Robust Counterfactual Predictions in Neoclassical Models of International Trade

国际贸易新古典模型中稳健的反事实预测

• 批准号: 1559015
• 负责人: Dave Donaldson
• 金额: $ 44.79万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1559015&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Robust; Counterfactual; Predictions; Neoclassical; Models

Economists and policy-makers rely on models of the global economy to predict the impact that changes in trade policy, such as import tariffs, will have on production, wages, employment, and consumer prices. These models are constrained so as to replicate features of the observed past, but how exactly a researcher imposes those constraints is notoriously difficult, and hence inevitably uncertain and subject to debate. The investigators aim to address this problem by developing tools that make the connection between model and observed historical data as simple as possible given the predictions that these models are commonly used to make. As a result, economists should be able to answer key policy questions concerning international trade with greater confidence. Given the challenges inherent in isolating quasi-experimental variation in general equilibrium settings, the standard approach to answering counterfactual questions in international trade is to rely on Computational General Equilibrium (CGE) models. This project develops a new way of constructing robust, nonparametric counterfactual predictions using CGE models. This research builds on the equivalence between neoclassical economies and reduced exchange economies in which countries simply trade factor services. This equivalence is important for its simplifying power. In a reduced exchange economy, competitive equilibria can be characterized fully by an analysis of the reduced factor demand system that summarizes all agents' preferences over factor services. Thus, for a number of counterfactual questions, like the welfare impact of uniform changes in trade costs, one does not need the complete knowledge of demand and production functions across countries and industries -- all one needs to know is the substitutability between factors from different countries. The investigators therefore propose to develop tools, and collect new data, aimed at estimating this substitutability. One such approach will rely on measures of the factor content of trade. A second approach will rely on using the observed data to construct the best possible nonparametric bounds on general equilibrium welfare changes.

经济学家和政策制定者依靠全球经济模式来预测贸易政策的变化（例如进口关税）对生产，工资，就业和消费者价格的影响。 这些模型受到限制，以复制观察到的过去的特征，但是众所周知，研究人员究竟如何施加这些限制是困难的，因此不可避免地不确定并进行辩论。 研究人员的目的是通过开发工具来解决这个问题，这些工具使模型与观察到的历史数据之间的连接尽可能简单，因为这些模型通常用于制作这些模型。结果，经济学家应该能够更加信心回答有关国际贸易的关键政策问题。 鉴于在一般平衡环境中隔离准实验变化所固有的挑战，回答国际贸易中反事实问题的标准方法是依靠计算一般平衡（CGE）模型。该项目开发了一种使用CGE模型来构建强大的非参数反事实预测的新方法。 这项研究基于新古典经济体与减少的交换经济体之间的等价性，在这些经济体中，国家只是贸易要素服务。这种等价对于简化能力很重要。在降低的交换经济中，可以通过对减少的因子需求系统进行分析来充分表征竞争均衡，从而总结了所有代理对因素服务的偏好。因此，对于许多反事实问题，例如企业成本统一变化的福利影响，人们不需要对国家和行业的需求和生产功能的完整知识 - 所有人都需要知道的是不同国家因素之间的替代性。 因此，研究人员建议开发工具并收集旨在估算这种替代性的新数据。 一种这样的方法将依赖于贸易因素内容的度量。 第二种方法将依赖于使用观察到的数据来构建一般均衡福利变化的最佳非参数边界。

项目成果

Imports, Exports, and Earnings Inequality: Measures of Exposure and Estimates of Incidence

进口、出口和收入不平等：暴露测量和发生率估计

• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjac012
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: The Quarterly Journal of Economics
• 作者: Adão, Rodrigo;Carrillo, Paul;Costinot, Arnaud;Donaldson, Dave;Pomeranz, Dina
• 通讯作者: Pomeranz, Dina

Nonparametric Counterfactual Predictions in Neoclassical Models of International Trade

• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150956
• 发表时间: 2017-03
• 期刊: The American Economic Review
• 作者: Rodrigo Adão;Arnaud Costinot;D. Donaldson