Essays on production networks and international trade

Beltekian, Diana (2023) Essays on production networks and international trade. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Network analysis offers a rich framework to study questions of international trade. Trade has natural network applications with firms, sectors, and countries connected to buyers and suppliers through their sales within and across borders. Its applications have also been used to study financial, social, and transport networks within the economic discipline to deliver new insights. I apply network tools of analysis to address questions on the impact of network structure on future export competitiveness following a negative trade shock; and develop an endogenous production network model to quantify the bias of abstracting from the reorganisation of trade linkages that is assumed in a standard fixed production network model.

In Chapter 1, I introduce the types of network models, both microfounded and non-microfounded, with their international trade applications. Microfounded models are useful to understand producer-level decision-making and how these decisions are then reflected in the prevailing structure of the production network. Non-microfounded models focus on explaining aggregate trade patterns, either through pre-specified functional form assumptions, or stochastic algorithms, to match the model to the data and recover stylized facts documented in the empirical literature.

In Chapter 2, I document a set of stylized facts about the global production network and ask how network structure affects countries' future comparative advantage. I study whether a more interconnected sector when facing a negative trade shock, finds its connections have an amplifying or insuring effect on its future export competitiveness. Using the 2008 Financial Crisis as the negative final demand shock, I find my results support the insurance hypothesis, whereby being well-connected reduces the decline in future export competitiveness relative to more peripheral sectors.

In Chapter 3, I develop a general equilibrium trade network model, exploiting data on the 2018 US-China trade war to study the impact of import tariffs on inter-firm links in supply chains and GDP losses. I find failing to account for the reorganisation of trade linkages leads to a 60% overestimation of GDP losses. In Chapter 1 and 2, I introduce the types of network models, and the relative effects of a trade shock, respectively, in Chapter 3, I work with a general equilibrium model to comment on the aggregate effects of a trade shock.

Item Type: Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors: Albornoz-Crespo, Facundo
Spencer, Adam H.
Keywords: Production networks, international trade, input-output linkages
Subjects: H Social sciences > HF Commerce
Faculties/Schools: UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > School of Economics
Item ID: 74046
Depositing User: Beltekian, Diana
Date Deposited: 28 Jul 2023 07:29
Last Modified: 28 Jul 2023 07:29
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/74046

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