Rosenow, Samuel (2025). Essays on international trade. (Thesis). Universität Bern, Bern
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Abstract
This dissertation comprises three empirical essays on international trade. Chapter One investigates how countries transition into non-traditional exports, a key driver of economic development. This study uses cross-country export data from 1990 to 2010 to examine how different Marshallian linkages—technology, labor, suppliers, and customers—affect the take-off and acceleration of export industries across sectors. The findings reveal that countries primarily diversify into technologically-related products, with developing nations expanding upstream rather than through downstream processing. This challenges the idea that developing countries should diversify by adding value to their raw materials. Instead, it supports Albert Hirschman’s 60-year-old theory that upstream linkages are the key drivers behind the development of new competitive industries in the developing world. Chapter Two examines how trade regulations shape firm-level export decisions in international markets. The analysis quantifies the effects of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on Colombian firms exporting to Latin America from 2007-2017. Panel evidence from a firm-level gravity model with difference-in-differences shows technical barriers to trade (TBT) and quantity control measures reduce trade overall, while other NTMs and tariffs have minimal impact. TBT measures shift trade from small to large firms and benefit global value chain participants. Conversely, quantity controls drive large firms from export markets, benefiting smaller ones. The results highlight that NTMs are more trade-restrictive than tariffs and that large firms benefit from protectionism, not globalization. Chapter Three examines how trade policy shapes firm-level import decisions to source green technologies that are critical to mitigating climate change. Using firm-level import data from 35 emerging markets in a structural gravity model, this study analyzes how tariffs and trade regulations affect firms’ imports of products associated with the green value chains of solar photovoltaic, wind power and electric vehicles. The panel estimates indicate that firms’ import response to tariffs is particularly adverse for products associated with green value chains relative to average imports, driven by the solar value chain and downstream segments across all green value chains. Tariffs undermine not only the dollar value of firms’ imports but also whether they import at all. Moreover, the effect is even more negative for undiversified firms. In contrast, trade regulations have a smaller and more varied impact on firms’ imports of products associated with green value chains. The findings suggest that governments in emerging markets should avoid adopting protectionist policies that are increasingly used in high-income countries, as their local firms rely on imports for the short-term diffusion of green technologies.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
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| Dissertation Type: | Cumulative |
| Date of Defense: | 3 April 2025 |
| Subjects: | 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 380 Commerce, communications & transportation |
| Institute / Center: | 02 Faculty of Law > Department of Economic Law > World Trade Institute 10 Strategic Research Centers > World Trade Institute 03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Hammer Igor |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Apr 2025 13:43 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Apr 2025 13:43 |
| URI: | https://boristheses.unibe.ch/id/eprint/6064 |
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