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Comparative Advantage, Service Trade, and Global Imbalances

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  • Alessandro Barattieri

Abstract

The large current account deficit of the U.S. is the result of a large deficit in the goods balance and a modest surplus in the service balance. The opposite is true for Japan, Germany and China. Moreover, I document the emergence from the mid-nineties of a strong negative relation between specialization in export of services and current account balances in a large sample of OECD and developing countries. Starting from these new stylized facts, I propose in this paper a “service hypothesis” for global imbalances, a new explanation based on the interplay between the U.S. comparative advantage in services and the asymmetric trade liberalization process in goods trade versus service trade that took place in the last 15 years. First, I use a structural gravity model to show that service trade liberalization lagged behind goods trade liberalization, and I quantify the extent of this asymmetry. Second, I show that a simple two-period model can rationalize the emergence of current account deficits in the presence of such asymmetric liberalization. The key inter-temporal mechanism is the asymmetric timing of trade policies, which affects savings decisions. Finally, I explore the quantitative relevance of this explanation for global imbalances. A multi-period version of the model, fed with the asymmetric trade liberalization path found in the data, generates a current account deficit of about 1% of GDP (roughly 20% of what was observed in the U.S. in 2006).

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by CIRPEE in its series Cahiers de recherche with number 1134.

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Date of creation: 2011
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Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1134

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Keywords: Comparative Advantage; Service Trade; Global Imbalances;

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  1. Coeurdacier, Nicolas, 2009. "trade costs in goods market lead to home bias in equities?," Open Access publications from Sciences Po info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pd, Sciences Po.
  2. James E. Anderson & Yoto V. Yotov, 2010. "Specialization: Pro- and Anti-globalizing, 1990-2002," NBER Working Papers 16301, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Christian Broda & Joshua Greenfield & David Weinstein, 2006. "From Groundnuts to Globalization: A Structural Estimate of Trade and Growth," NBER Working Papers 12512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Harold L. Cole & Maurice Obstfeld, 1991. "Commodity Trade and International Risk Sharing: How Much Do Financial Markets Matter?," NBER Working Papers 3027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Joao Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2005. "The Log of Gravity," CEP Discussion Papers dp0701, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  6. Robert J. Barro, 2007. "Rare Disasters, Asset Prices, and Welfare Costs," NBER Working Papers 13690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Alessandro Rebucci & Nicoletta Batini & Pietro Cova & Massimiliano Pisani, 2009. "Global Imbalances: The Role of Non-TradableTotal Factor Productivity in Advanced Economies," IMF Working Papers 09/63, International Monetary Fund.
  8. Jonathan Gruber, 2006. "A Tax-Based Estimate of the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," NBER Working Papers 11945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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