Economia Internacional: Novos aspectos

The Economist: "... Kei-Mu Yi, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, argues that trade has fallen so fast and so uniformly around the world largely because of the rise of “vertical specialisation”, or global supply chains. This contributed to trade’s rapid expansion in recent decades. Now it is adding to the rate of shrinkage. When David Ricardo argued in the early 19th century that comparative advantage was the basis of trade, he conceived of countries specialising in products, like wine or cloth. But Mr Yi points out that countries now specialise not so much in final products as in steps in the process of production. Trade grows much faster in a world with global sourcing than in a world of trade in finished goods because components and part-finished items have to cross borders several times. The trade figures are also boosted by the practice of measuring the gross value of imports and exports rather than their net value. For example, a tractor made in America would once have been made from American steel and parts; it would have touched the trade data only if it was exported. Now, it may contain steel from India, and be stamped and pressed in Mexico, before being sold abroad. As a result, changes in demand in one country now affect not just the domestic economy but also the trade flows and economies of several countries. This mechanism can be seen at work in recent data—for instance, says Mr Yi, in American automotive-trade figures for the last three months of 2008. Imports from everywhere fell by about 20%. On the export side, sales to America’s partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) fell by 20% whereas those to non-NAFTA countries rose slightly. This, he argues, is because three-quarters of exports to non-NAFTA countries consist of finished vehicles, whereas 60% of exports to NAFTA partners consist of parts and components, most of which return to the United States embodied in imported vehicles. So American exports to other NAFTA countries are to a large extent determined by America’s own demand for cars. By making trade flows more sensitive to falls in output, vertical specialisation may provide some insurance against widespread protectionism. Manufacturers that rely on imported inputs may resist higher tariffs because they push up the prices of those inputs, making domestic industry less competitive..." http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13362027