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Services constitute a significant part of GDP and overall trade in modern economies, but little is known about the magnitude of its obstacles. Great effort has been made to establish measures of services trade frictions on the part of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. A customary way of using these measures is to employ them in log-linear regressions to gauge their effect on services trade flows. This may be problematic to the extent that these measures do not capture ad valorem (tariff type price increasing) trade costs. Hence, it is natural to believe that available services trade cost measures may have a nonlinear impact on services trade flows. The present paper documents that this is the case, using nonparametric estimates to quantify the direct impact of important trade cost measures captured by the Services Trade Restrictiveness Index of the OECD on cross-border services transaction costs and trade., The World Economy, 45 (3), ISSN:0378-5920, ISSN:1467-9701

This paper suggests a quantifiable multi-sector-multi-country economic model of goods and services production and consumption. It calibrates overall (variable and fixed) costs to market-specific sales by sector and decomposes these costs into observable and unobservable components. In an empirical analysis based on census-type data on firm-sector-country sales of German services sellers as well as sector-country-by-sector-country input-output matrices for various economies and sectors, the paper provides the following insights. The overall (variable and fixed) costs on seller-to-customer-market transactions in services have quite a high distance equivalent and are reduced substantially by preferential market access for services through trade agreements. If all countries considered abandoning existing preferential market access to services, this would reduce their real consumption by up to 7.7 percent with a similar decline in real wages and real dividends (depending on the country). If one country alone abandoned its preferential services market access reciprocally with its partners, the effect would be smaller. However, it would still involve a decline of real consumption of 0.3 percent for a country as large (and as remote relative to continental Europe) as the United Kingdom. For most economies, depending on their input-output structure, de-liberalizing preferential services-market access would have adverse spillover effects on manufacturing (in terms of real wages as well as dividends).

En el presente documento se utilizan microdatos detallados sobre las exportaciones de servicios a nivel de los servicios de destino de las empresas para analizar el papel de la heterogeneidad de las empresas en la configuración de las exportaciones agregadas de servicios en Bélgica, Francia, Alemania y España entre 2003 y 2007. Descomponemos el nivel y el crecimiento de las exportaciones agregadas de servicios en diferentes márgenes comerciales, prestando especial atención a la firme heterogeneidad dentro de los países. Encontramos que el débil crecimiento de las exportaciones de Francia se debe, al menos en parte, a los malos resultados de los pequeños exportadores. Por el contrario, los pequeños exportadores son los que más contribuyen a las exportaciones agregadas de Bélgica, Alemania y España. Nuestros resultados destacan la importancia de la heterogeneidad de las empresas para comprender el crecimiento agregado de las exportaciones This paper uses detailed micro data on service exports at the firm-destination-service level to analyse the role of firm heterogeneity in shaping aggregate service exports in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain from 2003 to 2007. We decompose the level and the growth of aggregate service exports into different trade margins paying special attention to firm heterogeneity within countries. We find that the weak export growth of France is at least partly due to poor performance by small exporters. By contrast, small exporters are the most dynamic contributors to the aggregate exports of Belgium, Germany and Spain. Our results highlight the importance of firm heterogeneity in understanding aggregate export growth

This paper uses detailed micro data on service exports at the firm-destination-service level to analyse the role of firm heterogeneity in shaping aggregate service exports in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain from 2003 to 2007. We decompose the level and the growth of aggregate service exports into different trade margins paying special attention to firm heterogeneity within countries. We find that the weak export growth of France is at least partly due to poor performance by small exporters. By contrast, small exporters are the most dynamic contributors to the aggregate exports of Belgium, Germany and Spain. Our results highlight the importance of firm heterogeneity in understanding aggregate export growth.

This paper provides an encompassing description of the various indicators compiled in the financial module of CompNet using balance sheet information of European firms. We investigate whether and to which extent the heterogeneous financial positions of firms have affected firms’ investment decisions, especially during the recent crisis. Our results confirm the relevance of leverage for investment, in addition to other common determinants, such as cash flow or sales growth. In particular, we find evidence that higher levels of indebtedness act as a drag on investment. We investigate cash holding policies and find significant differences across firm sizes and degrees of financial constraints. Furthermore, our data confirm the pro-cyclicality of firm profitability and its negative association with financial constraints. Finally, we exploit the richness of this new dataset to document the relationships between firms’ financial and financing conditions and their productivity.

Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets in 11 European countries, the paper presents a novel sectoral database of comparable productivity indicators built by members of the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet) using a newly developed research infrastructure. Beyond aggregate information available from industry statistics of Eurostat or EU KLEMS, the paper provides information on the distribution of firms across several dimensions related to competitiveness, e.g. productivity and size. The database comprises so far 11 countries, with information for 58 sectors over the period 1995-2011. The paper documents the development of the new research infrastructure, describes the database, and shows some preliminary results. Among them, it shows that there is large heterogeneity in terms of firm productivity or size within narrowly defined industries in all countries. Productivity, and above all, size distribution are very skewed across countries, with a thick left-tail of low productive firms. Moreover, firms at both ends of the distribution show very different dynamics in terms of productivity and unit labour costs. Within-sector heterogeneity and productivity dispersion are positively correlated to aggregate productivity given the possibility of reallocating resources from less to more productive firms. To this extent, we show how allocative efficiency varies across countries, and more interestingly, over different periods of time. Finally, we apply the new database to illustrate the importance of productivity dispersion to explain aggregate trade results. JEL Classification: L11, L25, D24, O4, O57

This model analyzes the impact of monetary policy on international consumption risk sharing. To this end, the setup by Ghironi and Stebunovs (2008) is extended in two dimensions. First, to allow for international portfolio choices, cross-border trade of home and foreign equity is brought in. Second, to assign a non-trivial role to monetary policy, nominal price rigidities are introduced as in Bilbiie, Ghironi, and Melitz (2007). The model features incomplete goods as well as incomplete asset markets. Frictions in goods markets are given by variable iceberg-type costs when shipping goods. Financial markets are incomplete as the set of available assets cannot span all the uncertainty induced by potential shock scenarios. In addition, financial markets are not fully integrated as engagement in asset markets is costly. This research note gives technical details on the solution of the model. In the following section, the basic setup of the model as well as the main variables and equilibrium conditions of the model are briefly summarized. Section 3 presents the steady state.

Perfect risk sharing requires both, frictionless goods as well as frictionless asset markets. To analyze the consequences of both type of frictions for consumption risk sharing across countries, the model by Ghironi and Melitz (2005) is extended to allow for international trade in equities. The model features fixed costs of exporting as well as variables iceberg costs when shipping goods. Financial markets are incomplete, as only two assets are traded, which cannot span all the uncertainty caused by potential shock scenarios. In models with incomplete asset markets, two well known problems arise. First, the steady state portfolio allocation in a non-stochastic steady state is indeterminate since assets are perfect substitutes. And, second, as noted by Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2003) among others, even transitory shocks may have permanent effects on wealth. This, in turn, may lead to non-stationary responses of the endogenous variables. To deal with these issues, quadratic portfolio costs on asset holdings as in Ghironi, Lee, and Rebucci (2007) are introduced. Besides introducing frictions in asset markets, these costs help to pin down the steady state portfolio allocation and induce model stationarity. This research note gives technical details on the solution of the model. In the following section, the basic setup of the model as well as the main variables and equilibrium conditions of the model are briefly summarized. Section 3 solves for the steady state levels of the endogenous variables.

We analyze what macroeconomic shocks affect the soundness of the German banking system and how this, in turn, feeds back into the macroeconomic environment. Recent turmoils on the international financial markets have shown very clearly that assessing the degree to which banks are vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks is of utmost importance to investors and policy makers. We propose to use a VAR framework that takes feedback effects between the financial sector and the macroeconomic environment into account. We identify responses of a distress indicator for the German banking system to a battery of different structural shocks. We find that monetary policy shocks, fiscal policy shocks, and real estate price shocks have a significant impact on the probability of distress in the banking system. We identify some differences across type of banks and different distress categories, though these differences are often small and do not show any systematic patterns.

This project aims at analyzing the impact of monetary policy on the international allocation of risk in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with sticky prices and international portfolio choice. The model features endogenous firms entry which influences the evolution of equity in each country and alters real exchange rate dynamics. Preliminary results show that there may be substantial deviations from efficient consumption risk sharing in the presence of monetary policy when there are frictions in goods as well as asset markets.

International bank portfolios constitute a large component of international country portfolios. Yet, their response to macroeconomic conditions and their impact on the international transmission of business cycles developments remains largely unexplored. We use a novel dataset on banks? international portfolios to answer three questions. First, what are the long-run determinants of banks? international portfolios? Second, how do banks? international portfolios adjust to short-run macroeconomic developments? Third, does the speed of adjustment change with the degree of financial integration? We provide evidence of significant long-run cointegration relationships between cross-border assets and liabilities of banks and key macroeconomic variables. Both, the long-run determinants of banks? international portfolios as well as the short-run dynamics show a significant degree of heterogeneity across countries and, to some extent, over time. Gravitytype variables help explaining differences in the speed of adjustment to new equilibria.