Robert C. Feenstra

Details der Publikationsliste

Zeitraum

1983 - 2007

Anzahl

179

Co-Autoren

Trade and Foreign Direct Investment in China: A Political Economy Approach (2007)

Lee G. Branstetter, Robert C. Feenstra, Acknowledgements We, Chen Chun-lai, Wen Hai, David Li, ...

We view the political process in China as trading off the social benefits of increased trade and foreign direct investment, against the losses incurred by state-owned enterprises due to such...

Estimating Real Production and Expenditures Across Nations: A Proposal for Improving the Penn World Tables (2007)

Feenstra, Robert C., Heston, Alan, Timmer, Marcel P., Deng, Haiyan

In this paper we propose a new approach to the international comparison of real GDP, as measured from the output-side. The traditional Gary-Khamis system, which measures real GDP from the...

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong (2004)

Feenstra, Robert C, Hanson, Gordon H., Lin, Songhua

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong (2004)

Feenstra, Robert C, Hanson, Gordon H., Lin, Songhua

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong (2004)

Feenstra, Robert C, Hanson, Gordon H., Lin, Songhua

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong (2004)

Feenstra, Robert C, Hanson, Gordon H., Lin, Songhua

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

A market-power based model of business groups (2003)

Feenstra, Robert C, Huang, D S, Hamilton, G G

We propose an model of vertically and horizontally-integrated business groups that allows the number and size of each group to be determined endogenously. We find that more than one configuration of...

Putting Things in Order: Patterns of Trade Dynamics and Growth Robert C. Feenstra and Andrew K. Rose* (2000)

May Draft Comments, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert C. Feenstra, Andrew K. Rose, Andrew K. Rose

We develop a procedure to rank-order countries and commodities using dis-aggregated American imports data. We find strong evidence that both countries and commodities can be ranked, consistent with...

An Exact Price Index for the Almost Ideal Demand System (1999)

Robert C. Feenstra, Marshall B. Reinsdorf

We show that an exact price index for the Almost Ideal Demand System can be evaluated using data on expenditure shares and prices at two comparison points, and at their geometric mean....

Using The Gravity Equation To Differentiate Among Alternative Theories Of Trade (1999)

James A. Markusen, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert C. Feenstra, Professor James, R. Markusen, Andrew K. Rose, ...

One of the most enduring results of empirical international economics is that a simple gravity equation explains a great deal about the data on bilateral trade flows. This is consistent with several...

The Impact Of Outsourcing And High-Technology Capital On Wages: Estimates For The United States, (1999)

Revised September Robert, Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

We estimate the relative influence of trade versus technology on wages in a "large country" setting, where technological change affects product prices. Trade is measured by the foreign...

Pricing-to-Market, Staggered Contracts, and Real Exchange Rate Persistence (1999)

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

: This paper explores an explanation for the high degree of persistence and volatility observed in real exchange rate data. In particular, it considers a class of preferences that are translog in...

The U.S.-China Bilateral Trade Balance: Its Size and Determinants (1998)

Robert C. Feenstra, Davis Haas, Wen Hai, Wing T. Woo, Shunli Yao

This paper has two aims. The first is to reduce the range within which the true bilateral trade deficit lies. The second aim is to identify the determinants of the bilateral trade deficit, and offer...

Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy (1998)

Robert C. Feenstra

The last few decades have seen a spectacular integration of the global economy through trade. The rising integration of world markets has brought with it a disintegration of the production process,...

Understanding the Home Market Effect and the Gravity Equation: The Role of Differentiating Goods (1998)

James A. Markusen, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert C. Feenstra, Professor James, R. Markusen, Andrew K. Rose, ...

This paper argues that the theoretical foundations for the gravity equation are general, while the empirical performance of the gravity equation is specific to the type of goods examined. Most...

Facts and Fallacies about Foreign Direct Investment (1998)

Robert C. Feenstra

this paper I will argue that this is not the case, and on the contrary, there is a good deal of confusion about even the most elementary aspects of FDI, such as who is investing where, by how much,...

Testing Endogenous Growth in South Korea and Taiwan (1997)

Robert C. Feenstra, Dorsati Madani, Tzu-han Yang, Chi-yuan Liang

This paper will present one micro-based test of the determinants of growth, focusing directly on the link between increased product variety and productivity. The idea that productivity is enhanced by...

The Relationship of Pass-Through of Exchange Rates to Purchasing Power Parity (1996)

Robert C. Feenstra, Jon D. Kendall

We develop and test two hypotheses about purchasing power parity (PPP) derived from the pricing behaviour of profit-maximising, exporting firms. The first is that changes in the price of traded goods...

FACTS AND FALLACIES ABOUT FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Robert C. Feenstra

This paper begins with a summary of the major trends in foreign direct investment over the 1980-1995 period. Following that we present five fallacies, dealing with: the magnitude of foreign...

STAGGERED PRICE SETTING AND ENDOGENOUS PERSISTENCE

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

This paper generates persistent effects of a monetary disturbance in the context of staggered price-setters. Previous research has been restricted by the CES functional form to price-setting rules...

INTEGRATION OF TRADE AND DISINTEGRATION OF PRODUCTION IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Robert C. Feenstra

The last few decades have seen a spectacular integration of the global economy through trade. The rising integration of world markets has brought with it a disintegration of the production process,...

PRICING TO MARKET, STAGGERED CONTRACTS, AND REAL EXCHANGE RATE PERSISTENCE

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

This paper offers an explanation for the persistence observed in real exchange rate movements. The model combines pricing to market behavior with sticky prices generated by staggered contracts. A...

Buyer Investment, Product Variety, and Intrafirm Trade

Robert C. Feenstra, Yongmin Chen

This paper studies a simple model of buyer investment and its effect on the variety and vertical structure of international trade. A distinction is made between two types of buyer investment:...

Export Variety and Country Productivity

Robert C. Feenstra, Hiau Looi Kee

This paper provides evidence on monopolistic competition models with endogenous technology by studying the effects of sectoral export variety on country productivity. The effects are estimated in a...

Re-Assessing the U.S. Quality Adjustment to Computer Prices: The Role of Durability and Changing Software

Robert C. Feenstra, Christopher R. Knittel

In the second-half of the 1990s, the positive impact of information technology on productivity growth for the United States became apparent. The measurement of this productivity improvement depends...

Estimating Real Production and Expenditures Across Nations: A Proposal for Improving the Penn World Tables

Robert C. Feenstra, Alan Heston, Marcel P. Timmer, Haiyan Deng

In this paper we propose a new approach to international comparisons of real GDP measured from the output-side. The traditional Geary-Khamis system to measure real GDP from the expenditure-side is...

World Trade Flows: 1962-2000

Robert C. Feenstra, Robert E. Lipsey, Haiyan Deng, Alyson C. Ma, Hengyong Mo

We document a set of bilateral trade data by commodity for 1962-2000, which is available from www.nber.org/data (International Trade Data, NBER-UN world trade data). Users must agree not to resell or...

Imputation and Price Indexes: Theory and Evidence from the International Price Program

Robert C. Feenstra, Erwin W. Diewert

The goal of this paper is to theoretically and empirically demonstrate the consequences of different imputation methods, using recent data from the International Price Program. We suppose that prices...

PROTECTIONIST THREATS AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Bruce A. Blonigen, Robert C. Feenstra

The recent literature on quid pro quo foreign direct investment (FDI) suggests that FDI may be induced by the threat of protection, and further, that FDI may be used as an instrument to defuse a...

GROUPS AND TRADE IN EAST ASIA: PART 1, NETWORKED EQUILIBRIA.

Robert C. Feenstra, Deng-Shing Huang, Gary Hamilton

We propose an economic model of business groups that allows for the cooperative behavior of groups of firms, where the number and size of each group is determined endogenously. In this framework,...

BUSINESS GROUPS AND TRADE IN EAST ASIA: PART 2, PRODUCT VARIETY

Robert C. Feenstra, Tzu-Han Yang, Gary G. Hamilton

We analyze the impact of market structure on the trade performance of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Korea has many large, vertically-integrated business groups known as chaebol, whereas business...

PUTTING THINGS IN ORDER: PATTERNS OF TRADE DYNAMICS AND GROWTH

Robert C. Feenstra, Andrew K. Rose

We develop a procedure to rank-order countries and commodities using dis-aggregated American imports data. We find strong evidence that both countries and commodities can be ranked, consistent with...

TESTING ENDOGENOUS GROWTH IN SOUTH KOREA AND TAIWAN

Robert C. Feenstra, ...

This paper contributes to a theory of rational choice under uncertainty for decision-makers whose preferences are exhaustively described by partial orders representing "limited information."...

PRODUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT AND THE IMPACT OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY ON WAGES: ESTIMATES FOR THE U.S., 1972-1990

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

We develop an empirical framework to assess the importance of trade and technical change on the wages of production and nonproduction workers. Trade is measured by the foreign outsourcing of...

THE U.S.-CHINA BILATERAL TRADE BALANCE: IT'S SIZE AND DETERMINANTS

Robert C. Feenstra, Wen Hai, Wing T. Woo, Shunli Yao

This paper has two aims. The first is to reduce the range within which the true U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit lies. The second is to identify the determinants of the bilateral trade deficit, and...

OFFSHORE ASSEMBLY FROM THE UNITED STATES: PRODUCTION CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 9802 PROGRAM

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson, Deborah L. Swenson

We study outsourcing from the United States under the offshore assembly program (OAP). Formerly called the 806/807 provision of the U.S. tariff code, and now renamed the 9802 provision of the...

Chaebol and Catastrophe: A New View of the Korean Business Groups and Their Role in the Financial Crisis

Robert C. Feenstra, Gary G. Hamilton, Eun Mie Lim

We present a model of industrial organization that has multiple stable equilibria and argue that the high-concentration equilibrium describes Korea's economy and the low-concentration equilibrium...

Contractual Versus Generic Outsourcing: The Role of Proximity

Robert C. Feenstra, Barbara J. Spencer

We explore the relationship between proximity of buyers and sellers and the organizational form of outsourcing. Outsourcing can be "contractual" in which suppliers undertake specific investments or...

Estimating real production and expenditures across nations : a proposal for improving the Penn World Tables

Feenstra, Robert C., Heston, Alan, Timmer, Marcel P., Deng, Haiyan

From its inception, the Penn World Tables (PWT), building on the International Comparisons Program (ICP) of the United Nations, has sought to compare the standard of living of individuals in...

Negotiated Trade Restrictions with Private Political Pressure

Robert C. Feenstra, Tracy R. Lewis

In this paper we consider a home government with political pressure to restrict trade, at the expense of foreigners. The foreign country is compensated with an income transfer, which can be thought...

Quality Upgrading and its Welfare Cost in U.S. Steel Imports, 1969-74

Randi Boorstein, Robert C. Feenstra

In this paper we measure the quality change which has occurred in U.S. steel imports during the 1969-74 VRA, using an index number method. Under this approach, the yearly changes in unit values is...

Symmetric Pass-Through of Tariffs and Exchange Rates Under Imperfect Competition: An Empirical Test

Robert C. Feenstra

This paper examines the effect of tariffs and exchange rates on U.S. prices of Japanese cars, trucks and motorcycles. In particular, we test whether the long run pass-through of tariffs and exchange...

Auctioning U.S. Import Quotas, Foreign Response, and Alternative Policies

Robert C. Feenstra

In this paper we quantify the potential revenue available to the U.S. from auctioning import quotas, and the resulting drop in foreign producer surplus relative to free trade. Previous estimates of...

Trade and Uneven Growth

Robert C. Feenstra

We consider trade between two countries of unequal size, where the creation of new intermediate inputs occurs in both. We assume that the knowledge gained from R&D in one country does not spillover...

Designing Policies to Open Trade

Robert C. Feenstra, Tracy R. Lewis, John McMillan

In this paper we consider recent proposals to auction U.S. import quotas. using the funds so obtained to encourage relocation out of the protected industries. We argue that the information available...

Should Exact Index Numbers Have Standard Errors? Theory and Application to Asian Growth

Robert C. Feenstra, Marshall B. Reinsdorf

In this paper we derive the standard error of a price index when both prices and tastes or technology are treated as stochastic. Changing tastes or technology are a reason for the weights in the...

Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy.

Feenstra, Robert C

The last few decades have seen a spectacular integration of the global economy through trade. The rising integration of world markets has brought with it a disintegration of the production process,...

Accounting for Growth with New Inputs.

Feenstra, Robert C, Markusen, James R

This paper examines the aggregate production function in an economy characterized by the creation of new, intermediate inputs. The authors show how growth can be decomposed into changes in higher...

Intermediaries in Entrepot Trade: Hong Kong Re-Exports of Chinese Goods

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

In this paper, we examine Hong Kong's role in intermediating trade between China and the rest of the world. Hong Kong traders distribute a large fraction of China's exports. Net of customs,...

Incentive Compatible Trade Policies.

Feenstra, Robert C

A two-country trade model with production uncertainty is considered. If complete contingent markets do not exist, it is desirable for governments to adopt some trade policies to share the production...

Trade Liberalisation and Export Variety: A Comparison of Mexico and China

Robert C. Feenstra, Hiau Looi Kee

This paper studies how industry export variety can be constructed and empirically relates trade liberalisation to the expansion of export variety. We document the expansion in export varieties from...

Border Effects and the Gravity Equation: Consistent Methods for Estimation.

Feenstra, Robert C

The CES monopolistic competition model is an especially convenient way to derive the gravity equation, especially when we allow for transport costs and other trade barriers. In that case, we need to...

Globalization and Its Impact on Labour

Robert C. Feenstra

This is the text of Professor Robert Feenstra's 'Global Economy Lecture' which he delivered in February 2007. It is part of a lecture series organized jointly by the Vienna Institute for...

Using the gravity equation to differentiate among alternative theories of trade

Robert C. Feenstra, James R. Markusen, Andrew K. Rose

The simple gravity equation explains a great deal about the data on bilateral trade flows and is consistent with several theoretical models of trade. We argue that alternative theories nevertheless...

Estimating Markups and Market Conduct with Multidimensional Product Attributes.

Feenstra, Robert C, Levinsohn, James A

The authors demonstrate how to estimate a model of oligopoly pricing when products are multidimensionally differentiated. They provide an empirical counterpart to recent theoretical work on product...

New Product Varieties and the Measurement of International Prices.

Feenstra, Robert C

The high income elasticity of demand often estimated for U.S. imports may be a spurious result of omitting new product varieties from the import price indexes. The purpose of this paper is to...

The Impact Of Outsourcing And High-Technology Capital On Wages: Estimates For The United States, 1979-1990

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

We estimate the relative influence of trade versus technology on wages in a "large-country" setting, where technological change affects product prices. Trade is measured by the foreign outsourcing of...

Ownership and Control in Outsourcing to China: Estimating the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

We develop a simple model of international outsourcing and apply it to processing trade in China. Export processing involves a foreign firm contracting with a Chinese factory manager to assemble...

Negotiated Trade Restrictions with Private Political Pressure.

Feenstra, Robert C, Lewis, Tracy R

The authors consider a home government with political pressure to restrict trade. The foreign country is compensated with a portion of the tariff revenues or quota rents, but cannot directly observe...

Quality Change under Trade Restraints in Japanese Autos.

Feenstra, Robert C

In this paper, the author investigates the quality change in Japanese car and truck imports over 1979-85. Car im ports have been subject to a quota restraint since April 1981, while compact trucks...

Putting Things In Order: Trade Dynamics And Product Cycles

Robert C. Feenstra, Andrew K. Rose

We develop a procedure to rank-order objects using censored panel data sets. We illustrate this by ranking countries and commodities using disaggregated American import data and find evidence that...

Exact Hedonic Price Indexes.

Feenstra, Robert C

Using the marginal value of characteristics, the author shows how to construct bounds on the exact hedonic price index. When prices are above marginal costs, then his bounds still apply but the value...

New Evidence on the Gains from Trade

Robert C. Feenstra

Tariffs, elasticity of substitution, monopolistic competition, increasing returns to scale,

Varieties of Hierarchies and Markets: An Introduction.

Hamilton, Gary G, Feenstra, Robert C

The paper presents both a theoretical and an empirical argument that the concept of hierarchy needs to be reconceptualized. In our theoretical discussion we develop a synthesis between Coase's and...

Incentive Compatible Trade Policies

Robert C. Feenstra

We consider a two country trade model with production uncertainty. If complete contingent markets do not exist, it is desirable for governments to adopt some trade policies to share the production...

Gains from Trade in Differentiated Products: Japanese Compact Trucks

Robert C. Feenstra

We present a methodology for estimating the welfare gains from a product with new characteristics, and apply it to Japanese and American compact trucks. Our approach can be used on any products for...

Distance, Demand, and Oligopoly Pricing

Robert C. Feenstra, James A. Levinsohn

We demonstrate how to estimate a model of product demand and oligopoly pricing when products are multi-dimensionally differentiated. We provide an empirical counterpart to recent theoretical work on...

Exchange Rate Volatility and International Prices

Robert C. Feenstra, Jon D. Kendall

We examine how exchange rate volatility affects exporter's pricing decisions in the presence of optimal forward covering. By taking account of forward covering, we are able to derive an expression...

Trade Adjustment Assistance and Pareto Gains From Trade

Robert C. Feenstra, Tracy R. Lewis

In a model where all factors of production are imperfectly mobile, we argue that the Dixit-Norman scheme of commodity taxes may not lead to strict Pareto gains from trade. Rather, this scheme must be...

Accounting for Growth With New Inputs

Robert C. Feenstra, James R. Markusen

In this paper we examine how to account for growth when new inputs are being created. In particular, we obtain a decomposition of growth into that due to a higher quantity of existing inputs, and...

Market Share and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in World Automobile Trade

Robert C. Feenstra, Joseph E. Gagnon, Michael M. Knetter

This paper explores the relationship between exchange rate pass-through and market share for monopolistically competitive exporters. Under fairly general assumptions we show that pass-through should...

Measuring the Welfare Effect of Quality Change: Theory and Application of Japanese Autos

Robert C. Feenstra

The purpose of this paper is to identify conditions under which hedonic price indexes provide an exact measure of consumer welfare, so that the welfare effects of quality change can be inferred. Our...

Market Structure and International Trade: Business Groups in East Asia

Robert C. Feenstra, Tzu-Han Yang, Gary G. Hamilton

In this paper we study the effect of market structure on the trade performance of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. We center our analysis on Korea and Taiwan, countries which have very different...

Bias in U.S. Import Prices and Demand

Robert C. Feenstra, Clinton R. Shiells

The purpose of the paper is to measure the potential bias in the U.S. import price index due to the appearance of new product varieties, or new foreign suppliers, and determine the effect of this...

Passthrough of Exchange Rates and Purchasing Power Parity

Robert C. Feenstra, Jon D. Kendall

In this paper we develop and test two hypotheses about purchasing power parity (PPP) derived from the pricing behavior of profit- maximizing, exporting firms. The first is that changes in the price...

New Goods and Index Numbers: U.S. Import Prices

Robert C. Feenstra

Researchers constructing index number frequently face the problem of new (or disappearing) goods, for which the price and quantity are not available in some periods. In theory, the correct way to...

Estimating the Effects of Trade Policy

Robert C. Feenstra

This paper reviews empirical methods used to estimate the impact of trade policies under imperfect competition. We decompose the welfare effects of trade policy into four possible channels: (i) a...

Exact Hedonic Price Indexes

Robert C. Feenstra

The purpose of this paper is to identify conditions under which hedonic price indexes provide an exact measure of consumer welfare. Our results provide a rationale for existing practices in the case...

Foreign Investment, Outsourcing and Relative Wages

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

In this paper we examine the reduction in the relative employment and wages of unskilled workers in the U.S. during the 1980's. We argue that a contributing factor to this decline was rising imports...

Foreign Direct Investment and Relative Wages: Evidence from Mexico's Maquiladoras

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

In this paper, we examine the increase in the relative wages of skilled workers in Mexico during the 1980s. We argue that rising wage inequality in Mexico is linked to capital inflows from abroad....

Globalization, Outsourcing, and Wage Inequality

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

There is considerable debate over whether international trade has contributed to the declining economic fortunes of less skilled workers. One issue that has become lost in the current discussion is...

Protectionist Threats and Foreign Direct Investment

Bruce A. Blonigen, Robert C. Feenstra

The recent literature on quid pro quo foreign direct investment (FDI) suggests that FDI may be induced by the threat of protection, and further, that FDI may be used as an instrument to defuse a...

U.S. Imports, 1972-1994: Data and Concordances

Robert C. Feenstra

This paper describes data on U.S. imports from 1972-1994, classified according to the Tariff Schedule of the U.S. Annotated (TSUSA), Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade...

Business Groups and Trade in East Asia: Part 1, Networked Equilibria

Robert C. Feenstra, Deng-Shing Huang, Gary G. Hamilton

We propose an economic model of business groups that allows for the cooperative behavior of groups of firms, where the number and size of each group is determined endogenously. In this framework,...

Business Groups and Trade in East Asia: Part 2, Product Variety

Robert C. Feenstra, Maria Yang, Gary G. Hamilton

We analyze the impact of market structure on the trade performance of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Korea has many large, vertically-integrated business groups known as chaebol, whereas business...

World Trade Flows, 1970-1992, with Production and Tariff Data

Robert C. Feenstra, Robert E. Lipsey, Harry P. Bowen

This paper describes two databases dealing with world bilateral trade flows: the World Trade Database (WTDB) assembled by Statistics Canada, which contains bilateral trade flows for all countries...

Putting Things in Order: Patterns of Trade Dynamics and Growth

Robert C. Feenstra, Andrew K. Rose

We develop a procedure to rank-order countries and commodities using dis-aggregated American imports data. We find strong evidence that both countries and commodities can be ranked, consistent with...

U.S. Exports, 1972-1994: With State Exports and Other U.S. Data

Robert C. Feenstra

This paper describes data on U.S. exports from 1972-1994, classified according to the Schedule B' system, Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade Classification (SITC, Revisions 2 and...

Testing Endogenous Growth in South Korea and Taiwan

Robert C. Feenstra, Dorsati Madani, Tzu-Han Yang, Chi-Yuan Liang

We evaluate the endogenous growth hypothesis using sectoral data for South Korea and Taiwan. Our empirical work relies on a direct measure of the variety of products from each sector which can serve...

Prouctivity Measurement and the Impact of Trade and Technology on Wages: Estimates for the U.S., 1972-1990

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

We develop an empirical framework to assess the importance of trade and technical change on the wages of production and nonproduction workers. Trade is measured by the foreign outsourcing of...

Staggered Price Setting and Endogenous Persistence

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

This paper generates persistent effects of a monetary disturbance in the context of staggered price-setters. Previous research has been restricted by the CES functional form to price-setting rules...

The US-China Bilateral Trade Balance: Its Size and Determinants

Robert C. Feenstra, Wen Hai, Wing T. Woo, Shunli Yao

This paper has two aims. The first is to reduce the range within which the true U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit lies. The second is to identify the determinants of the bilateral trade deficit and...

Undertstanding the Home Market Effect and the Gravity Equation: The Role of Differentiating Goods

Robert C. Feenstra, James A. Markusen, Andrew K. Rose

This paper argues that the theoretical foundations for the gravity equation are general, while the empirical performance of the gravity equation is specific to the type of goods examined. Most...

Pricing to Market, Staggered Contracts, and Real Exchange Rate Persistence

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

This paper offers an explanation for the persistence observed in real exchange rate movements. The model combines pricing to market behavior with sticky prices generated by staggered contracts. A...

Trade and Foreign Direct Investment in China: A Political Economy Approach

Lee G. Branstetter, Robert C. Feenstra

We view the political process in China as trading off the social benefits of increased trade and foreign direct investment, against the losses incurred by state-owned enterprises due to such...

Intermediaries in Entrepot Trade: Hong Kong Re-Exports of Chinese Goods

Gordon H. Hanson, Robert C. Feenstra

In this paper, we examine Hong Kong's role in intermediating trade between China and the rest of the world. Hong Kong distributes a large fraction of China's exports. Net of customs, insurance, and...

High-Frequency Substitution and the Measurement of Price Indexes

Robert C. Feenstra, Matthew D. Shapiro

This paper investigates the use of high-frequency scanner data to construct price indexes. In the presence of inventory behavior, purchases and consumption by individuals differ over time....

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson, Songhua Lin

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China of having access to intermediary services provided by Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

U.S. Imports, Exports, and Tariff Data, 1989-2001

Robert C. Feenstra, John Romalis, Peter K. Schott

This paper describes the updating of the NBER trade dataset, which now provides U.S. import and export values to the year 2001, disaggregated by Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade...

Ownership and Control in Outsourcing to China: Estimating the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

In this paper, we develop a simple model of international outsourcing and apply it to processing trade in China. We observe China's processing exports broken down by who owns the plant and by who...

Outsourcing and Volatility

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

While outsourcing of production from the U.S. to Mexico has been hailed in Mexico as a valuable engine of growth, recently there have been misgivings regarding its fickleness and volatility. This...

China's Exports and Employment

Robert C. Feenstra, Chang Hong

Dooley et al (2003, 2004a,b,c) argue that China seeks to raise urban employment by 10-12 million persons per year, with about 30% of that coming from export growth. In fact, total employment...

Pass-through of Exchange Rates and Competition Between Floaters and Fixers

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra

This paper studies how a rise in China's share of U.S. imports could lower pass-through of exchange rates to U.S. import prices. We develop a theoretical model with variable markups showing that the...

Empirical Methods for International Trade

Robert C. Feenstra

A wide range of empirical studies is applied to various countries in this important collection. Bringing together the most recent work in econometrics applied to international trade, main sections of...

Buyer investment, export variety, and intrafirm trade

Chen, Yongmin, Feenstra, Robert C.

This paper studies a model of buyer investment and its effect on the variety and vertical structure of international trade. A distinction is made between two types of buyer investment: "Flexible" and...

Pass-Through of Exchange Rates and Competition between Floaters and Fixers

PAUL R. BERGIN, ROBERT C. FEENSTRA

This paper studies how a rise in the share of U.S. imports from China, or any country with a fixed exchange rate, can explain a disproportionate fall in exchange rate pass-through to U.S. import...

Estimating Real Production and Expenditures across Nations: A Proposal for Improving the Penn World Tables

Robert C Feenstra, Alan Heston, Marcel P Timmer, Haiyan Deng

We propose a new approach to the international comparison of real GDP, as measured from the output-side. The traditional Gary-Khamis system, which measures real GDP from the expenditure-side, is...

Introduction to “China’s Growing Role in World Tradeâ€

Robert C. Feenstra, Shang-Jin Wei

Over the last three decades, the value of Chinese trade has approximately doubled every four years. This rapid growth has transformed the country from a negligible player in world trade to the...

Paul R. Krugman, Recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics: An Appreciation

Robert C. Feenstra

Paul Krugman has become one of the most influential economists of our time. Here we offer a leading trade economist's appreciation of the academic work that won him his Nobel Prize and that is...

Estimating Real Production and Expenditures Across Nations: A Proposal for Improving the Penn World Tables

Feenstra, Robert C., Heston, Alan, Timmer, Marcel P., Deng, Haiyan

In this paper we propose a new approach to the international comparison of real GDP, as measured from the output-side. The traditional Gary-Khamis system, which measures real GDP from the...

Essays in International Economic Theory, Volume 2: International Factor Mobility

Jagdish Bhagwati, Robert C. Feenstra

These two volumes contain seventy essays chosen largely for the originality of their contributions. The first volume contains several classic papers. Among them are the many contributions to the...

Essays in International Economic Theory, Volume 1: The Theory of Commercial Policy

Jagdish Bhagwati, Robert C. Feenstra

These two volumes contain seventy essays chosen largely for the originality of their contributions. The first volume contains several classic papers. Among them are the many contributions to the...

The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Papers in Honor of Jagdish Bhagwati

Robert C. Feenstra, Gene M. Grossman, Douglas A. Irwin

This collection of papers by former students and colleagues celebrates the profound impact that Jagdish Bhagwati has had on the field of international economics over the past three decades. Bhagwati,...

CONSISTENT COMPARISONS OF REAL INCOMES ACROSS TIME AND SPACE

Feenstra, Robert C., Ma, Hong, Rao, D. S. Prasada

Consistent real income comparisons over time and space are critical for studies on catch-up and convergence. The paper provides an analytical framework for making real income comparisons across...

The Value of Information in International Trade: Gains to Outsourcing through Hong Kong

Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson, Songhua Lin

In this paper, we estimate the benefits to countries that purchase goods from China by having access to intermediary services provided in Hong Kong. Traders in Hong Kong supply information on markets...

Offshoring and Volatility: Evidence from Mexico's Maquiladora Industry

Paul R. Bergin, Robert C. Feenstra, Gordon H. Hanson

This paper studies the second-moment properties of offshoring, the arrangement whereby firms carry out particular stages of production abroad. It documents a new empirical regularity: maquiladora...