supply chain and associated product segmentation. Comparing these two very different economic blocs with very different factor endowment structures would give us a more convincing answer to how different types of trade can influence business cycle synchronization differently. Our key finding is that, on the contrary to Frankel and Rose (1998), the impact of increased trade intensity on business cycle co-movement is ambiguous. The impact of trade on business cycle synchronization depends on types of trade. Intra-industry trade, especially vertical intra-industry trade which is rapidly growing in East Asia, has a strong positive effect on business cycle synchronization while inter-industry trade does not.

This study tests the validity of the alternative hypotheses in the intra-industry trade (IIT) literature using information on Korea’s trade between 1991 and 1999. The study refines previous studies by breaking down IIT into horizontally and vertically differentiated products, controlling for country fixed-effects, and using more variables relevant to Korea’s industry data. The main results suggest that some conflicting results of previous empirical studies could be caused by the use of the aggregate approach itself. Most of all, variations of the level of IIT in Korea are better explained by vertical IIT. Furthermore, while the hypotheses derived from the theoretical models of horizontal IIT and vertical IIT are generally confirmed by the empirical analysis, the hypothesis of demand similarity was not supported. The results also favor the competitive market structure explanation for both types of IIT in Korea.

We analyse transboundary pollution externalities caused by consumption of goods. The model is of a reciprocal dumping type in which there are two countries and two firms. Each firm produces a homogeneous good to be consumed in both markets. There are two policies available to the governments of the two countries: consumption taxes and import tariffs. We characterise the Nash optimal levels of the instruments in the two countries. Our results suggest that the conditions satisfying higher consumption taxes in one country satisfy lower tariffs in that country. It is found that starting from non-cooperative solutions, an infinitesimal uniform reduction is unambiguously Pareto improving for each country and for the global welfare. This is because the gain from an increase in consumer surplus due to reform is larger than the loss in the tax revenues of the governments. Moreover, a revenue neutral reform which increases consumption taxes and reduce tariffs, is strictly Pareto improving.

This paper examines changes in intra-industry specialization indicators over the 1992-2004 period to assess potential for structural adjustment problems that may arise in U.S. textile and apparel products with growth in trade. Separate analyses are conducted for U.S. bilateral trade with China, Mexico, and DR-CAFTA members. Seven of the sixteen three-digit Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) product groups are expected to experience significant structural adjustment problems. With the exception of one group, all fall within the apparel and clothing (SITC 84) category. Results suggest substantial increases in U.S. imports from China are influencing these findings.

The paper studies the effects of a one-sided minimum wage in a two-country model of intra-industry trade, in which multinational firms arise endogenously. With positive levels of intra-industry trade the adverse employment and welfare effects of an asymmetric minimum wage are significantly larger than in a non-trading economy. Multinational firms generally mitigate the effect somewhat. Even though factor prices are not equalized across countries, a (binding) wage floor in one country will prop up wages in the other. The flexible-wage country is insulated from shocks caused by factor accumulation in the rigid-wage country, while an increase in the labor supply of the latter economy may have profound impacts on labor market outcomes in both countries.

We develop a monopolistic-competition model of international trade which includes positive trade costs and endogenous multinational firms. We demonstrate how the presence of trade costs changes the pattern of trade, creates incentives for factor mobility which may lead to agglomeration of activity in a single country, and may lead to multinational firms. The mix of national and multinational firms that operate in equilibrium depends on technology and on the division of the world endowment between countries. Multinationals are more likely to exist the more similar are countries in both relative and absolute endowments, a result consistent with empirical evidence. The presence of multinationals creates trade in headquarters’ services, alters the incentives for factor mobility, and reduces the tendencies towards agglomeration.

This paper examines the effect of cross-border production sharing on trade and exchange-rate behavior. When a country's exports contain imported components, changes in exchange rates tend to have offsetting effects on imports and exports. Imports may fall, remain unchanged or even rise with depreciation, depending on the share of domestic value-added in exports. The effect of domestic and foreign GDP on imports and exports is also altered by production sharing. These behavior patterns are identified in trade in motor vehicles between the United States and Mexico with the aid of OLS and VEC techniques.