学术论文

Recent Research Papers  by Miaojie Yu

 *Most of my papers can be downloaded from SSRN website as well:http://ssrn.com/author=636280

1.     Export, Productivity, and Credit Constraints:  An Empirical Investigation for Chinese Firms (With Zhiyuan Li)

[pdf]2009/7

Recent Melitz(2003)-type intra-industry heterogeneous trade models argue that firm's productivity has significant effects on firm's exports. This paper examines how firm's credit constraints as well as firm's productivity affect its export decision. We imbed firm's credit constraints into the Melitz-type general-equilibrium model by endogenizing firm-specific interest rates. We show that, all else equal, firms are easier in entering the export market if (1) they have higher productivity; and (2) consequently lower interest rates when they raise funds externally; and (3) firms that have alternative channels to obtain low-cost loans. We test these theoretical hypotheses using firm-level data from Chinese manufacturing industries and find strong evidence supporting the predictions of the model.

2.     Labor, Demography, and Export-Oriented Growth in China (with Yang Yao) [pdf] 09/07

In In this paper we argue that the export-oriented growth model in China indeed is self-selected. It is an unavoidable choice for China given its democratic pattern and low level of urbanization. The low dependency ratio and high demographic dividends jointly determine a slow growth of its labor income, which in turn introduces a large amount of accumulated capital for enterprises and a large amount of supply for China’s manufacturing goods. However, China’s small domestic market raised by its low level of urbanization cannot absorb all its domestic supply. The only way to clear the market is to export its extra manufacturing goods abroad.

3.     Trade Liberalization, Firms Dynamics, and Productivity: Evidence from Chinese Plants  

[pdf]2008/6

After the Uruguay round, China has experienced dramatic trade liberalization in the late 1990s. Industrial import competition ratio increased over time due to tariffs reduction and various non-tariffs-barriers removal. In this paper, I investigate the impact of trade liberalization on firm productivity by using both Chinese manufacturing firm-level data and highly disaggregated Chinese import data over 1998-2002. For this purpose, I first calculate firm's total factor productivity (TFP) by adopting an augmented Olley-Pakes (1996) semi-parametric methodology to correct the simultaneous bias from the reverse causality and selection bias from firm's dynamics behavior (exit and entry). After controlling for the endogeneity issue, the industrial import penetration is found to significantly boost firm's productivity, yet industries with low tariffs did not necessarily enjoy high productivity.

4.     The Economics of Price Scissors: An Empirical Investigation for China (With Justin Lin)

[pdf]2008/4

The Sah-Stiglitz "Economics of Price Scissors" model on the political economy of price scissors derives the optimal terms of trade against peasants. In the present paper, by extending this model to an open economy and allowing agricultural rationing, we first check if the model stands up to China's data and, if so, we estimate its key structural parameters. Using province-level panel data from 1949-1992, we find that the importance of peasants in China's governmental objective function is less than the importance of workers. In addition, the importance of consumption is also less than that of capital accumulation. Such findings are consistent the reality in China.

5. Trade Globalization and Political Liberalization: A Gravity Approach [pdf] version:2007/10

·         Cited by Eichengreen and Leblang’ s NBERWP No. 12450

·         Cited by Milner and Mukherjee’s Annual Review of Political Science

·         Collected as TIGER Working Paper Series, No. 104

The literature has paid very little attention to a potential positive endogenous nexus between trade globalization and political liberalization. In this paper, I apply a structural approach to investigate two-way causality between the two based on the gravity trade theory, using data from a sample of 134 IMF countries over the period 1974-1998. An extensive search shows that trade globalization dampens political liberalization, though political liberalization fosters trade globalization in this period. The paper also presents ample evidence of simultaneous bias when such bidirectional causality is ignored. Finally, it contains a thorough exploration of parameter heterogeneity by income and by region.

6.  Measuring the Impact of Trade Protection on Industrial Production Size [pdf]

Trade theory has no clear prediction on how import protection affects an importing sector's relative size. In this paper, we estimate the impact of U.S. trade protection on industrial production relative size based on a translog GDP functional system. Using an industrial panel data set and controlling for factor endowments and technology improvement, we find empirical evidence that trade protection does not help much increase a sector's relative size. In particular, in some industries like garments, high trade protection leads to low industrial size. Such findings are also robust to both the inclusion of the role of political economy and the coverage of various non-tariff measures as proxies of industrial protection.

7. Trade Politics: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Downs Model [pdf] ; 2007/11

In this study, we show that the unique Nash equilibrium of a political competition model between two parties in a Heckscher-Ohlin setting entails differentiated trade politics, with one party proposing a high tariff, and the other, a low one. The basic departure from a median voter model is the introduction of campaign contributions which influence the vote of a group of uninformed voters. Parties are Downsian, not ideological, yet campaign contributions create asymmetry between them. Thus, the heterogeneous trade platforms in a two-party system are endogenous. One party is labeled as a promoter of protectionism, whereas the other is labeled as pro-trade.

8. Democracy and the GATT/WTO Accession Duration (With Ka-fu Wong) [PDF], 2008/01

Recent studies have suggested that accession to GATT/WTO is a complex, difficult, and lengthy process, and such process has lengthened in recent years. Using survival analysis, we find that the applicant's political regime has a significant impact on the time it takes to accede to GATT/WTO. In particular, the accession duration is likely shorter for an applicant whose political regime is more democratic. Such a finding is also robust regardless of different econometric methods and data sets adopted. Our finding is surprising because political regime is never to be considered as a mandate of the GATT/WTO before.