Three essays on international trade networks
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation studies the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as well as the effects FTAs have on international trade. The first essay examines the "dynamic time-path question" raised by Bhagwati (1993), whether preferential trade agreements help or hurt the attainment of global free trade in the long run. Earlier works done on this topic take a stance on a trade model and ask whether global free trade is a unique pairwise stable network. I build upon this approach and, instead of taking a stance on a specific trade model, argue that all trade models employed in these earlier works fall into the same class of model, which is characterized by three simple properties. Under these properties, it can be shown that all pairwise stable networks are networks with complete components of unique sizes, and the size of each component is bounded above by a function of the next largest component. In particular, under these three properties, global free trade is always pairwise stable. Being able to characterize the set of all pairwise stable networks, a natural question to ask is, starting from some network configuration, which pairwise stable network is more likely to arise. The second essay develops a method to calculate the probability of reaching each pairwise stable network given any value function that is symmetric for all players. I then demonstrate the approach by applying it to two network formation games and compare the results with existing analyses. The third essay is empirical in nature. It explores how exporters with different characteristics respond differently to a unilateral reduction in trade cost in the foreign country. In doing so, the paper develops a two-tier product space (industry and product) that allows for a richer prediction of the trade pattern. Using a novel data set on Thai exporters' responses to Vietnam's tariff reductions in 2001--2008, I find that while all exporters respond to foreign tariff reduction on the intensive margin, they respond differently on the extensive margin. While large firms tend to introduce products within the industry they already have presence in, small firms tend to start exporting products in new industries. This suggests that the cost curve is concave in the product dimension, but is convex in the industry dimension.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Tosborvorn, Thiti |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Economics. |
| Primary advisor | Bagwell, Kyle |
| Thesis advisor | Bagwell, Kyle |
| Thesis advisor | Donaldson, Dave |
| Thesis advisor | Jackson, Matthew O |
| Advisor | Donaldson, Dave |
| Advisor | Jackson, Matthew O |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Thiti Tosborvorn. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Economics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Thiti Tosborvorn
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
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