Extra Exports Research Articles

International trade and air pollution damages in the United States

This paper investigates the health and economic consequences of trade due to various air pollutants embodied in exports and imports. We compare the US emissions generated for US exports and those that were avoided by importing. An input–output framework of the US economy is employed together with a comprehensive database on damages (expressed in monetary terms) generated by pollutants, as estimated by Muller et al. (2011). We find that damages associated with international trade in 2002 were considerable. The net result is that damages were avoided through trade and that these avoided damages amounted to 2.7% of the US trade deficit and 3.4% of the US value-added associated with trade. Moreover, the computed “damage to value-added ratios” differed greatly across industries. Exports in some industries are so hazardous that more than half of the value-added gained from extra exports disappeared due to environmental damages. These findings imply that the US might benefit more from trade by increasing its exports more in low damage-intensive products than in high damage-intensive products.

Trade openness and the changing water polluting intensity patterns of ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ industrial sectors

This study analyzes the economic activity–BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) relationships of the so-called ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ water polluting industries, during the period of 1995–2005. The results indicate that the economic activity–environment trade-off of ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ industrial sectors has been altered during the period of study. On average, pollution-intensive ‘dirty’ industries in the poorer nations were found to benefit – in terms of BOD emissions – from extra exports and openness to trade. The opposite was true for ‘clean’ sectors where increased trade openness seems to have contributed to a wider gap between poorer and richer nations' pollution intensities. With openness to trade skewing innovations away from the ‘clean’ industries – industrial sectors in which the poorer countries specialize – the classical model of opening the economy and lifting barriers to technology adoption will not be enough to improve the poorer nations' water quality. Policies that induce innovation by reducing the cost and increasing the return on innovation, particularly on R&D activities in which the poorer countries have a comparative advantage, will be necessary in order to improve their economic activity–environment relationship.

Dissolved Organic Carbon Export from Harvested Peatland Forests with Differing Site Characteristics

Calibration period and control area method were used to study the impact of forest tree harvesting on the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export from drained peatland forests using data from 17 harvested and five control catchments. The results indicated highly increased DOC exports; during the first 3 years following harvesting, the average extra export ranged from over 200 kg ha−1 in nutrient-poor ombrotrophic to over 400 kg ha−1 in fertile minerotrophic peatland forest sites. The results indicated that a high iron (Fe) content in peat, as well as a high nitrogen (N) content and a low carbon (C)N ratio, are the site characteristics that contribute to large harvest-induced DOC exports. The effect of Fe is probably caused by the reduction of Fe in previously aerobic peat layers that have undergone harvest-induced water level rise and thus enhanced the DOC export, and the effects of the peat N and CN ratio indicate that the impacts of harvesting on DOC are the greatest from the sites with a high overall microbial activity. The calibration period/control area analysis revealed a high uncertainty in our data, the 95 % confidence intervals for average DOC exports overlapping between the groups with differing site characteristics. Given the uncertainties involved in our data, we conclude that significant changes in water colour and other water characteristics associated with large DOC inputs may be expected, where harvested forests on peatlands cover large proportions of catchments of small lakes and rivers.

Evolution and fluxes of 137Cs in the Black Sea/Turkish Straits System/North Aegean Sea

The vertical profiles of 137Cs were determined in the North Aegean, Marmara and Black Seas, to assess inventories and fluxes of the radionuclide in these basins. The inventory of 137Cs in the Western Black Sea integrated from the surface down to 400m water depth is 3.4±0.1kBqm−2, which is surprisingly close to the amount determined in 1988, decay corrected to 2007 (2.9±0.1kBqm−2). On the other hand, based on the comparison of profiles roughly 20years apart, it is estimated that about 1kBqm−2 has been transferred from above the halocline to depths below the halocline, emphasizing the effective redistribution of tracers within the same period.We estimate that about 12TBqy−1 of 137Cs presently leaves the Black Sea with the upper layer flow through the Bosphorus and only 2TBqy−1 is returned with the lower layer inflow of Mediterranean water from the Marmara Sea. Accounting for river fluxes, estimated on the order of 2TBqy−1 few years after the Chernobyl accident, and possibly decreased by now, we can thus estimate a net rate of loss of about 8–10TBqy−1.Investigating the effective redistribution in the upper water column, the supply by the inflowing Mediterranean water alone does not explain the increase of 137Cs concentration and inventory at intermediate depths in the Western Black Sea. The most important mechanism transferring 137Cs and dissolved contaminants from the surface water to the sub-pycnocline layer appears to be the turbulent entrainment of a larger quantity of Black Sea water into the inflowing plume of Mediterranean water through mixing processes on the southwestern shelf and continental slope following its exit from the Bosphorus. This process produces an extra export of some10TBqy−1 of 137Cs from the surface to the sub-pycnocline depths of the Black Sea, a quantity comparable in magnitude to the total export out from the basin. It is the entrainment flux resulting from the mixing, and the further advection and penetration of this water into the Black Sea deeper layer (200–600m) that seems to maintain the inventory with little change over time. Through these two processes the Black Sea surface layer (0–50m) loses every year about 4% of its total inventory of 137Cs.

Positive OCA Criteria: Microfundations for the Rose Effect

Since (2000), many scholars have found empirical evidence linking trade to exchange rate volatility and currency unions. Our paper takes a first step toward providing theoretical underpinnings for this Rose In our Melitz-like trade model, reduced volatility boosts trade by inducing existing exporters to export more and by inducing more firms to begin exporting. Specifically, volatility is a greater hindrance to export for small firms, so reduced volatility especially promotes small firms' exports. Because most firms are small, the extra exports induced by a marginal reduction in volatility may increase as the level of volatility falls - a result that can account for the convexity of the trade-volatility link implied by the effect. We derive and test three new empirical hypothesis generated by our model. We find some support for two of them using data on Eurozone aggregate bilateral trade, but have insufficient data to test the third in a convincing manner.

Has the Impact of Key Determinants of German Exports Changed? Results from Estimations of Germany's Intra Euro-Area and Extra Euro-Area Exports

The question as to whether changes in the external environment may have caused the importance of key determinants of German exports to shift since the 1990s is addressed by estimating Germany's exports to EMU partner countries (intra exports) and to countries outside the euro area (extra exports). Analytically, this is done first by estimating single-equation error correction models across different samples. Second, an estimation applying the Saikkonen (1991) approach is carried out to test whether the long-run export behaviour of intra and extra exports has changed since the 1990s. Finally, simulations are conducted by means of error-correction models in order to reconstruct the adjustment process of both intra and extra exports following demand and price shocks.

Foreign Investment and Economic Change in China

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China is the most dramatic manifestation of China's open-door policy. Together with continuous import and export expansion, FDI has increasingly exposed the Chinese economy to the western world during the past decade. There are, however, several differences between FDI and foreign trade in terms of their implications for the domestic economy. The most obvious is that FDI directly helps to relieve domestic capital supply bottlenecks and to promote employment and economic growth. By contrast, increased capital formation through imports of machinery and equipment must be financed by extra export earnings.

The distribution of nitrate reductase in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) leaves as affected by age

The distribution of nitrate reductase (NR, EC 1.6.6.1.) in the leaves of single‐stem tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., cv. Vandenbergs Moneydor) was studied using an in vitro test. The activity decreased from young to old leaves. However, a low value (NR minimum) occurred in some leaves below the apex, usually in the almost completely expanded leaves, provided that the plants received sufficient nitrate to induce optimum NR activity in all the leaves. When insufficient nitrate was available there was NR in the young leaves only. The observed NR minimum coincided with a low value for soluble carbohydrates and amino acids. Since there was no extra export of labelled carbon from the leaves with the NR minimum, it is suggested that in the almost completely expanded leaves carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis are mainly used for the production of polysaccharides for new cell walls. Consequently, less are left for the production of keto acids, which can act as acceptors for reduced nitrogen. Therefore, less amino acids are produced, and this may result in a lowered protein synthesis, including a lowered synthesis of nitrate reductase.

Country size and trade concentration

The paper attempts to provide some evidence on the nature of the relationship between country size and commodity and geographic concentration in trade, and on the effects of economic development and dependence on trade on this relationship. It suggests that the inverse relationship between country size and trade concentration is not as strong as a priori reasoning suggests; that there is no association between export concentration and economic development, nor between export concentration and dependence on trade; and that neither the dependence on trade of small countries should lead to extra export concentration, nor their export concentration should mean an impediment to economic development.

A Linear Programming Approach to Designing an Optimum Tax Package

This paper describes the application of linear programming to the problem of designing an optimum tax package to make the 1967 British devaluation work. The objective was to show how to release sufficient domestic resources so as to meet the extra exports demanded as a result of devaluation. It is important to realize that what matters is not the total amount of resources taken from the consumers, but the matching of these resources with the exportable goods demanded overseas. If this matching is not obtained, the tax policy may only cut down domestic production and employment without solving the balance-of-payments problem. The linear programming technique proved useful in tackling this problem of matching of demand and supply in particular directions. The particular tax package derived is heavy on those goods which have good export potential and/or high import content, and it avoids imposing taxes which will reduce domestic consumption without helping the balance of payments.