研討日期

2003531日上午10:00 ~ 下午1:00

研討地點

台大經濟系201教室

討論文獻

題目

作者

文獻出處

Trade Liberalization and strategic Outsourcing

Yongmin Chen; Lota Ishikawa; Zhihao Yu

Journal of International Economics, forthcoming

報告人

施冠宇

參加人員

胡均立、邱俊榮、林燕淑、楊雅博、吳世傑、王光正、吳芝文、劉惠玲、施冠宇、廖峻毅、張筑雅、陳玉晏、蔡明芳、柯美如、黃祥斌

討論提要

This paper develops a model of strategic outsourcing. With trade liberalization in the intermediate-product market, a domestic firm may choose to purchase a key intermediate good from a more efficient foreign producer, who also competes with the domestic firm for a final good. This has a strategic effect on competition. Unlike the outsourcing motivated by cost saving, the strategic outsourcing has a collusive effect that could raise the prices of both intermediate and final goods. Trade liberalization in the intermediate-good market could have a very different effect compared with trade liberalization in the final-good market.

結論

First, trade liberalization for the intermediate input would lead to strategic outsourcing. But when the strategic outsourcing occurs, the domestic firm may actually pay more (including the tariff) for the intermediate input than it would cost to produce the good domestically, resulting in higher prices for the final product.     Second, in contrast to the common view in the current literature, we show that in the outsourcing equilibrium, further trade liberalization in the intermediate input could raise the prices of   both the intermediate and final products. Third, the effects on the intermediate and final products of trade liberalization in the final-good market are very different from those in the intermediate-good market, depending on the demand characteristics of the final goods. For instance, when trade liberalization in the final good reduces consumer prices, trade liberalization in the intermediate good could have an opposite effect.

延伸研究

We may apply the framework of this paper to consider effective protection and optimal trade policies by governments in vertically related market.

備註

 吳世傑老師及王光正老師將就本文模型發展進一步的研究。