Abstract: What is the impact of terrorism on trade through higher security at the borders? The authors set up a theory which shows that the impact goes not only from terrorism to trade. Higher trade with a partner might, in turn, increase the probability of terrorism acts and make security measures more costly for total welfare. To identify the true impact of terrorism, their theory allows for a strategy to condition out the latter mechanism. The authors show in particular how past incidents perpetrated in third countries (anywhere in the world except the origin or targeted country) constitute good exogenous factors for current security measures at the borders. Their tests suggest that terrorist incidents have a small effect on U.S. imports on average, but a much higher effect for those origin countries at the top of the distribution of incidents. In addition, the level of the impact is up to three times higher when the acts result in a relatively high number of victims, the products are sensitive to shipping time, and the size of the partner is small. The authors further show how terrorism affects the number of business visas given by the United States, thereby affecting significantly U.S. imports in differentiated products. These results suggest that security to prevent terrorism does matter for trade.

Abstract: The authors offer a general analytical framework illustrating the complex two-way interactions between trade and transnational terrorism. Then they survey the recent economic literature in light of this framework by pointing to the importance in empirical studies of (1) controlling appropriately for theses interactions, (2) distinguishing between "source" countries and "target" countries of terrorism, and (3) taking into account the intertemporal persistence of terrorism between specific pairs of countries.

In this paper, we study the impact of transnational terrorism diffusion on security and trade. We set up a simple theoretical model predicting that the closer a country is to a source of terrorism, the higher the negative spillovers on its trade. The idea is that security measures, which impede trade, are directed both against the source country of terror and its neighbor countries where terrorism may diffuse. In contrast, we demonstrate that countries located far rom terror could benefit from an increase in security by trading more. Taken to the test, we empirically document these predictions. We find (1) a direct negative impact of transnational terrorism on trade; (2) an indirect negative impact emanating from terrorism of neighbor countries; and (3) that trade is increasing with remoteness to terror. These results are robust to various definitions of the neighboring relationships among countries.

How are rents from openness captured and shared among employers and employees located in different countries? In this paper, we derive a theoretical equation, based on rent sharing theories, linking industry wages to market shares held in different countries and then take it to the test. We construct a dataset that provides together trade, activity and labor related data for around 29 industries and 65 countries between 1981 and 1997. We find, for OECD countries, that an increase in sales on national markets or exports to other rich countries is associated with growth in wages in roughly one third to one half of the industries. Among developing countries however, the evidence is weaker. Such phenomenon of rent-sharing can be observed in Latin America and within Mediterranean countries but only when selling to their domestic market. Producers in these group of countries and Asia, appear however, to be unable to extract rents and redistribute them whenever they export to rich countries.

The authors offer a general analytical framework illustrating the complex two-way interactions between trade and transnational terrorism. Then they survey the recent economic literature in light of this framework by pointing to the importance in empirical studies of (1) controlling appropriately for theses interactions, (2) distinguishing between "source" countries and "target" countries of terrorism, and (3) taking into account the intertemporal persistence of terrorism between specific pairs of countries.

What is the impact of terrorism on trade through higher security at the borders? The authors set up a theory which shows that the impact goes not only from terrorism to trade. Higher trade with a partner might, in turn, increase the probability of terrorism acts and make security measures more costly for total welfare. To identify the true impact of terrorism, their theory allows for a strategy to condition out the latter mechanism. The authors show in particular how past incidents perpetrated in third countries (anywhere in the world except the origin or targeted country) constitute good exogenous factors for current security measures at the borders. Their tests suggest that terrorist incidents have a small effect on U.S. imports on average, but a much higher effect for those origin countries at the top of the distribution of incidents. In addition, the level of the impact is up to three times higher when the acts result in a relatively high number of victims, the products are sensitive to shipping time, and the size of the partner is small. The authors further show how terrorism affects the number of business visas given by the United States, thereby affecting significantly U.S. imports in differentiated products. These results suggest that security to prevent terrorism does matter for trade.

Recent economic geography and trade empirical studies based on monopolistic competition suggest high levels of trade price elasticities (between 3 and 11). However, price elasticity estimations in trade equations using unit values as price proxies usually lead to lower values of around unity. We show that those inconclusive results may be due to some misspecification in these equations as well as measurement errors in prices. When suitable instrumental variables are used, within a panel of industrialized countries, we obtain high price elasticities, the majority ranging from 1 to 13. The highest estimates correspond to industries producing homogeneous goods.

Dans cet article, nous construisons puis testons un modèle basé sur la théorie des négociations salariales permettant de lier les salaires sectoriels aux variables d'ouverture. L'équation théorique obtenue a trois caractéristiques principales : 1/ elle peut être aisément confrontée aux données ; 2/ elle introduit l'impact de variables d'importations et d'exportations dans une même équation estimable ; 3/ enfin, elle explicite le rôle de l'imperfection des structures de marchés des biens et du travail, et leur interaction, dans l'étude de l'impact du commerce sur les salaires. Nous trouvons que dans les pays de l'OCDE ainsi que dans ceux de la Méditerranée, et dans une moindre mesure en Amérique Latine, un accroissement des parts de marché sur le marché domestique et sur celui à l'exportation est associé à un accroissement des salaires dans près de la moitié des secteurs. En revanche, dans les pays d'Asie, ce phénomène ne semble pas être à l'œuvre.