Organizational Form and Trade Liberalization: Plant-Level Evidence

This paper studies how firms’ internal organization shapes the impact of international trade. Using establishment-level data from the U.S. Census and a difference-in-difference specification, I find that, relative to standalone firms, conglomerates are more likely to restructure after trade liberalization episodes, focusing on their core competency and improving firm productivity and product market performance. Adjustments through the extensive margin account for the majority of the productivity growth differential between conglomerates and standalones experiencing trade shocks. Aggregate industry productivity remains relatively unchanged in industries dominated by conglomerates’ core business but decreases significantly in others. My findings suggest that firms’ internal organization has important consequences on the effects of trade policies. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Wettbewerbliche Banken fördern das Wachstum

ZusammenfassungWas nützen die besten Ideen, wenn Investitionen und neue Jobs mangels Zugang zu Bankkrediten nicht zustande kommen? Wachstum und Innovation brauchen einen leistungsfähigen Finanzsektor. Wettbewerb regt auch die Banken zu Höchstleistungen an. Indem sie mehr Informationen über ihre Kunden sammeln und ihre Prozesse bei der Auswahl und anschliessenden Überwachung optimieren, gelingt es ihnen besser, die besonders vielversprechenden Unternehmen zu identifizieren. Dadurch, dass die Banken die Kreditvergabe vor allem auf die innovativen und profitablen Unternehmen mit hohem Wachstumspotential lenken, fördern sie die Produktivitätssteigerungen und das Wachstum der Realwirtschaft.Bai, J., D. Carvalho, und G. M. Phillips (2018), The Impact of Bank Credit on Labor Reallocation and Aggregate Industry Productivity, Journal of Finance 63(6), 2787–2836.

Here in the Real World: The Performance of Alternative Beta

We examine the realized performance of alternative beta strategies using a database of returns since 2008. Despite diversified portfolios of risk premia strategies offered by global investment banks achieving satisfactory Sharpe ratios of 0.80–1.07 during the decade to 2017, up to two thirds of the performance can be explained by exposure to traditional benchmarks. Furthermore, the outcomes are very sensitive to the estimated all-in fees incurred by investors. We find no evidence of positive alpha in the aggregate industry returns, and document a pattern of time-varying, asymmetric, and statistically significant betas to global equities and bonds. Our results suggest that the poor performance of the strategies in 2018–20 was not an aberration, but rather a continuation of patterns already present in earlier data. The findings are representative of the wider risk premia industry, as returns of managed alternative risk premia funds and those of diversified investment bank strategy portfolios appear closely aligned.

The Rise of Robots in China

China is the world’s largest user of industrial robots. In 2016, sales of industrial robots in China reached 87,000 units, accounting for around 30 percent of the global market. To put this number in perspective, robot sales in all of Europe and the Americas in 2016 reached 97,300 units (according to data from the International Federation of Robotics). Between 2005 and 2016, the operational stock of industrial robots in China increased at an annual average rate of 38 percent. In this paper, we describe the adoption of robots by China’s manufacturers using both aggregate industry-level and firm-level data, and we provide possible explanations from both the supply and demand sides for why robot use has risen so quickly in China. A key contribution of this paper is that we have collected some of the world’s first data on firms’ robot adoption behaviors with our China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES), which contains the first firm-level data that is representative of the entire Chinese manufacturing sector.

FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS AND BRIDGEHEAD EFFECT: EVIDENCE FROM KOREA–CHILE FTA

Recent literature on the dynamics of export destinations has argued that firms export their products to new markets that are geographically close and culturally related to their previous export destinations. A modified version of [Melitz, M (2003). The impact of trade on intra-industry reallocations and aggregate industry productivity. Econometrica, 71(6), 1695–1725.] model suggests that a preferential trade agreement may provide inefficient firms with opportunities to export their products to third destination countries. This paper finds that new Korean products have been exported to the Chile market because of reductions in Chilean tariffs and the experience gained from exporting to the Chilean market has increased the likelihood of subsequent export to other countries in South America. The paper provides direct evidence that a free trade agreement (FTA) can serve as a stepping stone to other markets.